Why I Oughta...

Wine = just ok. Bocce Ball = great fun. We spent an afternoon at La Nebbia Winery in Half Moon Bay for a team-building activity this week.  I had a great time, but that was mostly because I was able to spend a few hours outside with my team.  Not so much because of the wine. 

I soooo want one of these in our house now.

Early last spring, my sister Vic gave me a few onion sets to plant in the garden.  They were little tiny onions that eventually grow into big onions.  Or so I thought.  I planted them in May or June and by September, the scallion part (the green shoots) were growing nicely, so I presumed that the onion underground was getting big and bulb-y.  Thus, I dug one out.  Only to be really disappointed.  The onion had not grown much at all.  It had about doubled - from the diameter of a dime to the diameter of a golfball, but it wasn't much of an onion.  I had about 6 of them in the ground, so I just left the rest.  Not sure what would happen to them over winter.  Fast forward to this spring and much to my surprise, the onion plants sprung back.  And they got HUGE.  And, they formed these really pretty buds that started (just this week) to expand and break out to show a set of even more tiny buds.  Based on the guidance from the folks at the U of I extension , I may never get my dry bul

There they are.  The first two Bell Peppers to come out of our garden this summer.  You're saying to yourself, "But...Jake....they're tiny!" They are, indeed, tiny.  And, I suppose that is the point.  I pinched both of these off of two different pepper plants because I'm (hopefully) trying to get the plant to focus all of it's energy on growing the plant up nice and tall instead of channeling energy into these nascent peppers.  The book I am using for guidance tells me that pinching off the early fruits will help the plant grow larger fruit all season long.  We'll see how this turns out.

Great day with the Babe's Papa.

Last night, Nat and I dropped the Babe off at her folks house (Thanks Grammy and Granddad!) and went downtown to knock a pizza place off our the top 25 list (watch for a post on that later) and to see a stand-up show that was part of the TBS Just for Laughs Comedy Festival - which takes place across a bunch of clubs in Chicago.  The Just for Laughs folks got started up in Canada - which is (in my mind) the second best place for comedy behind Chicago.  They started this festival in Chicago - a companion to their one in Montreal - a few years back.  Nat and I have talked about going each year, but something always came up.  This year, we took the plunge and bought tickets.  As we walked out, we both noted that we should try to get to even more than one show next year.  This is a great thing for the city and based on the fact that a lot of the shows were sold out, it is well supported.  The headliners are Martin Short and Steve Martin who are playing on Sunday so they were able to ge

You bet we are.