Why I Oughta...

A student group called "Campus Spirit Revival" at the University of Illinois has undertaken a contest to try to find a new symbol .  Six years ago, Chief Illiniwek was retired as the symbol of the University of Illinois athletic teams, and some students believe that's long enough for the school not to have a symbol. Currently, there's voting open to students only to pick the top 5 candidates from a group of 46.  You can see the breakdown of the choices here on The Dagger or you can see the full set of options in this Facebook album. After looking at them, I tend to lean towards the military-inspired ones. I've put two of those in this post. The name "Fighting Illini" pre-dates the arrival of the Chief and was " bestowed upon the team in honor of Illinoisans who fought in World War I; the use of the name "Illini" dates to the 19th century ". Some of the submissions are good, some are funny, and some are strange.  The hand-dr

This week I received an email in my inbox from Speaker John Boehner asking me to fill out his 2013 "Speaker's Survey" on his TeamBoehner.com site.   The survey asks for your name, email and zip code, but doesn't ask for street address. After the election, the team at OFA put out a similar survey for 'supporters' that asked questions mostly focusing on ones interactions with the campaign. In thinking through these surveys for political organizations, they're really great trojan horses in terms of building a profile and layering data on top of said profile in a quick way.  I'd think that these are mostly filled out by the die-hards.  The dyed-in-the-wool political operative/foot solider type. And that's a great place to start.  Wouldn't the Speaker's office know who exactly on their email list support the Keystone Pipeline?  They'd love to be able to activate/engage those folks on a moment's notice and this survey will get the

I'll take it!

Over the weekend, we went to Five Star Bar on Chicago and while we were hanging out in the back room/pool room, I saw this poster on the wall for a Run DMC/Beastie Boys gig at the Rosemont Horizon. Cold getting busy!

You can't swing a dead cat on a DIY blog/forum/magazine these days without seeing a re-claimed/re-used pallet project.  They are used for outdoor furniture.  Coffee tables.  Headboards.  All sorts of things.  I've had a few pallets laying around in my backyards after doing our paver patio a few years back and I couldn't have tried to get rid of them faster.  They were gnarly, dirty, full of huge nails and usually cracked up in various parts. In this month's copy of This Old House Magazine (above), they call out the steps needed to use said pallets.  They say that bleaching the wood to disinfect the planks is a good piece of the process. I don't want to forclose myself on doing any pallet projects, but the pallets I've seen need a heckuva lot more than some sanding and bleach.  Has anyone actually seen/sat on one of these pallet projects?

If you look hard enough, you'll see Ms. Maisy enjoying the winter day. Been almost a year since we had a day like today.

Have I told you guys about cheesemaking?  Not yet, you say?  Well... if you know anything about this blog it is that I tend to get 'into' my hobbies and I tend to share those here.  I've been nosing around the edges of artisanal cheesemaking for a while now and have made some soft cheeses in the past. With the help of my brother-in-law, I'm set up with a cheesemaking kit and I intend to make some mozzarella this weekend.   That's the citric acid that came with the kit up there in the photo.   Sounds fun, right? But, what about hard cheeses?  In reading the prep materials on the basics of cheesemaking, I've been engulfed with recipes and press ideas and ingredients for hard cheeses. One of the things that sticks out is that you (apparently) don't want to (if you can help it) use pasteurized or ultra-pasteurized milk.  Good news for us, though!  Turns out, there's a raw milk place right here in DuPage County.   The Golden Guernsey operates out of