Why I Oughta...

Menards is really stepping up their game when it comes to O Gauge rail cars and buildings this year.  In addition to producing a bunch of 'weathered' boxcars, they've come out with a few pretty interesting additions to their rolling stock collection. The first of which is this Military Long Flatcar with a "Deuce and a Half" .  From the Menards' product listing comes this detail: Honor our armed services from the past and present with this brand new O gauge military flatcar featuring a longer, simulated wood platform that measures 10.5" long. It is decorated in military green and easily couples with most O scale train cars. The Deuce and a Half transport truck and fuel transporter are intricately detailed and constructed of resin. This is a limited edition military train car that is recommended for O-36 and larger curves. They've priced it at $39.99 which is a fair price for a car with this amount of detail.   I've bought a few cars from Men

Found this label for this plant " Dianthus Kahori " on a perennial at Costco recently.  That font! Had to snap a photo and then try to do some research to figure out if the plant had *any* connection to Disney and/or the parks.  Alas...it doesn't appear to be anything other than a lazy designer passing off the Disney font to the guys at the nursery who raised these plants.   I could actually see this becoming an extension for Disney products/consumer products some day, right?  Imagine having some sort of uniquely-bred set of perennials that they plant in the park and they highlight in some way.  Could be at the Flower and Garden show.  Could be throughout the year.   They could license their name to some nurseries to grow them that particular plant and get it to the market at scale through places like Home Depot.  I'd buy a 'piece of Disney World's' flowers for a small price.  I'd probably buy a few of them!  Wouldn't you?

I've spent a bit of time covering the Costco Cedar Summit playground sets and the Costco Suncast playground set in the past here on the blog.  They're chronically at the top of the 'most read posts' almost every week.  They rank well in search and because there's such limited information on the Costco site about the sets, it seems that parents and potential buyers go online and seek out some answers.  They end up here. But, this year, Costco has a new product.  Or...at least...new to me.  It is there pictured above right in front of this year's edition of the Cedar Summit playground set.  It is a "Lifetime 4X4 Bouncer Teeter Totter".  It is priced at $189.99 with a $40.00 instant rebate at our Costco in Oak Brook, Illinois.  On the Costco site, they list a different Lifetime bouncer - an airplane one.   That one has really strong reviews, so it seems these things are built well. This one is a two seater, so at least two kids could get a lot of f

Last month, I received a really nice tri-fold mailer from the University of Illinois Athletic Department featuring these great Fighting Illini athletes.  It looks like it was mailed to all members of the I-Fund - which is the development/fundraising arm of the athletics department. One thing I've noticed over the past few years is that the quality of the correspondence has really improved.  From the brochure to buy seats/psl's/suites in the new State Farm Center to the regular 'keep-in-touch' notes they send from time-to-time, they've stepped up their design and delivery in a big way.  And...with this being the development/fundraising arm, you'd expect this to need to be impressive stuff to get donors attention. When you open up the latest mailer, you get a bunch of stats about graduation rates, B1G Championships, community service hours and National Championships (we have 25 of 'em!).  But they also loaded it with a few little giveaways.  Check it o

Over the weekend, I packed the kids into the van and headed out to visit the brand new Menards in Melrose Park .  Exciting stuff in our house.  Seriously.  A new Menards?  That's like 10 minutes closer to our house?  Sweet. I've been driving by this location for the past 6 months waiting for it to open and thought that it looked 'small'. Turns out...the footprint of the store *is* small.  That's because it is a two story store. From the Chicago Tribune : With the opening of this new 2-story store, the Melrose Park area will now enjoy all of the great services, low prices and shopping convenience that Menards offers. Jeff Abbott, Menards Spokesperson says, "We appreciate all the loyal shoppers who shopped at our former Melrose Park store for many, many years. We can't wait to open the doors to this impressive, new 2-story store so everyone can see for themselves all the latest, greatest home improvement products we have to offer." I've bee

In lieu of the typical under-performing bell peppers that I plant in the garden, this year, I picked up a Serrano hot pepper plant from Bonnie Plants at the ole' Home Depot.  As you can see from the photo, serranos are described as: 'Hot, pungent, candle-shaped fruits.  Top choice for making pico de gallo.  Very productive." While that's well and good, I'm only interested in them for one reason: The possibility of making my own giardiniera . I've tried making it in the past and most recipes call for fresh vegetables/peppers including serranos, but the output wasn't quite right.  Comparing those results (which included bright colors) with the typical store-bought jar of giardiniera (which has far more muted colors) was a disappointment.  It seems that the professional-made stuff pickles their peppers before putting them in the jar with oil? Just compare how the 'homemade' version looks in this photo compared to what the stuff in the jar looks

Last week I received this notification on my phone from the fine folks over at Twitter.  They were wishing me a happy "Twitterversary".  Turns out, I joined Twitter on May 29th 2007.  Looking back at the blog from then, I didn't post on the 29th, so I must have been looking for something to do? May of 2007, I was back at FeedBurner - about to join Google on June 1, 2007 - so perhaps I was bored looking for something to do?  Seem like a logical story, doesn't it? Looking at my Twitter profile , I'm now over 3,400 tweets, I follow just under 1,000 people/places/things, and have close to 700 followers.  Back in 2010, I covered when I crossed the 1,000 tweet milestone here on the blog .  Meaning...it took me 3 years to get to 1K tweets, or about 333/year.  2.4K tweets in five years since March of 2010.

I plucked this can of Coke Zero out of the box over the weekend and - as a good, reliable, somewhat-persuadable corporate sugar-water-drinking-bot should do - immediately took a photo of it and texted it to my 'Sis'.  This post goes out to all three of those of mine. You know who you are.  Consider this your #siblingsday post.  (Remember when *that* was a thing??)

Back in April of this year, I chronicled the annual return of Nat's peonies as they emerged from the mulch in our backyard. Just one small section of the blooms opened up this week with the rest still tightly balled up awaiting their time to shine.  These are a really dark pink and they're set off to the side of the rest of our peony plants.  I believe these were harvested out of the yard of a house at the end of our block that was getting torn down.  I went with the Babe and a wagon and filled it up with peonies, irises and hostas. Before they tipped over and started dragging on the ground, I went out and cut some of the flowers off to bring inside where the girls helped me put them in a vase.

Aha!  I got this one right.  Today is the 1st of June and the first day I was in the office and I looked over and noticed that my wall calendars needed to get turned over.  Not too shabby, eh? The D23 calendar features the Walt Disney Archives, which were founded on June 22, 1970 and the Illini calendar features a photo of Bevier Hall. One other note on the Disney calendar is that it notes that on June 16th, 'Lady and the Tramp' premiered in Chicago.  Yeah...Chicago! Here's the post from May with the calendars .  Took me until the 12th. March's post - where I turned them on the 11th. February post introducing the concept .  On the 17th.