Why I Oughta...

Continuing our annual tradition, Matt Pawlak rounded up our crew and others and we headed out to Montrose Harbor last Friday night for Smelt Fishing. We were right in the sweet spot of the smelting season, but, much like last year, our efforts didn't produce a heckuva lot of smelt. In fact, this year, we caught exactly ZERO smelt. Didn't matter that much as we were thinking ahead and brought a bunch of the suckers from Jewel! Libations were plentiful and the burn bucket kept us warm all night. Thanks to Tom Cactus Vlach for bringing the gear, Matt for much of the logistics, and Dan Fetterer for logging the most miles (NYC to Chicago!) to make it out to Montrose Harbor. Even though we came up largely empty on the fish front this year, make no mistake: we'll be back at it in April of 2008. Here's a few pictures: Matt Pawlak and Tom Cactus. The question of the night? Where's Rob? The Dauphinais Brothers and Mark Kwilosz stay warm by the burn bucket. Neil McAl

I'm heading to Las Vegas for the first time this Thursday for my good buddy Mark Dauphinais' bachelor party. We're set to be there through early Sunday morning and I'm sure that things will be debaucherous. As luck would have it, one of my favorite blogs, Dethroner , announced that his "theme" this week is Bachelor Parties . Some great posts already and I'm looking forward to even more this week. I've alerted my crew that's going to be trouncing around with me about the Theme, and I bet we'll get some pointers/tips that we can utilize this weekend. The party itself is actually an event that is being put on for 2 bachelors. Mark and one of his college buddies. Because of that, there appears to be in excess of 20 dudes heading out there. From the tone of some of the emails, most of the guys that I don't know (Mark's college buddies) are going to really turn one out. As a first timer in Las Vegas, I'll have to strike a nice b

I'm either too cramped for time, or too lazy or both to write a full post, so instead, I have a bunch of stuff rattling around my brain and I'm dumping it here so I can move on to more important things like whether I'm going to get a meatball sandwich or the Italian Beef at Venice Cafe for lunch today. I hate it when people on the train wear a ton of purfume/cologne. I also hate it when people smell. Sure, we all have our off days, but my goal in life scent-wise is to leave no footprint - have no smell. Shouldn't that be everyone's? The best sports blog out there is Deadspin. Hands down. One of the best parts of the blog are the comments. My co-worker Matt and I were just chatting about them this morning. The best description I've ever read about the community there was written on CopyRanter : "If you have time, read the comments; his readers are both batshit insane and very entertaining. " I wonder if there's a Beer-O-the-Month-Club

Some companies fascinate me (FedEx, Sirius Satellite Radio, Toyota, Google), some companies that I hate (sometimes FedEx, Kerasotes Movie Theaters, Clear Channel), and other companies I love. One of the companies that I love is Patagonia , the maker of gear and apparel. "There is no business to be done on a dead planet." - Sierra Club executive director David Brower On certain days, I'm decked out head-to-toe in clothing and gear from Patagonia. As Natalie would tell anyone, I'm not that fashion-conscious and I usually have a hard time dressing myself in the mornings. I don't have that much clothing from Patagonia, but I have a few "everyday items" like coats, shoes, and my computer bag. Toss in a few shirts, some pants, and a hat or two, and that rounds out my whole collection. I try to avoid clothes with lots of labels, while at the same time wearing clothes that are comfortable and wear nice. There's nothing worse then when I bring home a p

This morning on my radio program of choice (Howard Stern), I tuned in to find a guest that has appeared many times before. He's also a popular guest on programs like The Tonight Show and Late Night. That guest was Richard Simmons. Richard is a popular guest because he's usually enjoyable to listen to/watch as he hams it up for the host and the audience. It appears that he knows his niche and he's parlayed that to a pretty sizable empire. This morning, in addition to the "Which guy(s) are you dating?" jokes, Stern also chatted with Simmons about the "Strengthening Physical Education Act of 2007". Before Simmons scurried out after an insensitive joke, he spoke about how the "Leave No Child Behind" act is squeezing out physical education classes from America's schools. Much like there are standards for reading, writing, and arithmetic, Simmons bill would amend NCLB to provide a national guideline for minimum standards for health and fi

