Why I Oughta...

I picked up a new mold from KHL Molds last week and started to make this year's bunnies.  I received a really sweet note from the owner of KHL Molds - and a special surprise - that I'll cover later this week. I've filled the mold already once with water putty and the cavity is a lot smaller than last year's and only requires one blend of material to fill the whole thing.  That means I can likely make *more* than I have in the past...

I found this vintage American Flyer "service kit" at a Naperville antique store last week. I didn't buy it, but for the right American Flyer collector, it seemed like a great pick-up.

I've been thinking about DIY'ing a shuffleboard table for the basement for a while and after doing a bit of research on the web, I went looking on Craigslist for something that would make a suitable playing surface.  Well, well, well.   Lookie what I found here .  Some re-usable bowling alley lane wood. Seems like 18 linear feet of that stuff would work just fine, wouldn't it?  Wonder if I can rent a truck that'll hold 18 feet?  And...wonder if I can convince Nat that this is a good idea?

I was in 2 North Riverside Plaza for a meeting this week and on the walk back to Ogilvie Station, I spotted this neat Chicago and North Western Train sign.  You may not be familiar with C&NW (or CNW ), but I have a family connection to the heritage - and now defunct - train line. My oldest sister was an in-house counsel at the railroad ahead of their acquisition by Union Pacific.  It is pretty neat that they've kept the sign up near the station as a reminder of year's past.  When we built out the Babe's Lionel train this year, one of the cars that she ran was a CNW tanker car that we picked up because of my sister's tenure with the railroad.  At one time the Chicago and North Western (two words, unlike the University!) was one of the longest rail systems in the country.  And today?  It is gone.  But not the signage.  In fact, if you look closely, you'll see CNW badges on some of the overpasses and on some of the freight cars running on the UP lines in the We

My nephew had his lego "snowball fight" build displayed at our local library along side a dozen or so others.  Really neat to see the creative juices flowing as he built out his scene.  Two things jump out at me: 1.  The guy in the middle on the right is on his belly with - what I think is a snowball on his back.  Must have been a tough shot. 2.  That tower in the middle has a dude up on it, too.  That's the cat-bird seat.  Great vantage point.  But...you'll run out of snow really quickly, won't you? I loved Legos as a kid and it is neat to see them persist across time.  I love the fact that this isn't a 'kit', but he created it instead out of a random set of blocks - the way you are *supposed* to play with Legos!

This week, I found time to get out and hit the sledding hill at Eldridge Park in Elmhurst with the Babe.  We bundled her up like Randy and she hit the hill with some of her cousins. I had to literally drag her away from the hill.  I think we'll be back if this snow hangs around.

We were at a stoplight behind this Volvo when I spotted the weird collection of stickers on the back window.  First, the 'Semester at Sea' sticker?  That's weird, right? But, the 'Parsons The New School for Design' one that - frankly - isn't designed all that well struck me as odd.  Maybe that's the way it is supposed to be?