Colon Blow

The Day After

2008-09-14T21:34:00.000-07:00

This morning when we awoke and looked out the window, this is what we saw. The rain had slowed over the night and all of the water drained off via the storm drainage system of our community. The Roman Aqueducts got nothing on our municipal drainage system!

Yesterday, an all time record was set for rainfall in the Chicago area, the rainiest day in Chicagoland history. We fared pretty well through all of it. Our crawl space took on water, but I was able to set up a pond pump with a garden hose, pumping the water out from time to time into our ejector sump pump basin (pretty proud of myself for that). Some of the basement carpet got a bit wet from foundation seepage, so we wet vacuumed it a bit and set some fans up to circulate the air. All in all, we are very lucky. A house two doors down got 5 inches of water in the basement. In many suburbs around the area, residents had to be evacuated by boat.

We spent most of yesterday in the house, mostly because the water was so high in the street we were afraid to drive in it. We spent yesterday evening making homemade marinara sauce and pesto sauce from the tomatoes and basil we grew in our garden. We made ourselves a nice dinner and drank a little wine to get through the flood.

Yes, compared to how others have fared with flooding in our area and in our country over this past weekend, we are very lucky indeed.

I Always Wanted A House On A Lake.......

2008-09-13T21:58:00.000-07:00

What would bring Colon Blow out of an over one year blog retirement to blog again? The Great Flood Of September 2008!

These pictures were taken outside of our home today. We have been living here since April of 1994 and have never seen our street flood like this before. Some of our neighbors that have been living here for a lot longer tell us that they have seen this happen before, but I get a different date, decade, etc., from each one of them as to when that was.

It has been raining for over 24 hours, and according to our neighbor Lois we have received over 8 inches of rain (she left her empty garbage can open, and measured it with a yardstick...good enough scientific methodology as far as I am concerned).

Good news is we have not lost power and are only experiencing some foundation seepage. Bad news is what is left of Hurricane Ike is headed our way tomorrow. Stay tuned for further developments!

Friday Flashback: 2007 European Vacation Part 1, The Champagne Region of France

2007-06-22T21:28:00.000-07:00

Those of you that read The Big Finn's Big Blog know that my wife and I vacationed with the TBFs this past May. Although TBF has already blogged about it, I have yet to post my take on that experience...so here we go!

We departed from Chicago on the afternoon of May 16th and landed in Basel the next day at around noon. The TBFs picked us up at the airport, dropped some of our bags at their house and soon we were on the road headed for the Champagne region of France.

I am not at all at ease with air travel, so consequently I do not sleep while flying. My wife does a bit better with air travel and will nap occasionally while we fly. As a result of 13 hours of air travel with little sleep, we both were pretty tired during the 4 hour plus drive to France. As you can see from the above picture, Mrs. Colon Blow finally gave into sleep while in the car by diving into a pile of pillows and blankets.

The next day we drove into Epernay, and toured the Moet Chandon facility. I really did not know what to expect when we toured the grounds. I guess in my mind I was thinking that it would look much like an assembly line plant, similar to a beer brewery.

I was amazed by the network of underground tunnels and cellars under the facility and the surrounding streets filled with thousands of bottles of champagne! I never imagined that the process of making champagne was so slow, manual and very old world.

That same day we walked through the vineyards surrounding Epernay. We found the scenery and surroundings to be quite beautiful and serene.

The next day, we traveled to Reims to visit and tour the Pommery champagne house. We experienced much of the same in terms of the tunnels and cellars, but this house made it a point to place some very interesting art and lighting throughout the cellars which made the tour a very visually stimulating experience.

Finally, I must mention the hotel that we stayed in during this part of the vacation. The Hostellerie La Briqueterie was nice enough, although I would not give it high marks for the room we stayed in or for the aloof service that we received from almost the entire hotel staff with the exception of the night desk manager. I did enjoy the outside garden and regret that we did not spend more time in it while we were there.

In summary, we had an interesting and enjoyable time vacationing in the Champagne region of France. I do not feel it was a good enough experience to justify a return visit in my lifetime, but I am glad to have experienced it and I am left with some very good memories from the trip.

Nespresso Espresso!