I believe that I may have had the best food item that I have ever tasted yesterday at my sister Vic's house. Most of my family headed over there for Easter brunch-ish. (10 am to noon) There were the usual suspects on the menu: bagels, quiche, ham, etc. Natalie and I brought a banana cream pie, courtesy of my "Two-Time Pie Eating Champion" winnings. I made my way through the spread without much delight. While, as most people know, I really enjoy a good spread, I'm not really into breakfast foods. Vic tipped me onto the Gorilla Bread , and I'm thrilled she did. While not the least bit healthy, (the recipe doesn't mention that Vic uses Martha's cream cheese frosting recipe to top this whole thing off!) it may be the best thing I've ever tasted - not to mention it's President Jimmy Carter's favorite food. When discussing my favorite foods, I tend to skew towards the italian beef/pizza area of the food pyramid, but this new Gorilla Bread e

Dear Illinois Legislators, More often than not, I know that more and new laws are not the answer to problems facing residents in Illinois. Many times, they aren't the solutions - they're the problems. That's why, it is with great trepidation that I am requesting your sponsorship of a bill that would modify the Illinois Vehicle Code. As any commuter, or for that matter - any driver in Illinois, can tell you, road construction is the source of many headaches. While we all understand that constuction and improvements are a necessary part of the roadway system, most drivers try to avoid the construction areas at all costs. Avoiding the construction zones is good practice, but sometimes it's unworkable. What makes travelling the construction zones worse is what, for lack of a better term, I'll call "Cheaters". These are the folks who run up the right lane, when 2 miles back there are merge left signage that indicates that the right lane is closing. Most

Although most, if not all of you didn't notice, our own Chicago Bulls have quietly secured a clinched a playoff spot in the Eastern Conference. I haven't watched a Bulls game in quiet some time. I catch the highlights every morning on SportsCenter and it appears that Luol Deng has matured into quite a player. Ben Gordon is somewhat of a "proven commodity" and Ben Wallace has been a great anchor in with the "trees". Wallace, who's been the source of some controversy this season because of his headbands (why not let him wear them, guys? He has them on in your billboards, promo materials and tickets, right?), but he's also gaining some press for something else he's wearing. Wallace has joined up with Knicks guard Stephon Marbury to roll out a sneaker that retails for $14.98 . You read that right: less than 15 bucks. Right now, he's wearing Marbury's shoes, but next season, he'll have his own line - The Big Ben. He's doing

With the arrival of a new year in my life (29th!), I thought that it would be appropriate to move RhodesSchool over to a different blogging platform. I've been on a custom-made blogging platform that has served me very well since 2004 and I am not done with it. My Wedding Blog is still on the platform, as are a whole host of my other sites. With RhodesSchool, I wanted to bring it to a new platform because this is the type of issue that I deal with on a day-to-day basis at FeedBurner. We deal with publishers who have to modify their .htaccess file, install the Ordered List WordPress plugin, and embed various widgets and items into their sidebars. I wanted to roll up my sleeves, get a little dirty, and get better acquainted to this particular platform. Will I stay at WordPress forever? I doubt it. It's one of many blogging platforms that publishers are using. Rick Stratton is using Feed.us and that looks to be a promising tool. I am planning on giving it a try next.

Yup.  If you've arrived here, you are discovering that I'm finally growing up and bringing my blog over to MY domain.  It'll still be called Rhodesschool, but in an attempt to make it more personal, I'm bringing it here.  I've got to try to figure out a way to bring all the old archives over from RhodesSchool.com, but in the meantime, all the old "stuff" should work.  The feed will be the same and I'll repost stuff here that I've recently put up at RhodesSchool.