Why I Oughta...

Well, at least the University of Illinois one was turned to December.  The Pixar one was already in December by accident!   Check out last months post where the photo shows December already showing .  Whoops. I don't seem to have posted in December of 2015, so there's no ranking to compare against, so we'll just have to close out this year with a push.  If I don't get any wall calendars for Christmas, this monthly diary will come to a close.  And that's just fine with me. 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 didn't post last April. So..no ne

Although this post is going up on September 12th, I turned these calendars over on the 7th.  I took the photo above then.  And here's proof - if you go to this Google Photos link all the data is there with the photo.  Not that anyone but me really cares, right? On the left is Ratatouille from 2009 on the Pixar calendar and on the right is the Grainger Engineering Library on the UIUC calendar.  And a kinda fall-ish day.  Not quite fall.  Not quite summer, either.  I think the photo works for September. Last year, I turned the calendars on September 18th.  This year, I posted on the 12th, but turned them on the 7th.  Hmmm...let's be fair here and call it on the day I posted.  I don't want this lead to be too insurmountable.  So that's a net of -6 days.  Add it to the pile below. As for the movie Ratatouille, I really liked it, but have only watched it one or two times.  I think we own it?  We should break it out again.  It made more than $600M at the box office

This month's wall calendar update comes on the 2nd of the month, which is a very fast turn around time if history serves as any indication.  On the left in the Pixar calendar, we have Toy Story 2 - yep!  - #2.  And on the right is the University of Illinois Hallene Gateway.  This thing was put up in 1998 during my time on campus and has a nice little archive page that the University has put up here .  Someone, had the foresight to preserve this when they were taking down one of the original buildings and after sixty years, someone 'discovered' it and brought it back to life as a bit of a gateway to the campus on the Urbana side.   From the UIUC archive page : Dedicated October 8, 1998, on the 63rd annual meeting of University of Illinois Foundation, the Hallene Gateway Plaza was funded through the generosity of Alan M. and Phyllis Welsh Hallene, graduates of the class of 1951. As its centerpiece, the Plaza features the original sandstone portal of the New Main Universi

Another month, another turn of the wall calendars at my office.  On the right, the University of Illinois calendar features the ACES Library (which, I think was built after my time) and on the right, one of the best animated movies of all time yet this list has at #11 ?!?!).  Looking at my Google Photos auto-upload library, I see that I took this photo above on the 8th of July, so even though today is the 20th of July, let's call this one turned on the 8th. And a big swing here!   Last year, it was July 22nd that I turned the calendars a net of -14 days. For those keeping track like I am: 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

June in my wall calendar world means The Incredibles on the Pixar calendar on the left and the Stock Pavillon at the University of Illinois on the right.  Unfortunately, last year, I posted about the June calendars on the first day of the month.  Gasp!  That's bad for the tally.  I flipped the calendars and took this photo above at my office earlier this week on the 6th, so that's a +5 day increase. For those keeping track like I am: 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 didn't post last April. So..no new net days. May took 12 days. Net + 5 days over last year. Wowsa.  June took 6 days.  Net +5 days over last year.  Anot

For those of you keeping track of these things at home, today is Friday, May 13th.  I actually turned these over to May yesterday, so let's call it the 12th of May. On the left is Monsters, Inc.  On the right is Illini Hall.  Which....is a total mystery to me.  Having spent four years there (including the summers), I'm not sure I ever stepped foot into this place.   Looking it up on the UIUC map , it shows Illini Hall right on Wright Street, just south of Green.  Kinda across Wright from Altgeld.  The "Department of Statistics" is in there.  That *might* explain why I didn't go there... The full archives of the enthralling wall calendar tracking project (you just can't get enough, can you?!?!?) can be found here . May took 12 days in 2016.    Last year it was the 7th.  That's a +5 day jump. 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 day

 These were turned over earlier this week, but I'm just posting about them on the 10th of the month.  So...let's call it Tuesday the 8th for March. On the right is the University of Illinois Wall Calendar with a beautiful photo of Altgeld Hal l and the spring flowers blooming.  On the right, the Pixar calendar is featuring the movie 'Up'.  On the top is a drawing of a dog in the tree that I *think* is supposed to be Dug.  And on the bottom is a stylized drawing of the house tied up with balloons heading towards Paradise Falls.  On the bottom is a black/white drawing of the house in the mist right up on top of Paradise Falls.  No Russell or Carl Fredrickson or even Kevin anywhere in them. 3 months in, here is where we are for 2016. 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 Day

