Why I Oughta...

That screenshot of an email, above, is the note I received back from "The Master Gardener" at the University of Illinois Extension office in DuPage County.  And...now, I think we can put this mystery to bed:  we have Ostrich Ferns.  Confirmed. Yesterday, I posted a few photos of them at my mother-in-law's house and those are the photos that I supplied to the Master Gardener. No more guessing about Cinnamon vs. Ostrich ferns for all the ferns that I have in Naperville.  But, what about the one I bought at the plant sale this year ?  It was marked as a Cinnamon Fern, but could the gardener who brought it in be confused like I was?  Time will tell.  But, that one is planted in Elmhurst at our temporary home, so it won't be transplanted anywhere else to get confused going forward. I feel good about this.  And, I feel really great about the Master Gardener.  What a resource!  I'm going to use it whenever I have a gardening question going forward.  And you shou

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

Took this photo last week on April 7th, where I turned over the Pixar calendar to Ratatouille and the Illini one to a photo of students lounging on the Quad. 7 days is pretty good.  Here's a reminder of what happened with these calendars so far this year: 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. -3 days net in terms of improvement , meaning I've shaved off *at least* 3 days from last year's turns. 

 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

Thanks to my mate Russell, I'm now the proud owner a a Pixar wall calendar that goes right along with my annual University of Illinois calendar.  I got in the office on Monday and I think these went up on Wednesday, so let's mark it as the sixth. Here's all the posts showing the epic wall calendar updates from last year . On the left is A Bug's Life art and on the right is a snow scene showing Green and Sixth Streets.  Here's a close-look of the title of the page below.  What is most interesting to me is that this 'place' is so foreign to me.  I've been gone 15 years (with mostly annual visits for Football games), but the amount of development that has taken place on Campus along Green Street is pretty amazing.

8 days.  Not too shabby for how busy things have been around here. On the left is the D23 Calendar celebrating the 75th anniversary of Fantasia.  And on the right is an Illini tailgate on the University of Illinois Alumni calendar. It took eight days, too, in October . Here's the post showing when I turned over September (18 days late!). 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.

Could there be a better Block I Card Stunt than this one at Homecoming this past weekend? Home is right. ( They did a cute Red Grange one , too.)

Just one week into the month, and I have caught up with the wall calendars at my office in the Aon Center.  On the right, the D23 Disney calendar is celebrating the 60th Anniversary of the founding of the Mickey Mouse Club.  On the right, the University of Illinois Alumni Association calendar features a fall photo of students walking past the Observatory just south of Foellinger Auditorium on the Quad. Pretty good to have done it on the 7th day (yesterday) of the month.  Second best response time since I've been tracking this odd experiment. Here's the post showing when I turned over September (18 days late!). 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.

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.

That's the 85th Anniversary of the creation of Pluto being celebrated on the left in the D23 wall calendar and Greg Hall at the University of Illinois on the right.  With all the events that have happened in the past 10 days (vacation, moving) I'm surprised that I got to turning these over to August this soon into the month.  Not too bad. Here's the history so far this year: 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.

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.

Earlier this year, I was nominated and placed on the University of Illinois Department of Communication Alumni Advisory Board.  The details of the board are here on the Department's site .  I'm quite honored to be participating amongst this great group.  We recently had our first meeting of the year and the head of the department (which...by the way was called "Speech Communications" back in *my* day and is now just named "Communication") sent me this nice note and Illini tumbler.  You'll note that the card has a photo of The Eternal Flame and of the building I spent the majority of my time in:  Lincoln Hall. With the renovation of Lincoln Hall coming to a conclusion (finally) the department will be back in it's proper home this fall.  We're planning on a nice celebration down on campus this fall to mark the re-opening of the great building.  Can't wait!

First of all. Check your inboxes. We sent out our 3 reasons for $3 today. If you're not on the list, then fill in your email address up on the top right and click the box for the 'Cross Connection'... On to the business of the day..... This Chief stuff is nonsense. I mean....Come on. As a proud grad of the fine University of Illinois, I am proud of the Chief and how he conducts himself. This symbol or as some in the legislature call it "a mascot" is simply not a mascot. When a new car wash opens in Champaign The Chief doesn't go there and do a dance and hand out foam tomahawks. He doesn't do endorsements. In fact, the university does not use his image anywhere to promote anything! A smart man named Chapin Rose said yesterday, "I think it's a little bit ludicrous to hijack a tier-one university's funding over an athletic symbol." Right on, Chapin. Many do not know how revered the Chief is inside the locker room and around campus.