Why I Oughta...

Walk through City Hall these days and you'll see that Northside guy Rahm has wrapped himself in the "W" flag and there's dozens of them hung up in the lobby.  There's no way that Da Mare would would have allowed this, right?  I don't like this.  Not one bit.

I feel a little bit like Sarah Palin when I stand on the dock at Lake Elizabeth in Wisconsin and look to the right to see the great state of Illinois.  Just a little bit. 

Those of you that follow the technology world like I do likely heard about/read about the new Pixel and Pixel XL phones that Google announced last week along with other things like Google Home and Google Wifi.  Being an Android guy and owner of every Nexus phone (and a few tablets!) that have come out, I couldn't wait to get in line to buy a phone.  But, as part of the marketing for these new phones, Google has been doing a lot of talk about the camera.  And how it is, by at least one regard, the *best* camera to ever be put in a phone.  That's nice, right?  They also talked about a feature called Smartburst.   From their post : Pixel’s camera lets you take stunning photos in low light, bright light or any light. Catch action shots as they happen with Smartburst, which takes a rapid-fire sequence of shots and automatically selects the best one. Use Lens Blur to achieve shallow depth of field and bokeh effects, making your subject pop. You can capture dramatic landscapes

On Monday, I posted about our trip to the Highwood Pumpkin Festival where we carved a few pumpkins and rode some rides .  And, I mentioned that we made a second stop on the way home.  And, this photo above is *that* second stop.  And it is kind of a 'meta' photo.  That's me, in the driver's seat of the van taking a picture of Nat taking a picture of the McAllister home from Home Alone in Winnetka . Yep...that's the driveway where the neighbor tells the McAllisters to "Bring me back something French!" and is the one that has been subject to a bunch of coverage lately as it has been put up for sale and ultimately changed hands a few years back . We were in the neighborhood, or....well...we kind of *made* it the neighborhood.  As we left Highwood, Nat navigated us down there to check it out.  We've been meaning to go up there for a while, but we haven't been close enough. The place is a stunner.  But the real star of the show is Old Man Marle

These are a few of the posters that have gone up recently around the office that are urging all of us at Edelman to make sure we get out and vote on Election Day .  They've even incentivized us by having the office 'open' at 11:30 am central that day and by bribing us with donuts.  The puns just write themselves, it seems. And Edelman isn't alone.  There's a trend happening on Election Day.   From this Digiday story : A variety of agencies, from Edelman and Day One to AKQA and Walton Isaacson, are doing everything from letting employees work remotely to delaying opening their offices until later in the day in a bid to encourage them to vote. For Edelman, flexibility just didn’t cut it. When the agency polled its employees about the biggest barriers stopping them from getting to the polls, time fared top of the list. Agency executives realized that even with flexible time off to vote, it was still difficult for staffers to juggle work, polls, childcare and

Another month, another craft beer tasting session with our good friend Dr. Jeff.   Here's the last session he hosted that focused on Sours .  And one from earlier this year where he toured us through various stouts . This time, he took us on a tour of IPAs including a stop at what he called the "OG of West Coast IPAs", this 5th Anniversary Stone Brewing IPA.   This one scored a 93 on Beer Advocate , so he isn't fooling around.   It was interesting to taste a few different versions from Stone being that we were just at the Bavarian Lodge where Stone did a takeover .  Of course, Dr. Jeff was there on opening night as a good craft beer advocate *should* be. Here's the story on the back of the big bottle: After that, he brought out a can of Heady Topper The Alchemist from Vermont.  This one has a score of 100 !  I think that's the first 100 I've ever had.  And, maybe it was the age of this can, but I liked other beers better that night.   However,

Showing TODAY (Wedesday) at the York Theater is this month's "Art @ the York" feature titled 'The Man Who Knew Infinity'.  For those of you who don't know about this film series, the basics are that you can get all art-y with this movie (that isn't shown widely) today and you can also get there for the organ player before the show.   Yep.  They bring the guy from The Tivoli in Downers Grove to play before the show in the original theatre at the York.  Pretty neat.   Despite the Rotten Tomatoes score of just 62% , the Art @ York series usually gets the movies right, so this one seems worth seeing. Check out the Art @ The York archives here on the blog  where I've been covering this series since it began all the way back in June of 2015 .  

