Why I Oughta...

After our garage was built, I applied a floor coating from Rust-oleum as a DIY project.  For a few hundred bucks, we had a nice, sealed floor.  I never got around to posting these photos - they've been sitting as a draft for MONTHS - but with winter here and our garage floor covered in melted snow, salt residue and grim, it reminded me that (I hope) I'll be able to throw down a little pinesol mop away and then squeejee the moisture out the door and we'll have a perfect floor. The process of actually applying this stuff is easy, but the prep is a pain.  You have to etch your concrete - even brand new bare concrete - with an acid and get it spotless and dust free.  In order to get the chips down, I did one "square" at a time with each container covering 3 "squares".  Since we have a 3 car garage, that meant two kits to get it done.  You also have to cut-in the edges with a brush, but after that, it is just rolling out paint.  Easy-peasy! These are th

I heard from a few different people that my post last year reminding everyone to change their furnace filter helped them out and motivated them to head down to their basement to check the age of their filter.  Being deep in the heart of winter - with everyone's furnaces running all the time - I figured it was time to mention it again.  If you haven't done it in a while.... GO CHANGE YOUR FURNACE FILTER! In fact...if you are like me, and prone to forget when you put one in and when it is time to take one out, our good friends at Menards have the answer:   An automated nag to remind you to change the filter .  You set the date you installed the filter, the duration (how long you want it to last) and viola(!), Menards does the hard part of remembering when you need to head down to the basement.  There is even settings for fertilizing your lawn, too!  (I know...this is a convenient way of selling more products, but at least there is *some* value to the consumer!) Of course,

During my time on the Frankfort Village Board, we often spent time in committees talking about the type of amenities that the government should undertake/build to make our downtown a bit more appealing.  Benches, water fountains, public restrooms all came up.  Those are easy.  They're all things that the local government can build that help bring shoppers down to your downtown.  That's always the goal:  improving the experience, which leads to more sales tax dollars. You know what we didn't think about?  An outdoor fireplace.  Too often, I think, we focused on the warmer months, but shoppers are out and about in the winter.  I saw this one (above) in Holland Michigan.  Theirs is gas powered and just about always on.  While I was standing there waiting for Nat to finish up at Tip Toes , I saw a few different groups of shoppers stop by for a brief warm-up.  The fireplace was working!

I received a pair of these 'Ove' Gloves from my mom back at Christmas and I scoffed at the idea.  My mom persisted and said that they came highly recommended and in fact, the woman at Walgreens (yeah...that's where she bought them!) told her she HAD to buy 2 of them! Guess what?  These have become my go-to oven mitt and I don't even reach for anything else.  For breads, this thing works perfectly as I can pick up the loaf directly.  Same with pizza skins. I know what you're thinking...my oven mitts are fine.  That's what I thought, too!  This is one of those "As Seen on TV" products and, surprisingly to me(!), this one really works well.  Can't recommend it more.  Sounds silly, I know! Go buy it here with the link below:

While it appears I'm safely in the "manly" category on some of my hobbies like gardening and woodworking, it seems that " collecting Christmas Village buildings " and " baking breads from sourdough starter " both fall somewhere off the "Official Manly Hobbies List" .   

*NOTE* Yes...This post is out of order.  We went to Pequod's a while ago, but I forgot to post the pics and review. We drove up to Morton Grove planning on hitting up Burt's Place for some deep dish pizza on a random Tuesday - not heeding any warnings about pre-ordering our pies or any of that jazz.  Pulling up to the place, I was excited:  this place is a dive!  But...being the #8 pizza on the list, I was sure this would live up to they hype.  The place seemed quiet. Eerily quiet.  Turns out...they're NOT open on Tuesdays.  Bummer. But....lucky for us, all was NOT lost.  You see, Burt Katz - the proprietor of Burt's founded a little place called Pequod's - which just so happens to be on the list, too.  And the best part?  The original Pequod's is LITERALLY right around the corner from Burt's.  Off we went. My only experience with Pequod's was their City of Chicago location, but turns out this place was where it all began. Established in 1979,

Nope...not the movie.  We haven't seen that (yet?  Ever?).  Rather I'm talking about the car, which coincidentially - for you non nerd types - isn't called the Green Hornet.  It is a tricked-out Chrysler Imperial they call the Black Beauty !  They had it on display at the auto show in Detroit and I had to stop by to see it. Interesting to note, the movie has really driven interest in the Black Beauty. Here's a chart showing search queries in the US have gone up 100X in the last month.  Pretty amazing what a wide-released movie will do to drive American's interest in the car.