Why I Oughta...

Thanks to Alderman Dannee Polomsky who posted this above on her public Facebook Fan Page, I stumbled onto the new City of Elmhurst website . At first blush, it appears to be a pretty big improvement in terms of pure looks, but they've also added some nice functionality and elevated the 'search box' to speed up the user experience and get people where they want to go faster.  Also...they've made the new site responsive, so when you are heading there on your mobile device - as we are all wont to do more and more these days - the site responds to your device size and presents you with a format that works on mobile.  That *would* have been a big miss in this redesign if they didn't get right, imho. The photography they're using on the page is neat - as there's a few drone shots showing a pretty unique perspective to town and they've done a good job of highlighting the town. Also, you can see some highlighted items across the main part of the site inc

I'm posting this on Saturday - the day before Mother's Day - because the emails go out the next morning and I figure that's the best way for Nat to see this. Happiest of Mother's Day to the best, most wonderful Mother (and partner in life) around:  Natalie.  That's her above on an adventure she took me on over the weekend where we went to (randomly) Rivers Casino for some chow at Hugo's Frog Bar and where she won on a slot machine! She's going to hate me saying, this, but here goes:  Natalie does it all.  And does it all with such grace.  She's a mother to three terrific kids.  And I know that they're turning out the way they're turning out because of her.  She tends to them, nurtures them, and makes them stronger and smarter and more caring each day.  *She's* the reason why they are caring, unique kids.  *She's* the reason why I couldn't be more proud of my family and of calling her my partner. I couldn't do what I do dur

Just a couple of weeks ago, I posted about the apparent closing of Mimmo's in the Elmhurst City Centre here on the blog .  Mimmo's was in the spot just south of Starbucks on the same side of York as the York Theatre.   At the time, it looked like Mimmo's was closing, but it was rumored to be slated to be replaced by another Italian eatery.  Turns out...that rumor was pretty close to being right. If you walk by the location today, you'll see these new signs in the windows announcing:  Coming Soon:  Bacci - Home of the Jumbo Slice.  If you go to the Bacci site, you'll see that they really play up the Jumbo slice angle .  Over there on the site, you'll also see a listing of 11 locations at the bottom.  One of them already is Elmhurst! I've been to Bacci before and I don't have a strong memory of the place other than it was a slice shop.  I was working on a campaign out in Aurora for Bob O'Connor for Illinois State Representative.  And right ne

In another of the continuing series of #Throwback Thursday moments that are here courtesy of the migration of my old photos from Flickr to Google Photos, here is this photo of me and Joel Murray and one of his kids.  This is from 2004 or 2005, so it is 12 years ago.  (The date didn't stick with the Flickr download for some reason.) Joel Murray is a working actor .  And he's a super great dude, too.  We have a relation to him through my sister and her husband.  Won't go into the whole thing, but that's how we ended up here.  Nat and I - before we had kids - stayed in the Murray's pool house for a few nights in Los Angeles.  I have a very vivid memory of this trip with Nat.  It was pretty early in our relationship and this was just.one.of.the.many.things that cemented my feelings about her and made me fall deeper in love with her.  I still remember that trip - this being one of those stops and how it fueled our relationship by building up that shared memory bank o

That photo above with all the terrible glare that comes from my morning walk to the train shows the movie poster for the Art @ the York Theatre monthly film ' Youth' staring Michael Caine, Harvey Keitel, Rachel Weisz - who, Nat can tell you - I have a little thing for.  And Michael Caine?  He's awesome, right?  But, now that the guys on the Stern show are doing phony phone calls with someone who does his voice as "British Actor Michael Caine", I can't keep a straight face whenever I see/hear his name. The film is being shown a week from today: May 11th.  1 pm and 7 pm central.   I continue to promote these showings because I think they're great for the community.  Good on Classic Cinemas for continuing to push forward on the Art @ York series. Here's what the movie is about : YOUTH is about two longtime friends vacationing in the Swiss Alps. Oscar winning actor Michael Caine plays Fred, an acclaimed composer and conductor, who brings along hi

Over the weekend, me and the two girls cut up the seed potatoes that came in these two sacks:  Magic Molly I's and French Fingerling I's.  They were the two most striking varieties that Menards carries and the Magic Molly ones are particularly beautiful.  In cutting up the seed potatoes, the purple almost bled off the knife.  We're going to plant these in these new-fangled 'tubs' that Nat bought me for my birthday from Gardener's Supply earlier in April.  They're driveway-dwelling containers that are easy to move.  I don't want to crowd them out, so we might just put a few seed potatoes in each one and put the rest in my sister's garden raised beds. The last time I posted about potatoes was back in 2013 , so I'm thinking that might have been the last time we had a harvest?  I *think* I planted them last year, but we moved out before they could come in. These fingerlings won't produce as heavily as the varieties that I've planted in

Last week, I posted about the giant hostas that we transplanted over at Nat's parents' house during our move and mentioned that we also moved a few other items at the same time.  One of them is pictured above peeking out of the mulch:  my ostrich ferns. I dug up a few of these clumps of ferns and brought them over late last summer and Nat's mom found a nice shady spot for them to hang out.  I've split up these ferns in the past and had given a few to Nat's mom in the past, so having these come back and survive wasn't our top priority because I knew that we could always split up some of hers. But...when we were over there recently, I spotted the little green parts starting to poke through.   Here's a bunch of the posts about these same ferns over the years here on the blog and you can see how they kind of un-curl as they grow.   These things spread out and multiplied like crazy for me at 274, but how we got them is an interesting story.  Either the ol

The unofficial/official online Coaster Collection here on the blog continues to grow.  Adding this one from Sea Island to the pile of coasters that have been documented here from our trip down there earlier this Spring. You can see the entire Coaster Collection here .  It might not seem like much, but it *is* growing, right?  This Sea Island one gets us up to ten coasters. 1.   Illini Coors light one featuring the 'new' I . 2.   Ted's Montana Grill with quote . 3.   Bell & Harbor out in the Hamptons . 4.   A different Ted's one .   5 & 6.   Two coasters from Saugatuk Brewing Company . 7 & 8.   Disney coasters from both coasts . 9.   Jungle Cruise Cantina from inside the MK . 10.  This one.

Where in the World is this?   If you guessed it was right at the entrance to the Magic Kingdom, you'd be wrong.  This is a replica that is set up in One Man's Dream inside of Disney's Hollywood Studios. Here you leave today and enter the world of yesterday, tomorrow and fantasy.  Don't mind if I do.

The Babe picked out this set of 'Cross Stitch Booster' pins down at the Magic Kingdom earlier this year because she thought they were 'Minecraft' pins.    It is a nice set that she wore on her lanyard for most of the trip.  For those of you who are uninitiated (or just don't care), there's Mickey the Mouse, Dumbo, Pooh Bear and Stitch.  They each have 2 pinbacks on each of them.  The Pooh Bear one is the biggest and the best one, imho. We've started to put some of the girls pins on a corkboard in their room, but since we're not settled, that is just a stopgap measure.  But, even though it is just temporary, these pins are prominent on that board.