Why I Oughta...

And Dan lets him go on for four+ minutes . He hits the Gary "Noine" a bunch of times - which everyone seems to love including me!

Over the weekend, I put the KettlePizza through it's paces for the second time and the results were much better.  I upgraded the dough and went with a lighter hand on the toppings but I also made sure that the peel was set up right and the pie could slide off properly. The first time, I got the oven up to about 800 degrees, but this time it was topping out between 600 and 700.  I used the Kenji Lopez-Alt/The Food Lab hack by putting the Pizza Steel in on the top grate to create both thermal mass and a top heat source. My pie didn't have great leopard spotting, but it was cooked close to right and had a nice combination of crisp/chew on the cornicione .  (What...you don't use the words in the pizza glossary ??)

These two birds are hanging out together on The Babe's Disney pin board.  They're both 'Hidden Mickeys'.  She arranges the board to build little 'collections' and because these guys were about the same size and both birds, of course, they'd go together, right? The guy on the left is "Orange Bird" is a guy you see around the area where they sell Dole Whips in Adventureland and he appears to have a very fervent fan base/following.  I didn't know the history of him, but it turns out, Disney created this creature for the Florida Citrus growers.   From DisneyWiki : The Orange Bird was created in 1970 as a mascot for the Florida Citrus Commission in exchange for them sponsoring the Tiki Room attraction at Magic Kingdom.   Accompanied by singer Anita Bryant , the two appeared in ads for Florida oranges and Bryant narrated a record album telling the character's story. After the Anita Bryant ad campaign was dropped in the late 70s, the Or

Yesterday (May the Fourth), the Big Ten Fan Shop at Fanatics sent out this cute (and timely) email touting Big Ten/Star Wars gear.  Seems like everyone was doing May the Fourth stuff yesterday. One note:  Nat actually got this and pointed it out to me. That's pretty awesome, right?   Also, I don't go into my promotions tab in Gmail very much these days.  After this, I should, I'm thinking. Anyway, When you click through the email copy, you end up at t his page on the Big Ten Store .  There are 12 different Big Ten t-shirts/bags with Star Wars stuff.  Cool.  I scroll down and look around. Here's the roundup. 3 Ohio State University Buckeyes items 2 Michigan State University Spartans items 3 University of Michigan Wolverines items 1 University of Wisconsin Badgers item 1 Penn State University item 1 University of Nebraska item. Sadly...not one Fighting Illini item. How many?   Zero.point.Zero .  WTF?  Illinois has this massive and super well-known engi

I don't normally follow college baseball and the College World Series, but this year, things might be different:   my Illini have won 21 straight games are now ranked #6 in the country .  They beat #23 Ohio State yesterday in a comeback.  Pretty awesome to see the sports like baseball (and golf!) doing so well down in Champaign.  (One slight nitpick...why are the Illini wearing these 'old' uniforms?  This isn't the new font, right?  Maybe because these are 'cut off' jerseys, they're alternates and holdovers from last year's uniform set?) Happy for these guys and for the team.  Here's hoping the student body is getting behind this crew and showing up at the home games. I-L-L...

Yesterday, I opened the compost bin and found total black gold:  beautiful, soft compost.  I used the Babe's shovel to pull it out and piled it into the garden beds.  I normally replenish the beds with a thin layer of mushroom compost and will do that this year, but because of the bin, I won't need as much. Now comes the next decision:  do we fill the bin up again or should we keep it empty so we can relocate it when the time comes?

See that structure in the middle of the photo?  That's a new 6 story (I think?) parking deck/office building going in.  This is the view from City Hall heading south on York Street. Exciting times for the downtown area and I'll always be rooting for downtowns to succeed.

This is kinda cool.  Received this note from our office services folks.  My window is going to be blacked out.  Maybe. Please be reminded that Aon Center will be displaying the letters “NFL” on the South side of the Building beginning today. In order to display the letters “NFL”, Building Engineers will need to access floors 34-78 to place black plastic on specific windows, on the South side. It is very important that the plastic remain on the windows from April 30th through May 2nd in order to properly display the image to the city and to enhance the image to the fullest extent.

Today is the day for the NFL Draft to kick off.  Compare this photo of Draft Town with Tuesday's and you'll see the closed up the big tent in the middle and they've added a bunch of accessory structures around the place. Cool stuff for Chicago.

My oldest couldn't be more proud of her painting that is hanging up in the local coffee shop in town as part of a gallery/collection of kids art.  We made a special trip to the coffee shop just so she could show it to me.  I'm so impressed with her and her willingness to be an artist.  Something I could never quite do when I was younger.