I turned these new calendars over from January to February early last week in the office on the 16th.  On the left is some art inspired by the 'Finding Nemo' movie.  And on the right, is the Electrical and Computer Engineering building that is pretty fancy.  And new!   Construction started in 2011 and the building was dedicated in October of 2014. From the ECE site : The ECE Building, located at 306 N. Wright St ., Urbana, is nearly twice the size of the department‘s former home, Everitt Laboratory. At 230,000 square feet, the new building is full of more than 20 lab spaces intended for student instruction and learning. These labs continue ECE ILLINOIS‘ tradition of hands-on learning, especially on cutting-edge topics like nanofabrication, optics, control, and robotics. Sounds like a pretty neat place. Here's a neat YouTube video that takes you inside the building. One thing that jumped out to me: while there are amazing labs of different sorts, there's still

A close up of the D23 Disney calendar for September is above .  This month marks the 40th anniversary of the opening of Space Mountain at the Magic Kingdom Park at Walt Disney World Resort back in 1975. I've been to the Magic Kingdom a bunch of times, but I've *never* been on this ride.  Nat went on once...without me...and her purse went flying!  She lost her phone, sunglasses and purse.   No thanks, Mickey!

I was in the office on Friday and noticed that I needed to turn over the wall calendars.  On the right, the Disney D23 Calendar features the 40th anniversary of Space Mountain.  On the right is the University of Illinois Business Instructional Facility.  I have NO IDEA where or what that exactly is, but me thinks it wasn't there back in the '90's when I was bouncing around Green Street. So...September took 18 days on the calendars. August was just the 10th . July was bad. The 21st . In June, I nailed it. Turned on June 1st . Here's the post from May with the calendars . Took me until the 12th. March's post - where I turned them on the 11th. February post introducing the concept . On the 17th.

Back on Wednesday, I posted about the wall calendars this month.  The image on the Disney D23 calendar was worth a closer look.  If you're at all into Disneyland, click on the image and zoom in to see how Disneyland was *supposed* to be built.  Plenty of changes were made when it came time to build starting with the castle!

For shame.  It wasn't until yesterday - July 21st - that I finally remembered to turn the wall calendars in my office over to July. On the left, the D23 Disney calendar is celebrating the 60th Anniversary of the opening of Disneyland.  On the right, the University of Illinois Alumni calendar has a photo of the plaza of Harker Hall.  ( Not too shabby for the #9 ranked public university in the country .  What what?!?! ) I - L - L... Anyway...back to the calendars. Here's the history so far this year: In June, I nailed it.   Turned on June 1st . Here's the post from May with the calendars . Took me until the 12th. March's post - where I turned them on the 11th. February post introducing the concept . On the 17th.

I took this photo late last week in my office at Aon, so it wasn't the 12th of May but more like the 7th of May that I actually realized I had to turn them over a month. Here's the post from turning them to March .  And here's the post from February where I discussed the perils of wall calendars (the whole forgetting to turn them over and what-have-you...).  Looks like I didn't post a photo of the April calendars. But, back to this month's images:  on the left in the D23 calendar you see the 65th Anniversary of the release of Cinderella in 1960 (and...if you are like me - and Nat - and are a HUGE Disney nerd who listens to Disney Podcasts, you'll know that the success of this movie and the cash it threw off to the company was the biggest driver of the creation of Disneyland!).  On the right, you see a photo of the recently renovated Alma Mater right on Wright/Green Streets.  With Graduation right here, it is a totally appropriate image. "To thy ha

Back in February, I posted about the two wall calendars I now have up in my office at the Aon Center .  Both a University of Illinois and a Disney one. It being March 11th, I thought it was instructive to note that it took until yesterday to flip both of these calendars over to March.  Can't say I didn't predict that I'd have trouble with keeping these things current. Here's what they look like:  On the left Disney is highlighting the 20th Anniversary of the opening of the Indiana Jones' Adventure in Disneyland.  On the right, the U of I has a photo (with no snow!) of Boneyard Creek up by the Engineering Quad.