Why I Oughta...

During a recent trip, we finally found time to sit down and have a beverage in the Abracadabar on Disney's Boardwalk where they have these neat, custom coasters.  It doesn't do any magic tricks or illusions like the "posters" on the wall, but it is cute to see the top hat as cocktail glass being used here, isn't it?   Full [Coaster Collection] is here .  Including this new one, I'm up to 20 total coasters in the collection and 9 (and counting) Disney-specific coasters including this one from the Boathouse , the Flying Fish restaurant , the Skipper Canteen , Raglan Road restaurant in Disney Springs,   the Disneyland Hotel and Walt Disney World resort hotels  as well as the *new* Walt Disney World resort hotel version .

The King of the Ball Tossers came home with this It's a small world pin from a trip earlier this year.  We have a few IASW-based pins, but they're mostly modeled on the little kids in the ride.   This is genuinely one that *he* picked out.  Without any of our help.  Which...I think was a surprise to everyone.   One of the projects I have on my list to kick off is pin boards hung up in the house.  Maybe in the basement?  Or in the kids' rooms?

Another in the series of Walt Disney World construction signs that feature a quote from Walt Disney himself.  This one was on the walls outside of Disney's Hollywood Studios in the area where they are building the skyway near the walkway to the Boardwalk. This is the third of these signs I've featured here.  First one here .  Second one here . This one, too, is sponsored by Stanley.  You can find out the details of the sponsorship (which I find pretty clever!) in this post .

Those were the days.  I was going through some of my personal effects and came across this piece written by Tony Scott at the Kendall County Record (I think?!) that covers some of the shenanigans we were up to back in the early aughts.  I made some of the strongest connections of my career during these JoinCross.com blogging days as Chris Rhodes.  Pretty incredible to think back at how far the Boss let us go with the blog.   Today?  They're probably right to be a bit more careful with their political image.  And who's blogging today anyway?!? Here's post from the archives here on the blog from Dan Johnson-Weinberger that talks about the same thing Tony Scott says :  those were some heady days of GOP blogging. 

As the kids say:  #nofilter.  With the time change, I am seeing dusk more often from the office these days.  This is, quite the view, right?

It isn't a Cookie Puss or Fudgie the Whale , but there's some big news:  our local Jewel is carrying Carvel Ice Cream cakes in their freezer case.  Or...at least it is news to me.  And if you're faced with this decision, you go Carvel over Oreo, don't you?  Who knew that there are three Carvel locations in Illinois ?

Back at the end of October, I posted a photo of the 'coming soon' screens that Marshall Field's Macy's had put up on their State Street windows as part of their annual reveal of the Holiday window tradition.   Soon after the calendar turned over to November, they opened up the windows for public viewing and while the ones on State Street are traditional ones, they now have set up two different ones on the Randolph Street sides. First...when I say 'traditional ones', I mean...holiday stories of some sort.  This year, it isn't so much a linear story where the you can see kids racing from one window to the next to learn the different storylines, but rather just a set of different windows, each in a feeling/spirit. But, this is the 50th anniversary of doing animated figures in these windows, which is cool and that's why they've organized these two separate windows on Randolph - to kind of celebrate their history. And, much to my delight, look