AARP Membership

Those of you know know me (or lived with me) know that I **try** to turn in as early as I can.  Especially during the winter, I like to get into bed early and - if I can - go to sleep.  On days that I don't have class and before we had the babe, it wasn't surprising to find me shuffling upstairs around 9 pm to get into bed.  I read my phone and occasionally thumb through landscape/garage/deck books from the library while fading away to sleep.  Nat joins me later and sometimes utilizes a book light to read and stay up like an adult while I saw logs next to her.

Apparently, the AARP is taking those early-to-bed stats into account as they extend offers to join their membership.  There's simply no other reason I can explain as to why I received this in my mailbox this week:

I'm thinking of joining.  With my time at Kellogg coming to an end in 10 weeks, I'll have to relinquish my student ID.  With this baby, maybe I'll be able to ditch my "Student Rate" and get "Senior" discount at the movies.

When the shoe fits, eh?

You Write One Post on Bob Dylan...

And now my blog stats are FUBAR'd.  Over the weekend, the great Bob Dylan site ExpectingRain.com linked to my Female Bob Dylan Impersonators posts.  I've been toiling along at here for a few months and have had some decent inbound traffic from various places including search.  Google Analytics was able to provide quite a bit of insight into what was 'working' and what wasn't.

Unfortunately for me, that's no longer the case.

When the flood of Dylan fans came a calling, my data - for the most part - failed to be very compelling for me any longer.  With a longer time horizon the insights will come back, but for now, the charts are basically flat - except for the "Day of Dylan".  There used to be peaks/valleys because all of the data was fairly clustered together.  Not any more.

I'm certain that I'm not alone in this happening to, but it sure would be nice for Google to allow folks to "throw out" certain days from the reports.  Would make my analytics account a lot more useful for day-to-day usage.

You're probably wondering....."What does this have to do with me?  Why is Jake telling us this?"

Well....it has nothing to do with you actually.  Sorry.

Garage - Stage 2: Drawings

Last week, I shared my "vision" for our new garage - based on another simple garage I saw across town.  It was mostly 'dreaming' - but now we're moving into the 'action' stage of the process.  Just yesterday I received the preliminary drawings for the garage.  Some things need to change a bit - like the roof pitch and window locations, but for the most part we're on our way.  Equation Boy/Man has received his preliminary drawings as well and is making some modifications.  

Up next is the yard preparation and bidding of the job.  We're going to bid them together (ours + Equation Boy/Man's) because we live 7 houses away and there **should** be some economies of scale that can be captured by the good guys - us.

Coal Abe Lincoln

This Friday, Nat and I drove down to Frankfort to see my folks.  We dropped the babe off for a sit with her Noonie and Papa and we quickly ran to the movie theatre in New Lenox.  We caught Avatar - more on that later - but I also picked up a box of items from my mom.  Amongst some childhood treasures were two Abraham Lincoln busts pressed in Illinois coal.  I only know they're from Illinois coal because of the "certificate of authenticity" that accompanied them in their boxes!

To the untrained eye, they look like cheap black plastic molds that should be sold at a garage sale for a buck or two.  But...now....when you come across a black bust of Lincoln at your local flea market, take a second look and grab it while you can.  For, it could be pressed of downstate coal and now you'll have a story to tell about your old pal Abe sitting on your bookshelf.  

Seven Ten Lanes Begat Fitz's Lanes Begat Fitz's Spare Keys in Elmhurst

I was driving by our bowling alley this morning in Elmhurst when I noticed these sign guys out front dealing with the new signage.  They're taking down the old sign that read "Seven Ten Lanes" and replacing it with one that reads "Fitz's Spare Keys".  For a bit there, the place was called "Fitz's Lanes", but  they didn't really change much besides the name itself. The signage all still read Seven Ten, the  menus still said Seven Ten and the Yelp listing still said Seven Ten.  (I snapped a picture for the Parrillo Family Elmhurst Historial archives*.  Pardon my finger.  The sun was in my eyes and the Nexus One's screen is terrible in daylight).

Hopefully the new sign means that the menu will get a makeover, too.  I love their food, but the wait staff is young (most likely from Elmhurst College), the menu has items that they"don't have any more", and occasionally a charge will show up on your bill that is wrong.  

The place needs an identity - and hopefully the new "Fitz's Spare Keys" will work for them.  The "Keys" part is due to the fact that in addition to having lanes on 2 floors (Yes...there are private lanes in the basement!), they also have a huge piano bar area that features dueling pianos.  I'm not in the restaurant business, but it seems a bit incongruent.  They have this family-friendly bowling alley with great chow, then this pompous velvet-couched space for dudes in untucked-buttoned down shirts with spike-y hair.