2007-06-10T22:30:00.000-07:00

Vacations are full of special experiences, memories and even sensory sensations. For the past few years, we have been vacationing with my sister and her husband (The TBFs) in Switzerland. One of the sensory sensations that always greets me when we wake up each morning at their home is the coffee that they make. It is very different than what I make at home and it is one of the ways that I finally come to realize that I am truly on vacation. The coffee that they make is more espresso tasting than what I brew at home. In previous years, they would brew it by using a Jura coffee maker. They have recently replaced it with a Nespresso machine. We were so impressed with how easy it was to use, we bought one last Sunday at Williams-Sonoma when we were out shopping with my sister (see my previous post). We fired it up today and enjoyed our first Nespresso coffee at our house!

Mind you, I will never give up my Starbucks coffee. However, it will be nice to have a Nespresso now and then while pretending I am vacationing in Europe. Nespresso, take me away!

A Weekend At Chez Renee

2007-06-07T19:14:00.000-07:00

I could blog about the last two weeks in May, describing our vacation with the TBFs (my sister and brother-in-law) in Switzerland, France and England, but I will save that for another time. When we departed Basel the morning of May 30th for home, my sister also left later that same day for a business trip in the U.S. When she completed her business last Friday, she traveled to Chicago to spend the weekend with us.

This is the first time that my sister has spent an entire weekend with us at our house, which she has named "Chez Renee". She usually stays at our mother's condo, which we have now dubbed "Chateau Jo". My sister came in late that Friday night, so rather than go out to dinner, we stayed in and snacked on assorted appetizers that my wife put together and drank some wine (of course).

Those of you that have read my blog for awhile (and as we all know, it would only take about 10 minutes to read every one of my posts) knows that my wife and I run the food pantry at our parish. This past Saturday was a distribution day for our food pantry and my sister generously offered to go with us and help with the volunteer work (she probably also wanted to see for herself that which is such a big part of our lives).

When she got to the food pantry, she decided to help out by making the candy bags we give to the children that come to the food pantry with their parents. She came up with a special mix of candy to put into the bags. I tried to mimic this mix and help her, but due to my lack of patience I soon gave up and let her handle it herself. She met all of our regular volunteers and it was obvious that they enjoyed meeting and talking with her.

One of the best stories I can relate from my sister's visit to the food pantry involves some fresh rhubarb that was grown and donated by one of our parishioners. This is not the first time that this particular parishioner has donated rhubarb from her garden to our food pantry and we always find it difficult to persuade any of the families to take it. This is mainly due to the fact that the overwhelming majority of the families that come to our food pantry are Hispanic and have no idea what rhubarb is! Actually, I know what it is and don't want it either. My sister noticed that one of our volunteers was unsuccessfully trying to give one of our families some rhubarb. My sister quickly intervened and demonstrated how to peel and clean the rhubarb and suggested a quick recipe on how to prepare it. The woman clearly was interested as a result of this explanation and accepted the rhubarb. We were all amazed at how easily my sister accomplished this feat. Maybe she should be in marketing/sales at her company instead of what she is doing now!

That evening, Mom visited and we stayed home and barbecued instead of going out for dinner. We cooked nothing elaborate, just burgers, chicken and vegetables on the grill.

The next day, my wife had a bridal shower to attend, so my sister and I met our mother for lunch and did a little shopping. After that, we just went back to the house and relaxed for the rest of the day.

The next morning, Mrs. TBF left for New Jersey, vowing to stay again with us at "Chez Renee" next time she is in town. We hope so. We enjoyed having her with us and missed her as soon as she departed.

To Blog Or Not To Blog...

2007-06-05T16:47:00.000-07:00

...that is the question: Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of fellow bloggers by remaining silent or to take keyboard in hand against a sea of blogger comments and by posting, end them?"

Methinks I will post!

Not a good day for the Irish!

2007-03-17T19:15:00.000-07:00

I am not a fan of Notre Dame University.

I would not say that I hate this institution and their teams, but I am usually cheering for the other team that is playing against them. I feel this way because it seems that Notre Dame receives preferential treatment by the sports media and by the television networks. Notre Dame can have a mediocre football season and still get a bowl bid because of their fanatically devoted alumni and fans. The media knows that Notre Dame is one of those institutions that fans love, even if they are not an alumni of Notre Dame. A father of one of my friends loved Notre Dame and this father never attended a day of college in his life! Notre Dame seems to hold some kind of strange mystique for some people I guess. It's just like how some people get all excited about celebrating Saint Patrick's Day, and they are not of Irish descent. Somehow I believe these two oddities of loving of a college one has never attended and putting on a green hat while drinking green beer on Saint Patrick's Day are interrelated...it's like some kind of weird Irish-Catholic voodoo spell has been put on the people that fall into this group.

