Happy Thanksgiving

Enjoy the turkey dinner and time with family and friends.

And so the Snow Starts

I was mowing the grass in a t-shirt on Thursday to waking up to snow this morning.  Granted not a lot of snow, but it means the temperatures have fallen 30-35 degrees in two days.  Here we go......snow shoveling anyone.  Really hard when you figure it might not be 60 degrees again until May 2017.

Chicago Trip

As mentioned in the previous post, Jo was in Phoenix for a couple of days before flying to Chicago for her board work.  This involved a couple of dinners where spouses were invited, so I headed down on the train to join Jo.  While Jo was in meetings I had some time to catch up with my sister and visit another Chicago museum - we are slowly working our way through all of them (might take another 5-6 years to hit them all, by which time there will probably be a whole new set of them).

We took in Chicago's Radio and TV museum.  Fun museum with interesting displays on Chicago TV that both of us remember from our childhoods.  Not sure what it says when things you grew up with are now deemed museum worthy - can't be that we are getting old.  We really enjoyed watching some of the clips from Johnny Carson's show.  It was a nice visit and the weather couldn't have been better as it in the mid 60's each day - always a treat in November.

As for the photo, just had to have a picture of the giant Lincoln encouraging us to vote.

Go Illini, Go Badgers

Last weekend was our two schools playing each other in football at Madison.  So since we were guaranteed a win for one of our schools we headed over to enjoy some college football.  We drove over on Friday and picked up dinner at Teddy Wedgers - a meat filled pastry that is sold around the corner from our condo.  Very tasty and quite filling, we will definitely be trying it again.  Then we headed over to the Kohl Center to try and score some last minute tickets to one of the early games for the Badger basketball team.  Since they were playing Western Arkansas we figured that we wouldn't have any problem buying them either on the street or the ticket booth at the last minute.  Oops on our part - we could only find single seat tickets, even from the ticket brokers/scalpers on the street.  So instead we headed over to the Union and caught a movie - Captain Fantastic.  Fun flick, but a bit weird.  On the way home we picked up some Krispy Kreme doughnuts and milk to finish the night off on a sweet note.

Saturday morning we tried out another of the local diners, Lazy Jane's, for breakfast. Then it was time for the game along with Kathy and John.  Everyone was all bundled up since although the day was sunny it was a bit on the chilly side.  Wisconsin pretty much dominated Illinois so the game wasn't exactly a cliffhanger.  But since the home town team won, most of the local folks were happy.  Afterwards, it was back to the condo for pizza and exciting games of Tenzi (a dice game).

We headed back home on Sunday since Jo had to fly to Phoenix in the afternoon for work.

The Real Reason We Went to the Admirals Game

I figured we should come clean on the real reason we decided to attend the Admirals hockey game last Saturday.  There was a bobble head give-away and as you may know Jo has a major collection of bobble heads.  The real bonus was that the bobble heads in question were Donald and Hillary bobble heads dressed in an Admirals uniform.  Some day these will be major collector items - or at least that is what Jo keeps telling me.

What a View

We originally were planning a nice quiet weekend hanging around the house, instead we landed up filling up Saturday with events around the city.  We started off with getting a tour of the new office tower that Northwestern Mutual is constructing.  This was a great tour as we got to see everything from floors that are still under major construction to some of the spaces that are almost finished - just needed the cubicles to be added.  One highlight was riding up to the 32 floor using the skip hoist (that's the construction elevator that rides on the outside of the building; no one seemed to know why it is termed a skip hoist).  Our tour guide was the project manager so we got to hear about the technology that is built into modern office spaces - such as the large number of white noise generators to make the open concept spaces quiet and workable to the raised flooring the office spaces rest on to allow air conditioning, electrical, and the ever important technology wiring to run underneath.  It will be quite the building once completed with magnificent views across the lake and around town from the 32nd floor.  I would recommend anyone visiting to insist that Jo give you a tour of the building after it finishes next year.

Afterwards we headed over to the Art Museum to take in the newest exhibit - an overview of German Expressionism in Cinema in the 1930's.  Kind of a weird exhibit for my tastes, but then I've realized that I don't really get anything that doesn't reflect actual things/events.  Same reason that abstract art doesn't usually interest me that much.  With this exhibit I wasn't entirely sure that the directors and writers of these movies just didn't need some strong psychotropic drugs to tame the unusual thoughts bouncing around in their heads.  But if the point of all art is to make you think and discuss it - then I guess this exhibit worked since Jo and I spent dinner trying to figure it out.  Needing some drinks and food after that exhibit we hit Buca Di Peppo for dinner.  Great Italian food and their Old Fashioned was very tasty and really hit the spot.

We finished up our day downtown by attending the Admirals hockey game at the Panther arena.  This is a new venue for the Admirals since they left the Bradley center (due to the Milwaukee Bucks building a new arena that won't be conducive to hockey).  Very different feel in the Panther arena since you are much closer to the ice and can really get a new appreciation for the speed of the game along with the collisions that happen regularly.  It was an exciting game with a total of 8 goals scored and the Admirals coming out on top.

We spent Sunday just lazing around the house reading our backlog of newspapers and otherwise recharging our batteries.

At Least the Weather was Nice

It is fall and that means trying to see as many college football games as we can squeeze in.  So, we traveled to Champaign, IL this last weekend to watch our Illini take on Minnesota.  We joined John and Linda and had a lovely trip down from the Chicago area as traffic was actually manageable for once in Chicago.  Friday afternoon, Jo spent some time at the local Champaign Northwestern Mutual office visiting and getting to know some of the representatives working from there.  Afterwards, we joined a few of them for cocktails and got an update on all the changes happening around the campus area.  Most of which seemed to building a large number of apartment buildings or planning to build more.  We couldn't figure out where all the students were coming from to fill all these new buildings.

After cocktails we headed over to the homecoming parade.  John and Linda's youngest daughter is in the Marching Illini so we walked along with the band for a while before heading over to the pep rally on the Quad.  I use the term pep rally loosely since it wasn't really all that peppy or interesting.  We quickly decided that dinner seemed a better use of our time and headed to Papa Del's for our fix of our favorite pizza for this trip.  The pizza didn't disappoint although the Cub's game playing on the TV's in the restaurant certainly did.

Saturday morning we headed over to Memorial stadium for an early game.  When we planned this trip earlier this year, we were a bit concerned about a late October game and staying warm in the stands.  However, the football gods brought out temperatures in the mid-70's so there were no concerns about having enough layers, but rather would we all be sun burnt.  Unfortunately, the only nice thing about the afternoon was the sun and temperatures as our team didn't look to good on the field.  But we still had a positive buzz from the pizza the night before and how can you not enjoy an afternoon watching college football catching all the energy the students bring.  A quick afternoon nap after the game got us all refreshed for a excellent dinner before we got to see the newly renovated Assembly Hall (sorry, State Farm center - but the Assembly Hall to all of old timers) for a concert by Pentatonix, an acapella group.  It was an enjoyable concert and the revamped Assembly Hall looks ready for a season of Illini basketball.

Sunday after brunch to make sure John and Linda's daughter had a good meal before we left, we headed back home and a 20 degree change in temperature.