Why I Oughta...

This photo - which like last week's was rescued from my old, abandoned Flickr archives is from September of 2005 when I was a Village Trustee in the Village of Frankfort and I was about to dominate the annual pie eating contest.  Yep...two time winner is *this guy*.   I don't remember if I won in 2004 and 2005 or 2005 and 2006.  But, as you can see by the kid next to me, it wasn't super top-notch eating talent.  And, if there's one thing I can do well, it is eat fast.  That's nothing new.  It was just being in a position to eat banana cream pies in a competition that brought out that talent.  I remember smelling banana pudding for a long time after these things.  I also remember the winning award:  a year's worth of pies from Enrico's.  Natalie and I used to go in there once a month, pick up a pie and bring it to my folk's house.  My dad loved those banana cream pies!

Back a couple of weeks, I met my childhood friend Neil at the Chicago Athletic Association building for a few beverages and some what-have-yous.  We got the full tour of the place from the drawing room to the game room to the new rooftop place called Cindy's.  We didn't however, get into the Cherry Circle Room.  It didn't open until 5.   The Cherry Circle is a place that I've been before.  In fact, it was likely one of my few times when I was served in a bar before I was 21.  My oldest sister was married back in the 90's at the CAA and I remember spending time with her soon-to-be-husband and his wedding party in the Cherry Circle the morning of the wedding.  I really like what the new owners of the place have done with the place.  They've kept everything that was wonderful with the old CAA and breathed a lot of new life into the place.  It is funky and weird, but not so off-putting as a place like the Ace Hotel in DTLA is for me.  I'd gladly go back and

I was going through some of the pins from our trip late last year to the Disney Parks recently when I came across a batch of pins that are all from our visit to Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party.  This one, is marked 'Limited Edition', but I don't really know what that means.  Limited Edition in that only people who go to the parks during the party limited?  Or like a certain number of them are made limited?  Either way, this one was a must-buy for me.  It will go on one of the girls' pin boards once those are set-up.  Combining Christmas with these Haunted Mansion ghosts?  There's room for 999 more pins on that board, right???

I swear we've done nothing different between the three kids in regards to sports and balls.  But The King of the Ball Tossers is really living up to his name:  he's drawn, almost magically, to sports balls of all kind.  Here he is, strapped into his car seat with his ball and bat.  He wouldn't let me take it out of his hands!

A few weeks back, Nat and I stopped into Affordable Antiques in Naperville to just poke around.  On that day, we came home with exactly nothing.  But that's not because there wasn't some interesting things to see there.  There were.  I think that we just weren't in the mood to actually buy anything.  Between the housing situation and the numerous unknowns ahead of us, it just isn't a time in our lives to be able to bring home treasures. One of those treasures that I came across was this lovely vintage Christmas Angel tree topper.   I've posted about other Angels that we have here .    This one priced at $36 seems pretty steep to me, but she is pretty awesome.  She's in great shape, but has had her 'cone' under her tinsel skirt rebuilt, which for purists might be a problem, but is totally fine for me.  She has the usual pipe cleaner-arms, but it is her skirt that makes her shine.  She's not destined for our tree, but I'm sure she'll find a

Menards has been doing a really great job of churning out some interesting O Gauge rolling stock over the past few years.  This car above is from the Canadian National and if you look closely has a little mark to the right of the door that says 'Built by Menards 2015'.  My oldest sister has been working in the railroad industry for a long while.  First for the Chicago and Northwestern.  Then the Union Pacific.  And now the Canadian National.   She keeps a few O Gauge cars in her office.  Have to think that this one would fit in well. And that might be the best use of these Menards cars, in my opinion.  Looks.  The couplers kinda suck.  They roll really nice and once you have them set up and connected, there's very few problems.  But, they're NOT high-quality couplers and NOT Lionel couplers.  They sell these cars pretty cheap.  Like $20 for each one and less if you buy 6 of them or something like that.  Can you imagine having a layout that would allow for your train

Listen...before you tell me I'm evil, I have to tell you that we have a dog and are totally dog people.  We were there with you crazy people buying our dog fancy collars and bowls and what-have-yous.  Right up until we had kids.  Then Maisy...who I adore...just took a backseat. So...with that out of the way, can we all get a little laugh out of this headline from the local paper?  Dog Flu cancels the Dog Parade?!?  Kinda funny, right?  And the second year in a row?!?! Carry on with your dog-loving self.