When Squirrels Attack!
It is interesting to note that this incident happened the same weekend as the previous two blog entries.
My father-in-law is a retiree of
ITW. This year, ITW hosted an outing for it's employees and retirees at
Arlington Park, a horse racing track which happens to be one of mine and his favorite places. He was allowed to bring one family member, so he invited me. Free food, free booze and admission...too bad they did not provide the money to gamble with too! Anyway, we both had a good time.
My father-in-law left his car at my house and we drove to the track together. After the races were finished, we went back to the house and visited with Mrs. Colon Blow for a few minutes. When he decided to go home, we all went outside and were surprised to see a squirrel sitting on the roof of his car.
We all thought that was pretty cute, until we walked up to the car. When he opened the door he immediately began to wonder why there were small, black pieces of rubber strewn all over the passenger seat of his car. My father-in-law had left the front windows of his car open about an inch. It appears that the squirrel had chewed and destroyed about 4 inches of the rubber insulation around the front passenger window of his car.
We have several theories as to why this squirrel would choose to do this. The first is that we discovered a squirrel nest in a tree directly next to his car. Maybe the squirrel was trying to get into it to find food for it's young ones. The second thing we learned was that the son of one our neighbors leaves his car window open all the time with food in it, and that the squirrels take food whenever they want.
My wife's theory is that her father is always getting leftover bags of peanuts from Wrigley Field where he works. He uses these peanuts to feed the squirrels in his neighborhood. She thinks that the squirrel could smell the peanuts and was trying to get into the car. I think she is correct along with perhaps one of the other reasons I mentioned above.
Whatever the reason, I am keeping my car parked in the garage with the windows closed!
Another day, another suburb...
I'm being chastised for not blogging more often, so here's a little something we did the same weekend of the last blog I posted.
Some Saturday evenings when my wife and I have nothing to do and no one else to do anything with (sniff, sniff), we drive into the suburb of Evanston, Illinois. This is something that we have just come to enjoy over the last couple of years. Evanston is located about 30 minutes to the east of our home and has quite a nice downtown area filled with different businesses, churches, restaurants...actually, quite a bit of everything.
In my previous blog, I wrote about spending an evening in Park Ridge, Illinois. What is interesting to point out is how very different these two suburbs are. Park Ridge is a very affluent city, but it is new money, not inherited wealth, that the population has. They seem to be very Protestant, very white and very much seeking a life that is safe, predictable and on the conservative side politically. Remember the concerts in the park I described in my last blog? At the end each symphony concert, the entire audience gets up and sings along with the orchestra's rendition of the Star Spangled Banner. That is Park Ridge, Illinois; God fearing and flag waving.
In contrast to this, Evanston, Illinois is probably the place you would want to live in if you felt like burning the old Stars and Stripes. I am probably exaggerating a little, but it does seem to be the antithesis of Park Ridge, very diverse in it's population, money, religions, etc. It is a place that has an active artistic and creative culture, a place where the different is welcomed and the mainstream is shunned.
Why do I bring this comparison to your attention? No special reason, I just find it interesting. But what I find more interesting are the restaurants that are available in Evanston. One that we discovered that weekend is called
Tapas Barcelona.
Dinner can be enjoyed in their outside patio area when the weather allows. The night that we went there it was quite warm and crowded, so we dined inside. The inside has an eclectic decor, a little tired and worn, but that is its charm.
They have a huge selection of tapas, the quality and preparation of the food is excellent and best of all, it is very inexpensive. A pitcher of sangria, and four tapas dishes cost us under $45 dollars.
Next time you're in Evanston, Illinois, check it out...and bring your own flag.
Friday, in the park....
This past Friday evening, my wife and I decided to drive to the suburb we lived in over 12 years ago, Park Ridge, Illinois. During the summer months, the
Park Ridge Fine Arts Society sponsors free concerts in the park located in front of the Park Ridge City Hall. While we lived in Park Ridge, we really enjoyed those Friday summer evenings in the park, walking the short distance from our condo to the park with our lawn chairs, a picnic dinner and of course a bottle of wine. Even though we have moved to a suburb 20-25 driving minutes to the northwest, we try to attend a concert there at least once a summer. The weather finally cooled off a little this past week, so we were looking forward to a very pleasant summer evening.
Most of the concerts sponsored are performed by the Park Ridge Fine Arts Symphony Orchestra. The performances they provide are obviously not of the caliber of a major metropolitan symphony orchestra, but hey, did I mention that it's free? In addition to that, after about a half a bottle of wine each, we think they sound just fine.
On some evenings they sponsor other artists. This past Friday evening, they sponsored
Corky Siegel's Chamber Blues, which tries to combine the two very different musical styles of classical chamber music and the blues. Corky Siegel has been around the Chicago blues music scene since the mid '60s when he and Jim Schwall formed the Siegel-Schwall Band.
I wasn't sure how I was going to like the concert, but I was interested in seeing a Chicago blues legend live (and did I mention it was free?). Imagine hearing a blues harmonica or blues piano played against a viola, violin and cello...kinda weird at first. After the first song, I turned to my wife and commented that it was OK, but I was not sure that I was all that wild about this musical experience. As the concert went on, we found ourselves enjoying the music, so much so that by the end of the concert we both decided to buy their CD (a little overpriced, at $20 dollars, but hey, did I mention that the concert was free?).
Hmm...maybe it was the bottle of wine that made them sound so good.
The Birth of Colon Blow
Well, I finally went and did it...got around to creating a blog of my very own. Obviously I created it so that I can post the going ons of my life both in text and in pictures and to also post my ideas, opinions, rants and raves. Unfortunately I really don't have much to say today and so this blogs' first post comes in as a whisper instead of a scream.
The one thing it does accomplish immediately is to comply with a demand of my brother-in-law,
TBF. I have been posting comments on his blog site as an anonymous poster, and he recently instructed me to get my own Blogger account. He may come to regret this request some day.
I will say this, it was quite fun to play around in this software, hacking away at the html script to get the pictures I want displayed at the top of my blog, to position the text, etc. I might want to make some more changes to layout of this blog in the future, but this will do for now.
This killed quite a bit of time at work, but it is now time to go home. More to come later!
We all thought that was pretty cute, until we walked up to the car. When he opened the door he immediately began to wonder why there were small, black pieces of rubber strewn all over the passenger seat of his car. My father-in-law had left the front windows of his car open about an inch. It appears that the squirrel had chewed and destroyed about 4 inches of the rubber insulation around the front passenger window of his car.
We have several theories as to why this squirrel would choose to do this. The first is that we discovered a squirrel nest in a tree directly next to his car. Maybe the squirrel was trying to get into it to find food for it's young ones. The second thing we learned was that the son of one our neighbors leaves his car window open all the time with food in it, and that the squirrels take food whenever they want. 
