Why I Oughta...

What do you do when most of the men on campus are tied up with military programs in 1943 and there's nobody with the free time who can participate in the role of Chief Illiniwek at the University of Illinois?  You introduce "Princess Illiniwek".  Her name was Idelle Brooks and that's her up there in the photo at the top of this post.  I came across this story in a book that I dug out from our bookshelves.  You can see that book below - it is from the News-Gazette and I *think* it came out during the 'Last Dance' time when they retired the Chief.  More on that war-time period in Champaign-Urbana (including photos and other what-have-yous) can be found here . 

Over the break, I went down to Joliet for a little bit of gambling with Nat's Grampy and Great Uncle.  They're regulars there, so they knew the ropes.  Me?  First timer.  Well, that's not actually true.  But I was a first time registrant in their "Total Rewards" program.  The guys played video poker and I poked around at a couple of slot machines.  I ended up - get this - walking away with a few hundred dollars in my pocket!  Beginners luck, I suppose. I also found that they had this little soda machine in the corner of the casino floor.  It is a free-style-like machine, but it is from Pepsi, which was new to me.  This was interesting to me in that it shows how they're removing people from the equation at the casinos.  First it was the change machines and ticket machines.  Where they replaced cashiers.  Now soda machines to reduce the number of waitresses who are walking the floor. 

As another year comes to an end, I figured I'd mark the moment of hitting 365 posts this year.  Once again.  This is the sixth year that I've hit a post-a-day and the fourth year in a row.  Due to a variety of circumstances, I've been fortunate to been able to keep posting here in my diary everyday and while I know there are some of you guys out there that are reading these, the point of this isn't to grow my audience but to flex my writing/creating/posting muscles and to chronicle some small moments/items/places/things in my life while filling up the funnel of my online life.  The years that I hit a post-a-day: 2018 2017 2016 (366 posts due to Leap Year) 2015 2011 2010 I'm looking forward to 2019 and to spending the year posting here on the blog.  There will be plenty of changes but some things will be certain:  we'll chronicle our gardening, pizza-making and vintage finds.  I'm also trying a new resolution that I hope will carry me through all

I was gifted two of these seven-packs of clicker pens for Christmas and they immediately went into my work bag to head to the Aon Center.  Erasable - yes.  Refillable? I guess so.  But who's refilling pens? 

The last time we checked-in on our Christmas Amaryllis, I was hopeful that we'd see a Christmas flower.  Alas, Christmas Day has come and gone and we're still staring at a bud with no flowers.  But, what is most interesting is that this is a 'short' bulb.  I've been - basically - p oisoning the bulb with a 8% dilution of alcohol in an attempt to keep it from getting too tall .  It appears to be working.  But that doesn't change the fact that our bulb isn't going to flower any time soon.   

On Christmas Day, we visited Nat's folks house out in Naperville as we do every year.  And, as I do every year, I ended up taking a little walk to get out of the house.  The weather was quite nice, so I wandered around and took in the neighborhood.  I went out one way and then doubled back to end up in the front yard of the house.  (If you know the house and the orientation, this would all make sense.  Those of you who don't, just trust me that it makes sense.) And out front I noticed that they have a medium-sized Bald Cypress planted near the sideyard that was striking in it's winter beauty.  You can see it above.  Plenty of the needles have dropped.  And all of them have gone orange.  But, plenty of them remain on the limbs.  The reason for posting it here is because our little Bald Cypress - that we planted near our driveway late this Summer - looks similar.  I was concerned that the clinging of the needles to the tree was a bad sign, but based on this species ab

This is a car that runs on the Mantleburg line.  Built in 1999 by Lionel, it doesn't have a box and is very heavy.  The yellow and blue look sharp on the tracks.