The trees are starting to turn.  Look at the ones just southwest of the end of the Pritzker Pavillion lawn.  They're red!  Well, some of them are.  But, looking back in the archives, I found this post from Halloween of last year that shows that same stand of trees being all bright red .  So, the best is yet to come. There's also a bit of post-Chicago Marathon clean-up happening here with the tents and what-have-you in the parks and around Buckingham Fountain.  Fall splendor, not quite.  But a quick look at the transition point between summer and fall from the 64th floor of the Aon Center.

Over the weekend we went up to the Highwood Pumpkin Festival and came face-to-face with this massive wall of carved pumpkins.  It was pretty neat to see them all stacked up on the scaffolding around the downtown.  We even contributed two carved masterpieces to the collection in the hopes of breaking the Guinness World Record , but I'm not sure that they got there this year. The festival is just seven years young, but they're doing a lot of great things to bring their community together and raise money for a cause.  I'm not sure how Nat found out about the fest, but I'm glad we went.  Oh...and we made a stop our way home, just because we were in that neck of the woods.  But, that's for another post on another day.

I grew up with a set of these McDonald's Muppets glasses in our kitchen cupboards in Frankfort and this one of Miss Piggy riding a motorcycle through what I think is a stained glass window was the one that I recall most vividly.  I spotted these glasses at the Kane County Flea market, but they wanted like $8 a piece for each of the four glasses.  I passed. But the idea didn't leave my mind.  So, I came across them recently online and had to pull the trigger.  I've been using this one in particular - but all of them, frankly - since they arrived. The back of the glass is marked with a 'Henson Associates, Inc 1981' along with the golden arches from McDonalds.  Or...Mac-and-Donalds as my oldest sister (apparently) says. These were released alongside the film The Great Muppet Caper.  Now, they're living their second life in our (temporary) home where my kids get to enjoy them.   #vintageglasses tag page can be found here where this one becomes the fourth

On Monday, I posted a couple of photos of the Lego City Advent Calendar that we're giving to the Bird and today here is the front and the back of the Lego Friends version of  the 2016 Advent Calendar. This one is intended for the Babe - the older girl - because she already has a few different Lego Friends sets.  Also...if you know them, you know that their personalities are just about right in that the Bird gets the City version and the Babe gets this one.

Last year, it was the kaleidoscope effects inside the inflatables.  This year, there's something new:  fuzzy material like on this inflatable Teddy Bear that they're selling at Menards inside of the Enchanted Forest that they've set up for Christmas.  This one is retailing for $99.99, but is the only one that has this fuzz on it.  I really liked it and the Bird was all over this one.  She kept saying "he's so cuuuuute!" Have to wonder how this will stand up to the elements?  We seem to be able to get about four to five years out of our inflatables, depending on their size.  Between the motors running out (we sometimes use times, but a lot of time, we just keep them up all day and night long!) or the sun's UV rays fading the colors right out, we seem to be able to amortize the cost across four seasons at a minimum.  Looking at it that way, this one costs about $25/season.   The first year of inflatables like this never seem to last long in stock, so

If you look closely at the photo up above, you'll see a boom truck on the right with a guy in the cherry picker installing white Christmas lights on the trees out on the Randolph side of the Daley Center. Turns out, I spotted the exact same thing last year, but they were putting up the lights even earlier?!?  I posted these photos on September 22nd of 2015 .  This year, they're almost three weeks later. Here's a photo that shows more of the lights in the trees. If I recall correctly, they actually turn these lights off for a bit, until we get closer to Thanksgiving.  So, while sure, this is technically Christmas Creep, I still stand by my statement that this is just good planning.    I also kinda love to see it.

This month's wall calendars feature Toy Story 3 on the left in the Pixar calendar and the one and only Memorial Stadium on the right in the University of Illinois wall calendar.  October is - maybe - the best time on campus, so I love seeing the football team featured in the month. Last year, I turned the calendars over on the 8th of October , so that means I've gained another four days in the annual contest.  At the end of September, I was up -21 days .  So, this thing might just be over before December even starts. For those keeping track like I am (Which, we all know is nobody!): January took 8 days to put up the calendar . I don't think I was tracking January last year. So let's call it a wash. (+0 Days) February took 16 days to put up the calendar. In 2015, I turned it over on the 17th . (-1 Days better) March took 8 days this year. In 2015, I turned them on the 10th . Posted on the 11th. So...that makes it -2 days better. April took just 7 days. I did