Nat had - what I think is a - great idea.  They should separate the space into 2 distinct spots.  There's already a 'back' entrance and play the piano space up off of that- call it something to do with an alley.  Then keep the lanes family-focused.

As it is now - it is classic "straddling".  And...as we learn in business school:  straddlers usually fail.  Be something and be it well.  Don't try to be 2 things.

*no such archives exist outside of this blog!

Female Bob Dylan Impersonators

(First...a word:  sorry about all the videos lately.  Too many are catching my eye!)  A month or two ago, Nat and I took the babe to see "When in Rome" at the Loma Theatre up in Michigan.  Yes...it was terrible, but it was the only thing that was showing at the time we wanted to go (trying to fit a feature film in between feedings/naps is challenging!).

The high point of the film was a song performed by Adele - "Make You Feel My Love" - a song written by Bob Dylan and included on the Time Out of Mind Album.  I've always liked the song - especially the contrast between the context of the song and Dylan's rough voice work.  It always stood out on a VERY strong album.

Hearing it in the movie got me thinking -  might Bob Dylan end up being a great - maybe the greatest - songwriter for female artists?  His works have such tender moments - but with him singing them - they end up elsewhere.  I've included the Adele version of "Make you Feel My Love" below.  But I've also included a few other covers by females as well.  I might argue that each of them are **better** than his original.  Blasphemy?  Tell me what you think.

Shoedini

You can even use them on sneakers!

I saw....rather HEARD this tv spot a few days ago.  I was minding my own business with my nose in my computer when I heard his voice.  I had to look up!  Too funny not to share. (for those of you reading this via email, you should click through to watch the video below)



Anything Gilbert Gottfried is selling gets my attention!  In all seriousness, I think the Shoedini has now been added to my Christmas list.  Kind of an awesome product.

Duplex Comic: Doing my Business

We have a big chalkboard up in our kitchen that we post various things on.  From invitations to coupons - it seems to be the hub of our offline activities.  There's a bunch of magnets that hold the various items up.  We have had a few get-togethers at our house over the past few weeks and the 'board' was purged.  Just about everything that wasn't baby-related was removed.

For the past few months, I have had this comic from the Duplex strip up.  Apparently the humor (after 6 months) was lost on her because I found it on my desk.  (at least she didn't toss it!)

Every time I read it, I get a bit of a giggle.  For me, it is too good not to share.  (if it is too small to read, click the comic for a bigger version!)

It won't need to go back up on the board - as it will live on here forever!

Capturing Memories Via the Flip Cam

We've been trying to document the babe's (relatively new) life over on her own blog - which is a whole 'nother discussion - and as part of that documentation, Nat and I went out and bought a Flip Camera.  We had both of our mobile phone cams, but we thought this would be easier - and besides....there was a $30 off coupon in the Costco mailer.

Hopefully she'll appreciate the little slices of (her) life that we're capturing.  If you know her blog address, you can head over there and see (what I think is her) first word in next few days!  (not really...but a dad can hope he has a super genius, right?)

ElmhurstStinks.com - Fixing the Skunk Problem

Last Friday, I met with some DuPage County State Representatives to talk about Google tools and how they can use these free products to communication and manage their constituencies.  Our conversation naturally moved into the discussion of our tools within campaigns.

I discussed with them the notion that by simply using a wide range of free widely-available consumer tools, one could pull together an advocacy site in a few hours.  From creating a site that is petition driven (this is what I could have done with DraftDitka.com today!) or using maps to "show off" actions around their Districts, Legislators today should be moving quickly and frequently (try something an if it doesn't stick, abandon it).

Leaving the meeting, I figured I should put my money where mouth was:  I needed to build an example site for them using the very tools I outlined.

That's what I did:  I created ElmhurstStinks.com - a site dedicated to encouraging the City of Elmhurst to do something about the skunk problem in town (during the spring/summer/fall it is pretty bad!).  I used Google Sites to create the site, docs for all the forms, maps for...well...maps.  And...FeedBurner is powering the email list.  All free tools.  The only thing that cost anything was the $8 domain from GoDaddy.  Google sites allows you to use custom domains, so for me - going forward - there is really no real need to ever pay for hosting for sites again!

I think the site turned out pretty well - and I'm looking forward to the spring when skunks show up and we can start to get real data in to the site.  I'm still noodling some marketing tools to get folks to actually use it.  (Despite my sister Vic being TOTALLY opposed to killing the "poor" animals!)