Why I Oughta...

It has only taken a little over two years, but I think we've found it:  the place to get our pizza pies in Elmhurst.  For the most part, our go-to takeout place has been Mama Maria's - on Valette Street, just off of York on the south side of town.  It is a good, solid pizza place with a great staff.  The pies they churn out are very consistent, but not spectacular.  Unfortunately for them, I think I've picked up my last pizza pie from their store for a while. (Equation Boy/Man turned me on to Mama Maria's.  His old go-to place is called Billy's Pizza Dugout in Villa Park, but there's been an ownership change and he didn't like the changes the new guy made.) All of that is behind us now, because went to County Inn Pizza last night and they've converted me. I consider myself pretty well-versed in all things pizza, but embarrassingly the lead for this place came from my lovely wife Natalie.  Seems, one of our neighbors picks up their pizza from here re

Right on the heels of the tax day trends piece yesterday , Rex Huppke of the Chicago Tribune ran a short piece in the Talk Section in the front of the Tribune that shows in a visual way the difference a year makes in the sports world here in Chicago.  A year ago, the Hawks were on their way to the Stanley Cup and the Bulls were an afterthought.  Oh, how the tide has turned.  Here's how the story looked in print this morning:

In addition to writing the blog post on the Official Google Blog, I also pitched a local story about tax trends here in Chicago.  The Tribune ran the story late last week ahead of the weekend which talked about how Chicagoans are moving online faster than the rest of the country and being solid Midwesterners, we're much more DIY'ers than the rest of the country.  The top brands don't rank as high locally as they do nationally.  I'm calling that a win for the Midwest. 

It isn't about sports, but still is focused on trends.  Specifically something that millions of Americans are doing today:  filing their taxes.  The Taxman Searcheth was a team effort.  This is my 5th OGB post in just 2011.  I've only penned 4 others in my past 3+ years at the company.  That pace is likely to hold true for the remainder of the year.   As for this post, I worked with one of my teammates in NYC to get the post done.  It is effective because it is relevant and shows in very clear ways some key differences in this year (the late deadline and the fast shift to e-filing/online filing) and a few other interesting things including the fact that more US residents are searching for how to deduct their gambling losses than their charity donations.  Think about that for a second.  I guess one could chalk up the big difference to the fact that in some regards, charitable deductions are much more straight forward.  You just put the amount right in the field for charity.  Bu

  Last week, the University of Illinois Athletic department sent out an email to fans/alums/supporters/donors hawking this 24" Red Grange sculpture that is an exact replica of the spectacular statue that they put up a few years back at Memorial Stadium in Champaign.  The idea is great, but the price is crazy.  $4800 for one.  I understand that they're limiting the production to just 77 pieces (get it?  Red Grange's number was 77), but they should make something more affordable.   A few years back, I bought a bronze(ish) statue of Chief Illiniwek.  I'm not certain what it is made out of, but it wasn't crazy expensive.  Probably a few hundred bucks.  I would like nothing more than to add this Grange statue to my Chief statue.  But,  until they make a ton of them out of something other than bronze, I have a feeling that I won't be able to explain a $4800 charge to our credit card to Nat.   As a side note....have you checked out the Grange statue in person

Last week, Nat and  I went out to celebrate my birthday (and the big Polomsky for City Council win!) with a meal at the Girl and the Goat .  As most of you know (and I just came to realize!), this restaurant is very happening and for good reason:  the chef is a *celebrity* , the place has a great vibe, and the food, well...isn't what I would call "in my comfort zone", but it was pretty great. While we didn't get the roasted pig face (seriously...that's on the menu), we did get some pork and here's me smiling with a VERY full belly and playing with a pork shank bone. The meal was quite the experience - especially for a guy like me who lives in the suburbs and eats pizza and chicken wings.  From the green beans with fish sauce to the chickpea fritters to the seppia (fish), it was all quite interesting and for the most part, delicious.  And, we got a wonderful surprise at the end of our meal from a friend/neighbor of ours (Thanks if you are reading this!) whic

Over on Martha Stewart's site, you can see her instructions and how-to, but I made a few modifications to the products and tools so I'll walk you through this easy project.  This could be something fun to do with kids, but it isn't a one-day project because of the painting and the multiple colors involved. Things you'll need for the Easter Egg Garland: 5 dozen (more or less if you want) paper mache eggs spring color paint (I chose 5 different pastel colors) paint brush (I used a foam brush) 5 or 6 feet of ribbon - pretty thin ribbon A drill and a 11/16th inch bit (you can use any size bit that will allow your ribbon to pass through wooden skewer (or beading needle) to push ribbon through holes Martha calls for real eggs.  Yup.  Like blown out eggs that you would have on hand around Easter-time.  In fact, she calls for you to dye the eggs just like you would normally.  I figured there had to be a better way not just due to the fact that blowing out eggs, well.....bl

April is going by way to fast.  I wanted to have a bunch of things lined up for the busy season (AKA April 15-June 15) by the time April arrived, MOST of them have been pushed back or fallen to the wayside.  Case in point:  My backyard wood-burning home-built pizza oven.  Spring of 2011 was supposed to be *the* season of the pizza oven at Casa Parrillo.  Unfortunately for me (and likely most other husbands!), as a good wife should do she points out:  With more important things to do, we should take a pass on the oven for now.  She keeps telling me that she doesn't understand my desire for the oven in our yard and that it might be a rotten idea that if we ever sell our house, the new buyers will hate it.  I suppose there's some truth to what she says, but I'm not giving up totally.  Besides - as she has keenly pointed out - we have other projects to tend to including the playground to put together, the lawn to seed/grow, and flowers to plant.  But that hasn't kept me fr

I was out at my favorite place (Menards) this weekend and wandered out into garden center to see what was doin' with the plants and flowers and I came across a 5# container that had a smallish French Pussy Willow for $19.99.   The proper binomial nomenclature (genus species) is Salix Caprea.  From time-to-time Nat has and pussy willow branches around the house in vases and such, so I assumed that she was into them.  I snapped a photo of this one when I was in the store and sent off a quick email dispatch to her to see if we should buy it and (unfortunately) she was busy doing wedding-planning for one of her clients so she didn't respond until later in the day.  She wants one! At some point this week, I'll try to head back there and snatch one up before they're all gone.  Based on the photos here on Google Images , it seems that this thing might be pretty big and as stated on the tag should be classified as a tree.    It seems that it is a fast grower and fairly ha

Progress has been made on my Easter  egg garland - I've begun painting the eggs various colors.  When they're done, there will be five different colors of six sets of eggs - for a total of 30 eggs.    I'm thinking that I should have primed these eggs and I likely should have used spray paint, but experiment and learn, right? Hopefully I'll find some time this week to put the remaining coats on the eggs and string them up.  Easter is less than 2 weeks away!