seanwillson.com

we’ve decided to sell our townhouse in glendale heights illinois and are looking for a house in downers grove illinois. we put our townhouse up for sale on monday afternoon with joe pepitone realtors. if you know of anyone looking for a huge townhouse in the chicago suburbs give it a look. there are pictures here and i put together a description sheet you can print out as well.


we’ve been looking online and driving around downers grove for weeks checking out houses and learning the area. amy grew up around there but i didn’t know the area that well. at first we were put aback by the prices that houses were going for in downers but after talking with our realtor and looking around some more we were much more optimistic. we decided better now than later so we might as well jump. wish us luck and spread the word if you know of anyone looking. thanks!!!


we sold the townhouse, thank you for showing all the interest in it. i have removed the links to the townhouse website and other files.

Well, my wife and I bit the bullet last week and decided that rather than put off getting a new car when our ‘99 Sable dies, we’d rather make the investment now since it was starting to cost us a bunch of money for repairs. It had 88,000 miles on it and was starting to have engine and transmission problems. We looked at the Audi A4 & A6 Allroad, Subaru Outback, and the Volvo V50 & XC70.


The first car we test drove was the new 2005 Volvo V50. We were disappointed with the size of the rear seats but overall the car handled great. I especially liked the instrument panels and the precise road handling. Given that our family isn’t small and we often drive people around it’s important that we have some rear leg room. While we were at the dealer a sales agent mentioned that she could get us $7,500 off a 2004 XC70 or S80. I’ve always liked the XC70 but thought it was out of our price range. Needless to say this peaked our interest.


When we got home that night we researched a lot more online at various websites. We decided that we wanted to test drive the Audi’s along with the XC70. Almost all of the reviews I read put the Audi on the same performance level as the Volvo wagon but for another $10,000+ dollars. We test drove the Audi A4 first, and like the V50 it was tight in the rear seats though not as bad as the V50. The handling was on par and maybe a bit nicer handling than the V50, but another $7k is a bit hard to swallow. I liked the interior of the V50 more than the Audi as well so that $7k was even harder to swallow. When we asked the sales rep about the A6, which we sat in and liked the room a lot more, he told us the price and we about choked. It was $12k+ more than what we could get the XC70 for. Were they nuts? We think so … plus they tried over and over again to sell us on the Premium Lease Program despite us saying repeatedly that we didn’t want to make payments into a bottomless hole. Anyhow, it was off to Volvo to drive the XC70.


I read a lot of the reviews online for the XC70 so I was prepared for what to expect during the test drive but I was still pleasantly surprised with the performance, handling, and internal craftsmanship. There was a slight lag in accelerator engine response but other than that the car was great. While the rear leg room of the XC70 isn’t ideal it is definitely better than the V50 and A4 and about on par with the Audi A6. You’d think there would be more rear leg room in a sport wagon since it is a “wagon” for gosh sakes. Anyhow, it had a ton of features, got reasonable mileage 20/28 (better than my Sable), and was at a great price that Audi couldn’t touch. It has a nice aggressive feel to it and sits above the road like a SUV without the girth and size of an SUV.


So after deliberating a bit we bit the bullet and went with the XC70. We ended up picking out a 2004 Nautica Blue model with Taupe interior that they had on the lot. It was equipped with the Volvo Premium Package and Touring Package. This translates to mean that it came with Leather Seating Surfaces, Power Seating for Driver and Passenger, Memory Seats, Rain Sensor, Wipers on the head lamps (this makes me laugh), Auto Dim Rearview Mirror, Cargo Protection Net, Grocery Bag Holder, Homelink, Laminated Side Windows, Tinted Rear Windows, Powered Glass Moonroof, Integrated Child Booster Seats, and a Trip Computer. That’s a whole lot of typing. The only thing we didn’t get that I wanted was the Premium Sound Package but I can live without it.


Anyhow, we love the car and I honestly think that it’s the best car I’ve ever owned. I’m looking forward to taking it to a few astronomy events and sleeping in the back. We also picked up the winged roof racks with 2 fork mounted bike holders for the roof as well so we’re looking forward to using them for biking. I’ll keep everyone posted as it ages a bit. While I was surfing around for reviews I found a cool and very active website dedicated to Volvo XC70 and XC90 enthusiasts called VolvoXC.com. Check it out if you get a chance.

