Why I Oughta...

One of my correspondents (Ahem...Nat) sent me this photo of the Christmas section all filled out over at the Target on North Avenue this week.  Christmas Creep - in all of it's glory - is alive and well at Target.  In the bottom right of the photo, you can see a little bit of Halloween stuff peeking through, but they're moving full bore on the Holidays. There's plenty of house decor what-have-yous and it appears that foxes are still 'in' this season.  (Or...is Target's mass audience always a bit behind a trend?  I dunno.  It seems like foxes have been 'on' trend - or is it 'in' trend?? - for at least the past few years.  Don't get me wrong...I like foxes.  But, I just wish there was a Christmas peacock or Christmas giraffe or something....) We're in a funny spot with Christmas this year since we're not in *our* house.  We normally go all-out with decorations and such, but I'm thinking this year will be far more subdued.  We&

When we were down in Orlando in September, we picked up these two pins at the #NotSoScary Halloween party at the Magic Kingdom.  The Haunted Mansion one on the left has a yellow card and is marked "Limited Edition".  The Mickey/Minnie one on the right is on a purple card and is marked "Limited Release". Have no idea what the difference is, but based on where they were located (The purple one was behind the registers and you had to ask for it and show your bracelet vs the yellow one was in the pin shop in Frontierland on a normal rack.), I'm thinking the "Limited Release" one is more rare (whatever that means!?!). I still haven't quite gone through all the pins that the girls traded for when we were down there and because we're staying in my sister's/Equation Boy/Man's house, we don't have a good place to display them.  Thus, they're just sitting in a Parks bag on my desk awaiting for the time to go through them.

Look who has turned up at our new place?!? Welp...it is kind of *our* place.  You'll notice that the house looks a bit different.  We've still living on the same block thanks to my sister and Equation Boy/Man moving overseas for work. They were nice enough to allow us to 'squat' at their place while we figure our housing situation out.  That situation is a long, sad, and open-ended story, so that might be for another post. But...as you can see, we're making ourselves at home in the form of some Halloween decorations. Being the first day of October, I thought it was appropriate to show the new home of two of these guys.  I put them up but didn't have time to put up the two little girl scarecrows.  I'll get them up this weekend and then we can try to figure out building a new one for the boy. This is the sixth year of putting these guys out and with a little bit of spiff'ing up, they're still looking good. Last year, I didn't post abo

Over the holidays, I took this photo of Clark on a Werner ladder on tv and geeked out by texting it to Equation Boy/Man as fast as I could.  After all, he works at Werner. His response?  Basically...a meh.  He knew all about it.  Guess I was late the party on this one.  Still...pretty neat to see the Werner brand in the spotlight at another time of year than during the final four net cutting ceremony.

Take a look at that backyard rink.  Pretty awesome.  Equation Boy/Man really stepped it up this year - his second as a rink owner/operator - by adding some length to the ice and building boards for behind the goal at one end.   He even (with the help of his daughter) painted on the Elmhurst Chiefs Hockey logo (see it there on the boards) and hung a cute banner (which is cut off from this picture because it has their last name on it!). I walked down there one day last week and they weren't home and the ice was so clear that I was afraid to go on it, so I didn't even do a 'boot skate'.  Last year, Nat gave me a nice pair of skates and I played down there a bunch of times with very few injuries.  Hopefully the weather stays on the cold side so I get an invite to come down and play over the weekend.  I'll be padding up a bit more than I did last year, I think.

Thanks to Equation Boy/Man, I was able to see the Bears come back to beat the lowly Panthers yesterday.  See that silver-haired guy in the navy ball cap in the center of the photo?   That's this guy .

Equation Boy/Man finished the 2011 Chicago Triathlon with a personal record best time today.    Last year he ran the Sprint Distance, but this year he kicked it up with the International Distance which included: 1.5K swim (just under a mile) 40K bike (just under 25 miles) 10K run (6.2 miles) Really very impressive stuff all around.   He said he was struggling on the end of his run, but from the looks of his time, he did just fine.  Killed it in his age group and overall.  I shamelessly cribbed this photo from my sister Vic's FB page, but I thought it was a great shot of him after the race with 2 of 3 of his kids. I couldn't imagine doing those stairs after the race! He's clearly caught the bug and after spending some time with him this afternoon, sounds like he's already plotting his training for the 2012 race.  He's really committed to getting the most out of his fitness routine and all his hard work has clearly paid off. Congrats, Marc!  We're a

A Cherry Ghost, that is... Well, I'm pretty tired. Guess who stayed up until midnight and then walked over to Discount Records on LaGrange Road at midnight to buy "A Ghost is Born" by Wilco this morning.... (***points both thumbs at self***) "This Guy". That's right. My brother-in-law Marc (not Camp) gave me a copy of it a few months ago. I have discussions with Marc about basically four things. Music, Sports, Religion, and Howard Stern. Good stuff, right? But he knows my 'anti-rip' stance on MP3's and internet downloads... I am against them because I think you loose so much of the work of art. That concept of the 'album' is starting to get lost. I'm a wax guy, but that's beside the point. Even when we had casettes, there were some choices. "What leads off the second side?" "What ends the first?" Those questions are enough, but there's even more. Album art. Enough said. When you burn a copy you don&

The NFL voted to change their rules recently that limit the endzone celebrations that have been ramping up in the past few years.  Some folks think it's a great idea to curb this behavior because kids are starting to emulate these guys and have begun dancing and other things: Kids imitated Johnson after scoring touchdowns in sandlot football games. Years later, those kids' kids imitated the "Ickey Shuffle," created by Cincinnati Bengals fullback Ickey Woods, who shuffled all the way to the Super Bowl. And there was the California Quake by the Dallas Cowboys' Butch Johnson, before coach Tom Landry banned his players from celebrating scores.  Oh...the horrors! Kids are celebrating?  This is a stupid change and I think they've made a mistake.  These guys are entertainers and they should entertain us. (as a side note, I always enjoy the guys who just toss the ball to the referee and trot off to the sideline...) As a result of this new rule change, we