Why I Oughta...

Notice the resemblance?  He's a bit taller than me right now, but I think I carved the eyebrows about right. We picked up some clothes at Goodwill today and I'll get busy stuffing them sometime this week.  Have to get them in the yard before the autumn comes to a close!

*Looking for other Downtown Elmhurst posts?  Check out the full list here on my Downtown Elmhurst page .* Saw this rendering/logo in the window of a new tavern along York in Downtown Elmhurst called "Pints". Has a very "Cheers-like" feel. It is south of the tracks, right near the new Charlie's Elmhurst , which we went to with my sister and Equation Boy/Man over the weekend.  Pretty neat place with pretty decent chow. With the addition of Pints, it seems that South York is becoming a very hot spot for restaurants/bars/taverns.

On A1 of today's Cleveland Plain Dealer, they report on the "top 5 local travel trends" in Cleveland. Bottom left of the front page, but still the front page! Story can be read here .

Spotted this truck on the road recently and thought it was a pretty clever business name for a heating/air conditioning contractor:  Air Force One. More notable, in my mind, is the fact that someone in their marketing organization is savvy enough to have grabed that url.  Their website is www.AirForceOne.com .  Either they paid big or they moved fast.  I'm guessing that they moved fast.

Last week, I was in Columbus Ohio to meet with some folks at the various news outlets.  One of them was the Columbus Dispatch.  The Dispatch building is pretty nice and it sits directly across the street from the State Capitol in Columbus.  The front doors of each building are literally 100 yards or so away from each other.  Must be pretty nice for the political reporters. But the location isn't the most interesting part of the facility.  That distinction *has* to go to the sign that sits atop their headquarters.  The sign boasts that the Dispatch is "Ohio's Greatest Home Newspaper". I won't argue with them.

With pumpkin heads, too!  I have a lot of work left to get them done and in proper display shape, but they should be done by the end of the weekend.  Neighborhood beware....

Either they had the wrong room, or the standards for "Whales" have dropped with the huge downtown that Las Vegas has suffered.  From the sounds of this story that ran over the weekend, things are NOT looking up for the town and the tourism industry .   This "gift" showed up on the second day of my stay, so I'm guessing they are inferring *something* about me.  It isn't like I am a big traveler and have big-time status or am a big travel account (I'm right in the middle of things like AAdvantage and Marriott Rewards - not "Platinum" or whatnot, but rather in the lower tiered "Gold" or the like). I also didn't spend a dime at the gambling tables, so this isn't like "house money". Granted this isn't comp'd tickets to a show or even a free meal in a restaurant, so it isn't that big of a deal.  In fact, it is mostly just junk food.  Maybe EVERYONE gets these things these days?

It appears that there is a new place either just opened or on the verge of opening in Downtown Elmhurst called "Charlie's".  It is the former McNally's location - an Irish bar with a HUGE beer garden/patio.  From the looks of their website , Charlie's is owned by the same folks who run Rizzo's in Downtown Naperville. They appear to be able to run a successful hotspot in a suburban downtown, so that sounds promising for this location in Elmhurst.  It is across the tracks (on the south side of the tracks), but has a great location right on York Street.  They already have their Yelp listing up off the ground , so from the sounds of the only review on there, they might be open (or...at least had a pre-opening night?). Nat was walking by early this morning and she noted that just a few doors north in the old LaLaLand location was a sign for a new placed called "Pints" - which to me sounds like another tavern.   Should be nice to get the south side of Dow

Yesterday's post with my photo of Higbee's in Downtown Cleveland  had me thinking about how generations of folks watch that movie (like I did) and probably wonder what Higbee's looks like today.  Most people aren't going to hop on a plane/in a car and go see the old Higbee's store, but what they will do is hop on their friendly search engine and have a look-see at what the web has to say about Ralphie's favorite department store. The "A Christmas Story" movie is a favorite of families all over the country and continues to hold up over time.  Right after Thanksgiving, it seems that plenty of folks are watching the movie then searching for info on Higbee's.  Here's a chart that shows that seasonality.  Look at what happens each year near Christmas.  There's a HUGE surge of folks looking for Higbee's on the web. Imagine if you were Dillard's (who owned Higbee's ), wouldn't this search behavior make you want to create a s

I'm sure there are other things to see when you're stopping over in Cleveland for a few days (like the Rock and Roll HoF!), but the highlight of my trip was stumbling into this building: You Christmas Story fans will know what Higbee's is when you see it!  Turns out, the place closed down years ago and the city of Cleveland's tourism bureau moved into the store. If you've seen the movie, you'll remember this very corner from the movie.  It looked like this in the opening sequence.