Why I Oughta...

As part of the 'Share a Coke' campaign, it seems that the fine folks at Coca-Cola are running some college football team logos on their bottles.  Above...you'll see the Block I from what I'm pretty sure is the Fighting Illini.  More on this in a moment. Below, you'll see the other side with a football helmet. Here (below) is another football team logo - this one from Ole Miss.  I bought both of these in Memphis.  Hence...why I was uncertain if the Block I is *really* the Illini?  It *has* to be, right? The problem is that Coke is using the OLD Block I.  They updated it a few years back to include these rounded inside corners.  See the brand guidelines here .  Or here .  Below is the "new" Block I - with those rounded inside corner.  Wonder how that happened? I've posted Coca-Cola products here on the blog before including these from Singapore .  And these from France .  And this one that ALMOST got my name right .  

At the beginning of the month, I posted a couple of photos of the beginning of Menards Christmas setup at their Bolingbrook store.  The 'Enchanted Forest" is something that I look forward to every year as they always have some new items to check out.  Anybody who has been in a big box store during the holidays the past few years will attest that there is a HUGE market for inflatable outdoor decorations.  I've succumbed to the inflatable trend and we have a couple of BIG ones we put out at Halloween .   But, Menards is also holding strong with the blowmold market.  They put out holiday blowmolds for Halloween - and I've covered them here on the blog before - and looking at the analytics of this site, that's a popular post, so plenty of people are looking for Halloween Blowmolds from Menards.   There's more Halloween blowmolds in this post from 2011 , too.    They also do quite a bit of Christmas blowmolds as part of their Enchanted Forest incl

We were recently at Wannemakers in Downers Grove to pick up a few Fall items (cabbages for the outdoor planters and the like) and - like I usually do when I'm there - I ended up wandering around their fountain and statue area.  I last posted about the fountains in 2018 here on the blog when I was dreaming about a backyard fountain in various shapes and sizes .  I think I've settled on either a bubbler or one of those fountains with a large, ground-level bowl/pool.  (more on that in another post, I suppose...) And then earlier this Summer, I posted about how I've been looking to find another cast iron gnome to add to our garden and how they're either super expensive (vintage) or hard to find (not available very often at retail, so I've been hunting at Estate Sales and Flea Markets), and turned my attention to a possible concrete/stone Gnome that I found from Henri Studios.  The guy I started to be drawn to was named Ziggie and he's more than 2 feet tall.

As I was walking around Memphis on my recent trip , I came across a few of these 'Duck' plaques in the street around the Peabody Hotel.  Turns out, they have a "Duck Walk of Fame" and a few weeks before I arrived, they inducted Cybill Shepherd into the Hall.   From the Daily Memphian on September 6, 2019 : Actress, singer, model and Memphian Cybill Shepherd was honored in her hometown on Sept. 5, when she was inducted into The Peabody hotel's Duck Walk Hall of Fame.  Shepherd, 69, said during the event that she always wanted to join Elvis Presley, Danny Thomas and other influential Memphis figures who are immortalized on the sidewalk outside the landmark Downtown hotel. Hadn't thought much about Cybill Shepherd in years - but I remember my parents watching Moonlighting with her and Bruce Willis back in the day.  T here's been some chatter about a reboot of the show , so maybe she'll get even more exposure in the future? The plaques a

We were at Menards recently (of course we were) and in addition to all their Christmas decorations being out on display , we took a spin through their other seasonal section including the O Gauge train setup.  There were a few interesting buildings that I haven't seen before including a branded Starbucks store and this vintage-looking Wally's Shell station .  But, this grocery store - the Piggly Wiggly - is one of the standouts.  The product listing on Menards site is here where you can find all the details. (Well... maybe this UFO scene with an animated claw device pulling a cow into the belly of the ship is a standout, too!  Or...maybe this odd Taco Bell with a drive-thru ? The Piggly Wiggly is a nice Wisconsin-centric addition to the line of buildings that Menards continues to put out every year.  There are more than 50 Piggly Wigglys in Wisconsin - including the only one I've ever been to in Lake Geneva. Here, below, is Menards video that shows off that lit

Yesterday, I posted about the lobby of the Peabody Hotel in Memphis and mentioned that this was my first time visiting the city.  I didn't get to see much of that the city has to offer - no Beale Street, etc - but I did have bbq from Central BBQ (which was recommended) and made a visit to another big landmark in town.  That's what you see in the photo above:  the entrance gates to the Fedex World Headquarters. You can find quite a bit online about the Headquarters project related to the building and grounds and the various building and LEED certifications that the project undertook, but I haven't been able to find any documentation about the landscape and landscape design.  And that means that I can't - with certainty - understand what is going on with the entrance hedge that you see above. I snapped this photo out the van window while we were waiting to be admitted to the grounds and I was struck by the boxwood hedge that is in place out front of the campus

I've written pretty extensively on my love of columnar trees here on the blog.  We have this stand of eight Frans Fontaine European Hornbeams (that you see some of above) and have this Weeping White Spruce that I picked up this season in our yard.  And I've posted multiple times about the columnar street trees of Tokyo over the years.  My love of columnar, narrow trees is something I've think I've well established here.  But, that doesn't mean that I  know everything about them! Recently, I read a note from Amy in from Pretty Purple about her take on narrow trees and thought it was worth sharing here.   Those of you who read the blog might remember Pretty Purple Door from my post earlier this year talking about tulip bulb colors and how she outlined some of the ways to make colors work together (add yellow!). In her post about narrow trees, she talks about how/why these trees work in suburban yards (space, duh!).  She includes some varieties that are