Why I Oughta...

On Saturday Nat and I took my folks and the Babe to the Illini game.  At half-time, they shot this 'fancam' photo that is ultra-high-resolution and built an application on FightingIllini.com that allows you to 'tag' yourself.  Of course, i couldn't help myself and I tagged my face.  That's me with the "I" right over my face.  You can make Nat out behind the kid with his hand up.  My folks must have been sitting down with the Babe, I guess.

This afternoon, the University of Illinois Athletic Department hosted Varsity "I" weekend, where they invite back all the former-athletes to campus for a series of festivities.  They bring us down on the field before the game which is always fun, but this year they made our passes/lanyards a little bit more special by including a photo of everyone from their playing days.   My dad and the Babe both came down on the field with me and we snapped a bunch of photos.  I'll share those later. Yes!  That's me up there in the photo during (I think) my sophomore season posing for my personal photo right after the team photos.  Look at those uniforms - no stripes on the pants.  That was all the rage during the 90's.

Nothing says Christmas like 6 shatter-proof (read plastic) golden owl ornaments from my gal Martha Stewart, right?  I'm a bit ashamed that I actually like these a bit.  If they weren't plastic, they likely would have ended up in my cart at Home Depot last week.

Nat, the Babe and myself made our way to Gene & Jude's .  (Or...is it Gene's & Jude's?  See the photo below.)  Having "America's Best Hotdog" just 14 miles from our house and never eating one is a great point of embarrassment for me.  When we arrived, the parking lot was half-full and the line moved pretty fast.   They serve "Depression Dogs" that are dressed with just mustard, onions, relish, sport peppers and french fries.  I'll be honest?  The only thing I missed was the pickle spear (and maybe the Celery Salt), so not having the cukes or tomatoes didn't bother me one bit. It was a delicious dog.  And a neat place.  This seems to be a place that we can take out-of-towners and give them a feel for what a real stand is like.  Can't wait to go back.

Yesterday, I posted a close-up of the scarecrows . I had help this year from the Babe (see here there straightening out the legs) so we got ambitious and built a third scarecrow to represent our family.  She loved taking the zip ties and was modeling my behavior of attaching the scarecrows to the posts.  She couldn't quite manage the ties, but was mostly sticking them in little crevices that she could find.  Pretty cute. Here's a photo of what they looked like in 2010 .  Looks like the husband and wife scarecrow swapped places this year.

Here's a close-up of the new visitors to our front lawn.   Here's the same guys who were around last year . Looks like there's someone new, eh?

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