As I said earlier, I am not a fan of Notre Dame University. Obviously I took some pleasure from seeing that the Notre Dame men's basketball team lost in the first round of the NCAA tournament yesterday, the day before Saint Patrick's Day, to lowly Winthrop University.

Did I tell you that I picked Winthrop to beat Notre Dame in the office bracket pool? I think I'll drink me one of those green beers now!

Flashback Friday: Happy New Year 2007!!!

2007-03-16T17:11:00.000-07:00

OK, I know I have not blogged in quite some time. In fact, I have not blogged at all in 2007. What better way to resume blogging again, then to reminisce about how we rang in 2007?

Over the past few years, Mrs. Colon Blow and I have opted to stay home on New Year's Eve. We just do not want to deal with the crazy drunks that are out driving that night. Mrs. CB usually just cooks up a couple of lobster tails, makes a great dinner and we wait for the new year to arrive. Actually, I usually wait alone while she sleeps next to me on the couch. I shake her at about 11:45PM, force feed her some champagne at midnight and shuffle off to bed a few minutes later.

This year we invited Mrs. CB's sister to come over with her husband and two children (my 3 year old niece and 5 year old nephew) for a New Year's Eve sleep over.

We started out the evening with another great dinner and plans to watch the Chicago Bears play the Green Bay Packers after dinner. Unfortunately, watching the Bears v.s. the Packers was a big disappointment unless you were a Packers fan. It was so bad, I did not argue with my brother-in-law when he suggested we switch the station and watch a college football game instead.

Mrs. CB and her sister decided to "tackle" another form of entertainment after dinner with my niece and nephew. They decided to assemble a gingerbread house from a kit that they bought a couple of weeks before. As you can see from the above photo, the experience was quite exhausting for my dear sister-in-law.

We put the children to bed after the gingerbread house was assembled and got down to some serious New Year's Eve partying!

To be honest, we were too tired (and I for one too old) to party very hard. But hey, don't we look like wild party animals in the above photo?

Belated Merry Christmas To All!

2006-12-31T19:02:00.000-08:00

I have not blogged all month, so I guess I should post something quick before December is over!

First of all, I want to wish a belated Merry Christmas to everyone. I hope everyone had a good time with family and friends. I certainly did, but did not really kick back and enjoy the holiday season until about 12:30PM on December 16th. Why? I guess I need to explain a big part of our life that I have not shared on this blog until now.

My wife and I are in charge of the food pantry at our parish. On the first and third Saturday of each month, our food pantry opens it's doors between the hours of 10:00AM and 12:00Noon to provide a bag of food to any family living in the community surrounding our parish. Throughout the spring and summer months that could mean that around 80 to 90 families might come to our parish for assistance. As the weather gets colder, the need increases each distribution until we get the largest distribution of the year, the Saturday before Christmas. On that day, we partner up with another ministry that has been collecting gifts for the children of the food pantry families.

In the weeks that lead up to that big distribution, my wife and I are busy making sure that we have enough bags prepared for that day and for the increasing demand of each distribution that takes place before that day. We are also coordinating our other volunteers to be ready for that day. This is the reason why our personal Christmas preparations don't really start until after the big distribution is over.

On the morning of December 16th we arrived at the parish a little after 8:00AM and there was already a line forming outside the door even though we were not scheduled to open until 10:00AM. At about 9:00AM we let them line up inside to get them out of the cold. Our many volunteers worked hard to make these families as comfortable as possible while they were waiting. Chairs lined the hallways so that some of the families could sit down while our Girl Scouts served them cookies and juice. A five piece brass band from one of our local high schools played Christmas music for the families while another parishioner performed magic tricks to entertain the children. Once we started, each family was given a bag of food, a food gift certificate worth $10 and sent on to meet Santa Claus and receive a gift for each child. When it was all over, we had served over 270 families. Since most of them bring their children with them for this event, about 900 people came through our doors that day! It was a lot of work, but we all felt it was worth it. Since this is about 40 families more than we had last year, I started worrying about serving over 300 families when I went home that afternoon

We bought our Christmas tree the next day at about 4:30PM and OUR Christmas celebrations began. Well, truth be told, I guess our celebrations started when the food pantry doors opened the previous day. That's what Christmas is really all about, is it not?

