Filed under: Illinois, Photos Tagged: Illinois, iphone, photography

This is an amazing story about beauty, perception, art, and what we see, or don’t see, as we go about our daily lives. Do you stop and notice, enjoy, live in the moment with something beautiful or do you walk past without a glance, without a thought for what’s happening right in front of you. [...]

Perusing Bandcamp for new music and ran across this band…  really like them.   Filed under: In My Opinion, Music Tagged: bandcamp, Green or Blue, Music

Karen and I recently started watching Damages.  Season one is now complete and we have moved on to Season two.  Wow.  This show rocks.  So far I can honestly say it’s one of the best television shows I’ve ever watched.  From writing to directing to acting to cinematography… stellar.  Glenn Close abso

Ever have a thought, something you think you want or need to do, and if you don’t do it right away you forget what it was.  That was me today.  I had this great idea for a blog post.  It was right there, bam,  all shiny and ready for me to wax on about whatever [...]

I’m a geek.  I admit it.  I love all the little techie gadgets (yes I have an iPhone, a Kindle, a laptop, a desk top, external hard drives, digital cameras, and wifi enabled dvd players and tv).  I do.  I like getting something new and figuring it out.  I also love all things art… painting, [...]

Today is Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day.  I was looking up quotes by him and was so inspired.  Here we are, so many years after that tragic day, and his words still ring true.  Whether you agree with him or not, and really how could you not when all he really cared about, talked [...]

ATRA… It’s cycle ten, people. Can’t believe it. 19 months since this all started and only just over nine months to go. I saw my oncologist today. The every three month visit. I had a couple of concerns as my liver counts had been elevated for awhile. My GP even ordered an ultrasound last week [...]

I have a high aesthetic.  Meaning that I have an extreme sense of the beautiful.  I don’t want to say that I can judge for others what is beautiful, but for myself I see beauty everywhere.  I used to say I saw photographs in everything, which is true since that’s my medium, but really it’s [...]

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog. Here’s an excerpt: The concert hall at the Syndey Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 18,000 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 7 sold-out performances for that many [.

It’s Friday morning.  Karen has the day off, yay!, and is sleeping in.  It was a rough night… the dogs restless, for whatever reason.  We had to let them out a couple of times.  My honey got the duty last night so she deserves a good sleep in.  I’m trying to be quiet out here, [...]

or not…. We had such a great two days over at the kid’s house.  A really lovely Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Pierogi making and toy building and a walk and elf set up on Christmas Eve.  Such a nice day.  Karen makes a mean pierogi… or several of them.  So good.  A new Christmas [...]

Here we are… In another waiting room. Lordy… We have both been to the dentist, the eye doctor, had our physicals, been to my regular appointments, and now we are at the ankle & foot doctor for Karen’s last, hopefully, follow up on he heel break/bad ankle sprain. We have blitzed the health scene here [.

We went out a couple of nights ago in search of Candlestick Lane in Urbana. A friend, thanks Ann!, told us about it. We were trying to conjure up some Christmas spirit. Ann had an idea where it was in past years so we went out..  pups in the car, homemade hot chocolate in our [...]

One teachers approach to preventing gender bullying in a classroom. Filed under: Global Community Tagged: bullying, gender bullying, preventing bullying

Karen and I decided the other day that she would take a day off during the week and we would go somewhere.  Our original plan was to head to Indianapolis for a couple of days, spend the night, that sort of thing.  The dilemma… the pups.  We wanted to take them, and could have, but [...]

Karen and I always talk about how we believe the people in our lives are it.  Nothing, material and otherwise, compares.  Riches mean nothing without having people you love and who love you.  It’s the only thing that’s important.  Period.  The end. If you think about the most important events in your life,

Weston thinks he deserves to have all of my attention… He probably does. Filed under: Weston Tagged: dogs, Weston

Dry… oh, yes… I need water! When a person thinks about moving to the midwest it’s obvious to dread the humidity of the summer and the freezing cold of the winter. What’s not so obvious is how chapped your lips get or how dry your skin becomes. It’s not something you would think about really. [.

It’s rare for a movie to make you laugh and cry alternately in an effective, non-fabricated way. The Help was able to do just that. I don’t like being led through a film. Or at least feel like I’m being led. You know the type I mean. When you feel like, oh, this is where [...]

This just made me cry… Though I am really enjoying and loving my life here in Illinois, Oregon will always be my home. Filed under: Oregon, video

I have been mulling over what to write for my Thanksgiving blog this year. So much mulling that Thanksgiving came and went without so much as a peep from this girl. But today, sitting here with the rain coming down and the weather turned cold I thought I might just dive in. Thanksgiving. A holiday [...]

I walked out into the backyard this afternoon to throw the ball a little for the boy.  He’s been restless today.  Sometimes he gets like that.  Usually chewing on a bully (which I gave him) or throwing the ball a couple of times in the house (which I did), or letting him sit on my [...]

It’s been such a busy time.  We went to San Jose for Don’s 80th birthday weekend before last.  We spent time with family and had an excellent time.  So nice to be a part of that clan.  I’m lucky.  I have my side of the family, but I also have Karen’s.  Lucky.  They love me, [...]

I guess there is no question… Filed under: Blog Info (changes, etc.), In My Opinion Tagged: blogging

We are on the train, the Saluki Northbound, making our way toward Chicago. The first leg of our journey to San Jose. Train travel rocks. I’m a fan. The weather turned cold and wet in Illinois today. A 25 degree drop in temperature from where we were at yesterday. That’s Illinois. T-shirts yesterday, fleece jacke

Every once in awhile I get a hankering to mix things up here at the Think Tank. Today I changed the blog theme I use. I like this one. I realize some people have more of a problem with the white writing on the black background, but I’m going to test it out for a [...]

We had such a fantastic weekend.  So great that I’m tired today.  OK, maybe to be more accurate I should say that I’m partially tired from having to get up in the middle of the night to the let the dogs out.  For some reason, and this is a rare event, they both had to [...]

We went for  little walk today.  We needed to get the pups out and about, moving their little feet, so we took them over to Mahomet.  It’s a little burg 10 minutesWest of  here with a couple of great places to walk.  One, the Mabery Gelvin Botanical Gardens and the Lake of the Woods, and [...]

I couple of quotes recently added to my inspirations page.  I used to have one up in my room when I was in college, and the other, later, up in my office. In the depths of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer. ― Albert Camus Whatever you can do or [...]