Why I Oughta...

On Saturday afternoon, we stopped at a garage sale near the old hospital in our neighborhood in Elmhurst.  Nat was after some baby stuff, I think.  All the way in the back of the garage was this thing:  a 1968 Rowe/AMI Jukebox that is chocked full of disco 45s. After a little bit of haggling, I was rolling this thing down her driveway, across the 10 blocks it took to get to our house, down our alley and into our garage.  Yep.  We're now the proud owners of a (mostly working) late-60's jukebox!  We already had - with the Babe - our first dance party in the garage on Saturday night. The amazing thing is that it works and it works well.  The action on both the flywheel and the record arm are amazingly smooth for having sat in this garage for the better part of 30 years.  Sure, there are a few quirks, but I'd expect that for something that is more than 40 years old.  I've already scouted out a bunch of classic 45's that I can pick up on Craigslist and eBay to chan

On the way to my folks place today, I spotted this odd sight:  a Washington DC Metrobus with Minnesota plates.  Can only assume that they get built in Minnesota and are driven all the way out to DC?

The Babe channeled her inner Elton John with these glasses (which Nat tells me she picked out herself!) when she came into my office yesterday.

Last week, I put up a post that pointed to a neat little tool called "Follow Your World" from Google that allows you to put in any location of interest (say...your home address) and then have Google send you a quick note when they update the imagery of your house on Google Maps.  My old boss, Rick Klau is still one of the true believers and reads this blog in his feed reader (Thanks, Rick!).  He used the baked-in Google+ sharing tools in Google Reader (at least...that is my assumption) to share my post with his audience on Google+.   Rick has more than 40K folks who follow him, so his content is seen by a big - and in some cases - an influential audience in the tech, startup and politics world(s). Google+ has this neat feature called "Ripples" that shows you what happens in a graphical manner in terms of the sharing of content.  That image above shows the path that my post took once Rick shared it.  One of his readers (Matt Cutts) has an *even bigger* audience

Today is "Take Your Child to Work Day" at Google and elsewhere around the country.  This was the first year that the Babe was old enough to come along and participate.  Google had - as one would expect - a pretty great day set up that included art projects, bloxes construction playtime, computer science lessons, cooking demos, a special lunch, and a bubble guy. After an hour or so of shyness, the Babe (who wore her self-made crown) made herself at home and got comfortable.  She built herself a little home out of Bloxes - which she deemed to be fit for a princess  - Cinderella's Castle.

For my birthday a few weeks back, Nat gave me a dual-valve bike pump.  It is a perfect gift because we have bikes and strollers and pools to pump up this spring.  We were either going to the gas station to pump the tires or using my compressor to do that, but both were likely too high powered because we kept blowing out the tubes. After pumping up the various tires around the garage, I remembered that I had this Handy Dad book (above) sitting on my bookshelf that had a project that required a bike pump:  a DIY water-pressurized rocket with custom launching pad.  Pree-tay, Pree-tay, Pree-tay sweet. Just a few things are needed:  a cork, a 2-litre bottle, a bike pump and a needle.  Plus, some wood to make a launching-pad.  I'll try to squeeze this in between now and one of my nephew's birthdays that are coming up in the next month or two.  Maybe I'll even get crazy and do some custom paint work on the launching pad?

Another closure in the Elmhurst City Centre this week with Play N Trade closing at 158 N. York Street just a few store fronts south of Starbucks.  At almost 1400 square feet , the store is a good size for retail and likely too small for a full-service restaurant.  What would I like to see?  A funky hardware store that focuses on projects/diy'ers, a kitchen product/supply store that carries things like Williams Sonoma, or as Nat would like; a bookstore. As long as it isn't a Cash-for-Gold joint or a salon, we'll be better off with this space filled.