Thanksgiving 2006

2006-11-29T22:46:00.000-08:00

Before we get too far away from Thanksgiving, I wanted to post a few thoughts and pictures from that week.

I am thankful for many blessings in 2006, but probably the most important one to be thankful for is the safe return of my nephew from Iraq. He joined the Marines before 9/11 occurred and after that fateful day, his ticket was pretty much punched for Iraq. He returned earlier this year to his wife and new daughter and decided to pursue a career in law enforcement. After a few anxious months, he landed a job with a police department in a far northwest suburb of Chicago, Illinois, not far from where he resides. He graduated from the police academy in October and was sworn in as an officer last week. We are very proud of him.

Thanksgiving Day this year was truly spectacular from every aspect. The weather was unseasonably warm, which made our relatively new tradition of deep frying a turkey outside a much more pleasurable experience than on previous Thanksgivings.

I cooked two 14 lbs turkeys to perfection, while drinking beer and smoking a cigar... it does not get any better than that!
Of course Thanksgiving is all about being with family and we had plenty of family with us enjoying our turkey feast.

All in all, we had a lot to be thankful for on Thanksgiving Day, 2006.

Separated At Birth: Mr. Clean & TBF

2006-11-22T22:16:00.000-08:00

Well I had to post some type of retaliation in response to TBF's comparison of Borat to me! I know, I know, ....I went for the easy one.

Flashback Friday: The Big Finn's Finger, Chapter 2

2006-09-28T22:28:00.000-07:00

Ah, Rome! The Eternal City! City of antiquity, romance, beauty and one Big Finn with his middle finger extended.

This picture was taken on March 3rd of this year in Rome. My wife and I traveled to Rome with the TBFs, and my mother, the last time we visited the TBFs in Switzerland. On this particular day, we toured the Coliseum. After spending a couple of hours inside the Coliseum, we decided to stop at a sidewalk cafe down the street from the Coliseum for some pizza and libations. I decided to take a picture of the TBFs enjoying their snack.

TBF saw me aim the camera his way and I got this picture instead.

Flashback Friday: The Big Finn's Finger, Chapter 1

2006-09-21T22:08:00.000-07:00

I was looking through past vacation photos to find some topics to blog on, especially for Flashback Friday, and found this picture. In fact, I noticed that I have more than one photo of TBF flipping off the camera. So at least for this Friday and the following one, the theme will be pictures of TBF and his middle finger.

This particular picture was taken at the top of Mount Pilatus in Switzerland on July 23, 2004. To see some great pictures taken of the Mount Pilatus region by a fellow blogger, visit Canadian-Swiss's blog and go to her September 10, 2006 entry regarding her recent visit to Mount Pilatus.

The story behind this picture is that when we got to the top of Mount Pilatus, we all visited the gift shop. TBF, my wife and I all bought Swiss winter hats. Of course, TBF and I bought the same hat. This is not the first time TBF and I have bought the same hat. I think it is hysterical for both of us to walk around with the same hat on given our difference in stature. By doing that, I end up looking like a miniature version of TBF.

Stay tuned for next week's picture of TBF's finger out and about in another international location!

Happy Birthday to me!

2006-09-19T18:04:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, September 18th was my birthday!

I did not do too much to celebrate on my actual birthday, but this past Saturday my wife and I went to a very expensive restaurant that I have been wanting to try for quite awhile. It is located in Highland Park, a suburb that is about 30 minutes north of Chicago. The name of the restaurant is Carlos'.

Carlos' is one of those restaurants in which the portions are small, the presentation of the food is spectacular and the quality of the food is superb. What distinguishes Carlos' from other high end restaurants is their unique service . While the service is as attentive as any other restaurant in that price range, the staff was very personable, friendly and at times very entertaining. Carlos himself is very involved in the service throughout the dinner and even participated in singing Happy Birthday to me with our waiter.

After dinner, we walked a couple of doors down to another restaurant called Miramar for an after dinner cocktail. While Carlos' offers contemporary French cuisine, Miramar sells itself as a French bistro. Miramar is very busy, loud and casual.

