Tuesday morning in Madison. This hasn’t been as much a visit as a rest stop on our way back from Indiana. Mathias was a good little baby on the trip down to Valparaiso, but driving all the way back to Minneapolis on Labor Day didn’t seem like that good of an idea.

Last night and much of this morning has been spent studying for my first class on Thursday. I only have about 60 pages of reading to do, but what my homework has lacked in length it has made up for in density. I got through about 25 pages last night and seem to be in good shape, but I wonder how things will be when I transition to a heavier courseload in the spring.

Picking up my books was kind of interesting. In retrospect, choosing freshman move-in day probably wasn’t the best day to head in to the U of M Bookstore, but I survived. It’s been almost a decade since I’ve been in Coffman, so this is was the first time I’ve seen it since the renovation. It still looks distinguished on the outside, but inside kind of feels like a shopping mall. (And if I had to pick a shopping mall, I’d say Southdale.) Granted, I remember it being a bit of a dump the last time I was there, so it is an improvement, but it’s just kind of sad they weren’t able to put together something a bit more collegiate in nature.

Well, back to studying. Next up, the challenges to Ben & Jerry’s in the mid-90s. I wonder if our field trip there a few years ago will help me with this. Hmmm…

We left one day late, but we’re in Indiana. The plan was to head down yesterday, but I woke up with what I thought were allergies, but later turned out to be a full-blown sinus infection. I’m doing better today, enough that I could do the 7+ hours of driving while Lisa took care of the little one in the back seat. Tonight, we’re camping in the living room of some of Lisa’s relatives down here. Tomorrow, we’re off for what may be the last visit to her grandmother.

Not much else to say about that, I guess.

In more pleasant news, I got to watch the Twins/Royals game from a suite at the Dome Friday night. Distracted by goings-on in the suite, I was a bit slow to realize Scott Baker was close to throwing a perfect game, and in retrospect wish I hadn’t: Literally 20 seconds after figuring it out, the Royals got a walk, and shortly thereafter the chance at the no-hitter was gone as well. It kind of went like this:

“Oh, holy shit.”

“No, don’t say anything!”

“I didn’t!” As if to preemptively say, “not my fault!”

Walk.

“Fuck.”