Why I Oughta...

It is sure feeling like Spring around these parts.  But, this columnar Oak tree that I came across on a walk sure isn't in the mood to bud out.  It is still clinging to it's Fall leaves.  This is a parkway tree, so it was planted by the forestry or arborist division of the Village of Downers Grove public works department as part of their parkway tree program.  I mentioned/covered the species that they have available in this post about our own parkway tree at the very end of 2019 and sure enough...one of the Spring-planted trees are Oaks.  They list them as (various species) in their handout . Might be a Columnar English Oak?  This Monrovia listing shows it down to Zone 5 .  This is a lovely parkway tree and the marcescence adds some drama to the curbside that's for sure.  I've covered the concept of marcescence (trees like this one retaining leaves through all of/part of Winter) on the blog.  And we see it with our own Oak trees and the row of Frans Fontaine H

Via Little Caesars corporate site here .  This is not my photo.  I saw this photo (above) in this video from Company Man on YouTube ( He's a good follow there . Interesting brand histories and some speculation/rationale for why they succeed/fail.  That's what I'm pretty sure is the first franchise of Little Caesar's in Warren Michigan.  On the Little Caesars corporate site , they list 1962 as the year of the first franchise and include this photo. At first glance, I love just everything about this photo.  The name (Little Caesar's Pizza Treat), the sign (the fonts, the shape, the l-shaped light bulb row down the side and across the bottom).  Then, inside the place, those light fixtures hanging from the ceiling.  The fact that they have a lamp in there.  The fact that the store is split up 50/50 front-to-back so from the outside you get a peek into the kitchen.  The entirely glass front of the store.  The employees wearing white with paper hats.  And that car

I was in the KotBT's room recently and saw that Nat had a stack of vintage felt pennants on his dresser that she was dealing with/sorting in an attempt to put some up on the walls of his room.  They ALL were pretty neat, but there are a couple from the collection that I think are worth documenting on this here blog. The first one is this one you see above - Fighting Illini Football Rose Bowl 1984.  This pennant is one of MINE - from when I was a kid.  I remember it well.  It came - along with a whole host of boxes from my childhood - from my parents when they moved out of my childhood home.  It was one of a few pennants that they (somehow??) saved. This one is of particular interest to me - and I love that it is going in our boy's room.  I had a sister that was a number of years older than me.  And one of my earliest memories is of visiting her down at the Six Pack in Champaign during her freshman year.  I would have been four or five years old when she was there.  And thi

A few years ago, I came across and brought home a few Tawaski Scrubbing brushes on a trip to Tokyo.  Here's that post .  On the next few trips that I've been there, I sought out and brought home some 'made in Japan' brushes and we used them and gave them to family.  I really like them, but they don't (at least for us) last long because when food gets stuck in them, it is time to toss.   In Japan, you can find these things in different forms at stores and markets, but quite a few of them are NOT made in Japan.  If you flip the package over, you'll see that they're made in Sri Lanka or somewhere else.  I'm happy to pay $10 or $12 for a real-deal Japanese one.  But those other ones?  Meh.  Especially when I'm not sure how long they'll last before the left-over scrambled eggs that are stuck to the pan infest the brushes.  That was, until, we went to our first US-based Daiso called Hello Tokyo up in Niles .  At Hello Tokyo - everything (well..

Right at the end of last year, I posted a photo of a Wave Hill Garden chair and talked about how I was struck by the design of the chair - and the fact that it wasn't a traditional adirondack chair that you see everywhere.  We had spent some time in Luxembourg Gardens in Paris last year and fell in love with lots of things - including their chairs - and have been thinking about how I bring a chair or two to our backyard and garden.  The Wave Hill chair seemed to scratch me right where I itch. A gardener named Dan Benarcik has developed plans for the chair and is selling them for $35 (the updated plan version) on his site . I put the idea of creating a chair like this on my 2020 Gardening To-Do List .  #11 on the list is to 'build something' like these chairs (or a raised bed).  I haven't sprung for the plans (yet), but I've been nosing around the Web for some additional inspiration.  I came across this post on Reddit that featured a photo of a modified Wave

And it was great.  I grabbed one of these Cherry Bublys off the shelf and was impressed with the experience.  And the cost.  $0.69 for a can isn't terrible, right?  Target is selling the 8 packs for $4.39 or about $0.55 per can.  Not a terrible markup.  Let me tell you: I'm not an Amazon guy.  Nat is the Amazon buyer in our house.  And we use it a ton.  And what the company has done with PRIME and same day/next day is really quite unbelievable.  But, knowing that I'm not an "Amazon guy", I can honestly tell you:  the store is a neat experience.  However...if you look up, you get startled.  The cameras up in the ceiling are terrifying.  But, I suppose that's the tradeoff for the convenience.  I have to wonder if they'll make them a little bit more friendly or hide them in some way going forward. I also can't help but wonder if these initial Amazon Go stores are going to be like the new minor leagues in baseball:  just using it as a data modelin

In two-tone brown.  Saw this as we were heading south on I-355 recently and I absolutely INSISTED that Nat use my phone to snap a pic of this beauty.  Paint it two-tone blue (powder blue on top, navy on the bottom) and this IS the Dream Machine.  As named by my childhood friend Steve Blocker. Just look at the length of this thing.  Can you imagine driving this?  It almost seems more appropriate to a church group than a normal family, doesn't it? The Dream Machine was my Dad's van that was a fixture of my childhood.  So many memories in that van.  Lots of laughs.  Some embarrassment.  And a bunch of bonding.  All in a van.  Ours was a 1978, so if this one is of the same vintage, that'd make this a 42 year old van.  That is still on the road.  Incredible.