For the past five years, our girls have been enjoying the little chocolate treats that come inside the Trader Joe's Advent Calendars as well as the larger one that that Nat stuffs with little treats on our kitchen table.  And the Elf shows up every morning.  And we've also started down the North Pole Communicator route , too.  So, we're busy with daily activities.  But this year, we've up-leveled the game by joining in on the annual Lego Advent Calendar business. Above is the front of the Lego City version that the Bird will be enjoying.  We also got a different version for the Babe, but I'll post that another day. I'm also inclined to pick up this year's version of the Holiday Train at Lego to set up a little village for the girls to play with their Advent creations because we won't be putting up our O Gauge setup once again this year. If they had these things back in the 80's, I would have been all over them.  I'm hoping that that ki

This is the fourth and I think final post on Lemax Spooky Town for the year and it features the Spooky Hollow Pumpkin Patch structure.  This one was released last year, but is being carried this year at Menards along with the others that I covered including: the  Scariest Halloween House ,  the Black Cauldron Boutique and Wanda's Wicked Cupcake Shop . This one has some exterior and interior lights but is the smallest of the bunch.  Again...the Mayor of Mantleburg has ruled and while he does, indeed, celebrate Halloween, he's not having any city expansion nor annexing any new structures into Mantleburg this year.  Who knows...maybe there will be an uprising on the town council to overrule the Mayor of Mantleburg next year?  Once we have a place for all the structures of Mantleburg to be displayed properly?  Time will tell.

Back in April of last year, I posted some photos of a new eye doctor place opening on York Street in the Elmhurst City Centre called Spex here on the blog .  If you walk by the place today, you'll see that they've rebranded to "MyEyeDr". Spex is a chain - you can see the locations here - and so is MyEyeDr -  so I'm wondering if it is a franchise kind of thing?  And the folks in Elmhurst decided to go a different direction?     Here's the new page on the MyEyeDr page showing the Elmhurst location .  Whatever the reason, they've spent a lot of money in awnings in just a year and a half, amirite?

In the Venn Diagram that includes Lionel O-Gauge train stuff and Disney stuff, the overlap has been small but consistent over the years.  You can go to any train show (and...yes those things exist!) and find some vintage Mickey the Mouse cabooses and box cars from over the years. And if we were to map people who would have an interest in that intersection, I'd gladly raise my hand.  As we've talked about before, I grew up with a Christmas Train.  My Dad would break out his vintage post-war Lionel train some time after Thanksgiving and we'd set it up.  Sometimes, around the tree, but at some point, my Mom relegated it to the basement.  That tradition - of breaking out the Lionel train set - has been one that I've tried to bring to my own kids.  And, my Dad fed the beast by giving the oldest girl - The Babe - her own set when she was 1. So, beside last year - when we were transient during the holidays - we've set up our Holiday Train.  And we're not aimin

We were at the Babe's school for new parent orientation recently and as we exited her classroom, we were able to see some of the work that the class had done.  And as I looked for the Babe's paper, I saw this above.  Sure...she gives really good answers for what she needs to do in 1st grade.  But, look at the bottom where the kids were asked to color in their own backpack.  She picked the Fighting Illini and the Block I?!?  Yep.  Not Mickey the Mouse.  Not My Little Pony.  Nor Shopkins.  Or her *actual* backpack - which is cute...but probably hard to draw because of the squiggles and such. Nope.  She went with the orange and blue.  I-L-L! Proud parenting moment for sure.

Over the weekend, we packed the kids into the minivan and drove around Hinsdale looking at some houses/house features as we work to finalize our own house.  We saw some pretty beautiful places, but we also came across an Estate Sale.  Which.....I couldn't *not* go in, right?  It was a nice, old house on the outside, so my hunch was that there'd be some gems inside. After waiting for my number to be called (yeah...it was one of those Estate Sales.  Where they had you pull a ticket like you do when you're waiting at the deli counter.), I got in and poked around.  Nothing.  At least for us.  So, I went outside to the garage and discovered something!  They had a few cases of vintage 3 1/4" glass ornaments in their original boxes.  That's the side of the box above and the top of the box below.  They say "American Made" from Coby Glass Products.  If you poke around on the web , it turns out that Coby likely didn't make these, they were using Corning bl