Why I Oughta...

Earlier in March, posted a few pennants from my childhood including this 1984 Illini Rose Bowl beauty , this vintage totally 80's Epcot Center pennant and this pair of Chicago Sting ones from their time at the Rosemont Horizon. Today comes a pair of Chicago Bears pennants from 1984 and 1985:  both featuring NFC championships.  The first one is from 1984 - the year BEFORE THE YEAR - when they (apparently) won the 1984 NFC Central Division Championship.   Next up is this NFC Champions pennant that calls out Super Bowl XX in the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans on January 26, 1986.  But, I'm pretty sure that this one was printed AFTER they won the Conference Title game and BEFORE the Super Bowl. These totally remind me of my childhood.  And...of course, they remind me of my dad.  The original collector in my life. 

Thanks to our good friends who have Chicago Bears season tickets, I'm now the proud owner of this Red Grange - the Galloping Ghost - Bobblehead courtesy of United Airlines.  This is the first in what the Bears are billing as a season-long program of bobbleheads that will be released at every one of their 10 home games. The full list of this year's Bobbleheads : Red Grange Bill George Coach Ditka (with his sunglasses) Bronco Nagurski (with a sweet uniform) Sweetness - Walter Payton Brian Urlacher Sid Luckman Gayle Sayers AND Dick Butkus (they put both on one statue???) Mike Singletary Devin Hester Some of them are way more attractive (to me) than others.  Of course, the top on the list - Red Grange - is the one that I'm most interested in (not just saying that because that's the one I am in possession of right now!).  But, Da Coach Ditka one is awesome, too.  Those would rank highest.  The dual Gayle Sayers/Dick Butkus one is weird to me.  I mean...

I'm laying out my current fantasy football roster - the 2017 Little Lebowski Urban Achievers - for all to judge, mock and critique.  Our league - The Marini/Parrillo War League - is run with an iron fist by the Commissioner Equation Boy/Man and includes my nephews, my Dad, Equation Boy/Man's Dad and nephews on that side.   My team was totally auto-drafted as I've done in the past and it usually doesn't turn out amazing.  The league is pretty low stakes and because I put in *just* a little bit above the minimum effort in sorting out the buy weeks and inactives, I usually sneak into the playoffs and win maybe one round before being taken out by one of the boys who is all over his team with weekly tweaks and roster moves.   The team - lead by just one QB in Dak Prescott and WR Odell Beckham Jr (who was the first pick by the computer) has a bunch of guys I've never even heard of!  So, there's that, which is nice, right? 

I came across this table of mini helmets recently at an estate sale and had a fun time poking around the collection.  If you know guys born in the 60's or 70's that like old, vintage things and have an affinity for sports, they're probably nuts about gumball helmets .  My brother-in-law up in Park Ridge has a thing for gumball helmets.  Has a collection.  Has even made his own helmets, which is kinda neat.  While I can appreciate them, I'm not drawn to them - unless I see an Illini one, of course - and passed on these.  But, I did send the photo to said brother-in-law.  These don't appear to have any age to them, right?  All pretty much modern day versions? The part that jumps out to me here, though, is the four baseball caps at the bottom of the photo.  They appear to be NFL team hats like Quarterbacks wear on the sidelines.  Those are a thing now?

That's the view from my office this week as the NFL has arrived and Chicago has rolled out the red carpet for them in the form of the second year of Draft Town.   Here's my post showing the setup from last year in 2015 .   They seem to have shifted the bulk of the activities towards the lake with the biggest tent area right along Lake Shore Drive and a few other tents and what look like broadcast booths scattered around Buckingham Fountain.  They also (if you look closely!) added a Ferris Wheel.  Which is weird, right?   Last year, all the action was confined east of Columbus with the biggest tent right on Michigan Avenue.  That's where the team representatives sat and talked on the phones.  They then 'walked' the picks across the street to the Auditorium Theatre .  Not sure if that's part of the schtick this year?   I think it is great to have this event here in town.  I'm sure that we - the taxpayers - are footing the bill, but I think that

This is kinda cool.  Received this note from our office services folks.  My window is going to be blacked out.  Maybe. Please be reminded that Aon Center will be displaying the letters “NFL” on the South side of the Building beginning today. In order to display the letters “NFL”, Building Engineers will need to access floors 34-78 to place black plastic on specific windows, on the South side. It is very important that the plastic remain on the windows from April 30th through May 2nd in order to properly display the image to the city and to enhance the image to the fullest extent.

Today is the day for the NFL Draft to kick off.  Compare this photo of Draft Town with Tuesday's and you'll see the closed up the big tent in the middle and they've added a bunch of accessory structures around the place. Cool stuff for Chicago.

They have much of the structures set up and are wrapping them with the white tarps this morning.   Here's where they were just a few days ago .

Just west of Buckingham Fountain you can start to see the tents going up for the NFL's DraftTown.  They've shut down the street and it appears they're just going to take the whole place over with a series of tents/structures.  Kinda neat. Here's the sketch they have on NFL.com of the final product :

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