30 years of aging

30 years of breathing and blinking

30 years of color

30 years of doubts

30 years of erring

30 years of friends and family

30 years of giggles

30 years of honesty

30 years of ignorance

30 years of joy

30 years of kindness

30 years of laughing, learning, and longing

30 years of memories and melodies

30 years of noise

30 years of orbits

30 years of passion and pain

30 years of quirks

30 years of rain

30 years of sun, sleeping, and smiles

30 years of thoughts

30 years of understanding

30 years of vision

30 years of wisdom, wishing, and what if’s

30 years of x-mas

30 years of yesterdays

30 years of zest

there are times where even i have little to say, i know, crazy huh? for days where you can’t get enough of my random blog entries like the last 3, yikes, check out my daily links page. does the format look familure? just giving credit it’s due. i’ve been posting links that i find interesting, want to return to at a later date, or just want to share with others. there’s also a short summary of what i found useful, tantalizing, or interesting from the link in question.


i’ve been trying to keep up with current events, watch le tour, release a major new software project at work, work on my website, my club website all the while trying to find a cool original objective-c project to work on (anyone got any ideas for one?) … needless to say i’m in information overload zone. so, i apologize for the lackluster blog postings with little to no insight or depth. sometimes all i can do is drop a link for friends to enjoy. i hope to get some decent pieces out soon as well as find another cool project to work on. till next post, i’m out …

amy and i are back from our vacation in cozumel that i mentioned a few months ago. we had a great time and the weather held together. while we were there were rode some 4-wheel atv’s to some myan ruins, swam in the ocean several times, went snuba diving, snorkeling, drinking, shopping, drinking, and we spent a lot of time relaxing.


the grand cozumel by occidental resort was really nice and the service and staff were really top notch. we had a little bit of car trouble on our shopping trip, but even then the locals were helpful, the service was great, and they had the car fixed and we were on the road within 15 minutes of us calling them. the service on the island was really professional, you could really tell they wanted you to enjoy your trip and maybe even return to the island again.


the shopping market downtown was pretty cool, it allowed you to barter. we had fun negotiating the prices down on our items. a lot of the items on the island are really high priced, on purpose of course. i guess they figure if your gullible enough to pay what they ask then you have too much money anyway. on one occasion we found a rug that we really wanted and we talked one merchant down to $15 but didn’t buy it. later we saw another merchant asking $30 for one we wanted. we talked him down to $20 but he wouldn’t go down to the original $15 we negotiated earlier. so we walked away … as we were getting into the car, about 30 feet away, he yells back that he’d take what we were willing to give. so a word to the wise, don’t be afraid of walking away, they will likely take what you offer.


we met a couple (josh and jen) at our resort that were on their honeymoon. congrats to josh and jen!!! we hung out with them a bit and really enjoyed ourselves getting to know them and just relaxing. this was one of the most relaxing and fun vacations amy and i have had together. we definitely didn’t want it to end.


if your interested in seeing some of the other things we did on vacation you can check out the other pictures that we took. there are quite a few here, just click on the icon to see a larger version. from there you can click on the image to go back to the main page. enjoy!!!

well, camping this weekend was a bust of sorts. we still had a good time sleeping in the tent, hanging out with people, and seeing some beautiful sites. the state parks in wisconsin are really nice. i’ll admit that i haven’t been camping in a while but the showers were nice, clean, and even the outhouses were well kept and clean. heck they even had toilet paper.


we arrived late on friday after driving through heavy downpours. we set the new tent up with help from some party members. after hanging out and chatting for most of the evening the rain came in around 9:30 pm. about that time we all called it a night, we didn’t think it was going to clear up enough to see stars. the rain came down nonstop until about 5 am and was pretty rough most of the evening. needless to say we didn’t sleep that well. i could hardly sleep at all, my imagination kept wandering to mud slides and rain pouring into our tent. no worries though, we were perfectly dry, it was merely my mind playing tricks on me. we did get a bit wet though as we didn’t seal the seams. nothing a bunch of rags and a towel couldn’t handle though.


after talking it over we called an end to our weekend. we both really wanted to camp, do some astronomy, and we didn’t want to leave but at the same time we didn’t want to endure another evening of rain hell. it wasn’t supposed to clear up until monday night so we chanced missing some clear skies and drove home.


we learned a lot about what we need for future camping expeditions and we had a great time with everyone. next time we’ll have more camping tools (axe, hammer, etc), more tarps, more towels, a nice little stove, rope, and a few other odds and ends. i’m looking forward to doing some other astrocamping later this year. maybe next time we’ll have some clear skies.

we’re getting ready to do some camping here soon … i haven’t been camping in a tent in years. it’s been pretty exciting buying new camping stuff and planning our trip. we’re both really looking forward to spending some time outdoors, sleeping in our new tent, roasting marshmallows, hiking, doing some astronomy, and doing the whole camping thing. you never really realize how many things you need when camping. i put together a checklist for the trip. here is the html checklist, opml checklist, and omnioutliner xml checklist if your interested. it’s nothing fantastic but it’ll give you something to start from when planning your next camping trip.


i’ve been researching sleeping bags online and in a few magazines and after all the research, comparing, and deliberating we ended up getting a cheap pair of bags from galyans. unless your looking for a sub zero sleeping bag or you have to sleep like your in a cocoon there really isn’t a need for a ton of the bags that are out there. i’m sure i’ll get a bit of hate mail on that one but really. if your just doing a bit of camping with family and aren’t looking for the lightest, smallest, sub zero certified mummy bag then a normal old school rectangular bag will do you fine. plus with the old school bag you can zip two together to get close with your significant other… wink wink. try that with a mummy bag …