Why I Oughta...

Whodathunk?

Thanksgiving is one of my favorite days of the year. In fact, I think I like it better than Christmas. It's a perfect combination of wonderful things. I have a ton of things to be thankful for and they all seem to come together on Thanksgiving. From my annual " night out " with my crew last night, to spending the day strapping on the ole' feedbag with my entire family both in Frankfort and in Naperville - I get to spend lots of time with the people that matter most to me. The other part of Thanksgiving that I like is the traditions. From the family, to the food, to the weekend cutting down of the Christmas Tree - it's all fantastic fun. While all of those traditions were started without me and I'm simply a participant, there's one tradition that I've started that makes me enjoy Thanksgiving morning . While most Americans are tuning into Matt Lauer and Al Roker to watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, at my place we're watching The

How ‘bout the Illini, eh? Taking down then #1 OSU and having an improbable run to possibly 9 wins after back-to-back rebuilding years. I couldn’t be more proud to be an an alum of both the program and the university. The program appears to have turned a corner, and with all the talent that’s starting to pile up down the road on I-57, we should be a force in the Big Ten for many years. This doesn’t appear to be a fluke (like the 2001 Sugar Bowl was). All that stands in the Illini’s way from a New Years Day Bowl Game and possible BCS bid are the Wildcats from Northwestern this Saturday. Should be a slam dunk win for the Illini, no? It should. I’ll be going nuts, rooting for the boys from Champaign-Urbana, right? Ummm…. Not so fast. What? Am I questioning my allegiances? Sorta. At age 29, with a day job that I love and a fiancé pursuing her PhD full-time, the time couldn’t be more right for me to head back to school and get an advanced degree. Earlier this

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I need some help from the East Coaster's who read RhodesSchool. I've had nothing but bad luck from pretzel vendors. First it was in NYC, today the problem occurred in Boston. I enjoy the speed of acquisition and feel for food cart vendors on the street. I've done plenty of shopping from street vendors for "goods" and I will, on occassion buy a meal from a street cart vendor. I like that it's all cash. I like that it's a one-man operation. And...I like the whole thought about cart "turf" that I have in my head. ( how do you get the prime corners? Seniority? Does the Outfit control the turf?, etc... ) In the midwest, where I grew up, we had "big" or "jumbo" pretzels that were served hot. They were always, without exception soft. They were chewey and usually had salt applied to them and if you were feeling friskey, you'd even dip them in some yellow mustard - they're fantastic. In both NYC and now in Boston

September 6, 2008. 365 days away. If you head over to our wedding blog , you'll see the countdown widget is finally under the one year mark. Natalie and I were engaged last December, so we're 9 months into it with 20 to go. Seems like a long time, eh? It is. But for Nat, the planning never stops. I'm excited about gearing up for this year and all that it entails. We've secured the venue, the caterer, and the church. That leaves pretty much everything else. Nat's on top of it, so I don't have to be. We're having a discussion over the band as we speak. I want one group, she wants another. We all know who's going to win that battle. There's so much to do and see that Nat has even started to write a secondary blog about all the wedding things she sees and reads about called i heart peonies . She's a great writer who puts a smile on my face. You should go subscribe to her feed on the site now. I'm excited that she's enjoying t

I'm supporting Rudy Giuliani for President in 2008. I like who he's picked to head his campaign in Illinois: Tom Cross and I like what he brings to the discussion. I also think he can actually win in November and not make this election a referendum on Iraq. Over the long holiday weekend, the campaign launched a new website. Go check it out here . It looks nice, doesn't it? All shiny and patriotic, right? There's a few things wrong. First of all, there are zero feeds on the site. I can't subscribe to his news, blog, press releases, video. Nothing. Shame. I know I'm not the only one who would subscribe to the blog. (if it were actually a blog...) They've made, what I consider a larger error, however. The campaign had offered some nice badges on the site as a way to embed some javascript and demonstrate your support for Rudy. I had one of them on this very blog over on the right. See where it just says: JoinRudy2008.com? That used to be a nic