We found a place to sit at the bar and after a few minutes I got up to look for the restroom. A man in about his late twenties or early thirties sitting next to my wife noticed I was looking where to go and pointed me in the right direction. After I walked away from them the following conversation took place between Mrs Colon Blow and who I found out soon later was named Bartholomew:

Bartholomew: "He's a lion".

Mrs. CB: "Actually, his birthday is this Monday, so he is a Virgo".

Bartholomew: "No, I don't believe in any of that astrological crap. What I mean is I can tell by the way he walks, his strut, that he is a lion. You are lucky to have him."

Mrs. CB: "No, he is lucky to have me!"

It should be no surprise to any of you reading this that Bartholomew was already somewhat drunk by the time we encountered him. As most drunks you meet in a bar, he was somewhat obnoxious. However, I sometimes find that some drunks I meet in bars, although obnoxious, can be entertaining if handled the right way. After all, if you don't mind doing the work ( listening and agreeing to inane statements) they can be quite entertaining. Also, after experiencing a very civilized, cultured dining experience, it was like going from class to crass in 60 seconds flat...what an existential rush!

Bartholomew insisted that I have a shot with him. He really did not seem to care about buying my wife a drink or did he seem interested in talking to her...another charming and interesting feature about his personality! He bought me a drink that I never had before, a Jager Bomb. A Jager Bomb is a basically a shot of Jagermeister dropped into a glass of Red Bull. Quite a difference from the $80 bottle of wine we were drinking at dinner about an hour earlier. Anyway, after a few more stories from Bartholomew and after buying him a drink, we left Miramar and made our way home.

All in all, it was a great night way to celebrate my birthday. I got to experience fine dining, meet an interesting personality, went home with the best looking woman in the bar ( my wife made me write that) and learned how to rid myself of that half empty bottle of Jagermeister sitting in my freezer... all in one night! What more could a guy ask for?

Flashback Friday: 22 Years Ago Today...

2006-09-07T22:10:00.000-07:00

...my wife and I got married. How's that for a Flashback Friday, Mr. TBF?

Those of you that know what my wife and I look like now will notice that she got better looking over the years while I went in the other direction. I thought the men were supposed to get better looking as they got older?

When my wife and I got married, my sister was dating Mr. TBF and brought him to our wedding. I thought you all might enjoy taking a look at how both of them looked on that day.
Interesting. After looking at this picture, I guess Mr. TBF would voice the same complaint that I raised above.

Anyway, Happy Anniversary, Mrs. Colon Blow. Thanks for putting up with me for all these years...I love you!

TV Nirvana!

2006-09-06T21:38:00.000-07:00

Yesterday it was delivered and installed; a 40 inch Sony LCD flat screen TV, a two zone receiver, a DVD player and surround sound speaker system.

But what an ordeal it was to have it installed! When we bought this system and set up the delivery date, the salesman walked us over to the woman that schedules this and told us that they had not even opened up the schedule for September and that we were first on the list for the installation. Given what we were looking for them to do during the installation, it was definitely going to be an all day job for the installation crew, so I assumed they would be there first thing in the morning and they agreed that would be the case.

However, the first thing that happened yesterday was that they called to say that they would be arriving between 10:00AM and 12:00PM. My wife took the call and informed me of this. I immediately made good use of the caller id history on our phone and called the installer back. After some complaining by me, he promised to be at our house closer to 10:00AM then to 12:00PM. Two of them arrived at our home at approximately 10:00AM.

They did not leave our house until after 10:00PM that night.

And guess what? I found some speaker wire, that they ran out of our crawl space to the outside to get into the siding, that is still not tucked into the siding and is laying on the ground outside our house. Needless to say, I am not happy with the way the installation went on this. Especially when you consider that ABT charged us $1000 to install this system.

Anyway, it looks and sounds great and we are finally enjoying our family room the way it was intended to be enjoyed.

Only a few more hours....

2006-09-04T21:44:00.000-07:00

What good is a new family room without a kickass, flat panel, HDTV with surround sound? No good, says I! Tomorrow it is finally scheduled to arrive and be installed.
Until then I shall patiently wait. Check back tomorrow; same time, same channel!

When Squirrels Attack!

2006-08-24T17:57:00.000-07:00

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...

2006-08-20T14:28:00.000-07:00

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....

2006-08-06T13:50:00.000-07:00

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

2006-08-01T14:45:00.000-07:00

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!