We just flew - by car - back from my brother Eric and his bride Jen's wedding in Illinois. It was an event to remember! We had a blast and it was a jam-packed three-day weekend.
In fact, between Mary and I, we shot hundreds of pictures. I have nine to share before I collapse into bed...
Here's the happy couple fleeing church to their getaway car (as best man, I was the driver).
Mary and I in front of the church. What a well-dressed, dignified couple!
Did I mention the Halloween-eve reception had a costume theme?
Even Dad and Mom got in to the act.
Mary bares her fangs. I see this image a lot, believe it or not!
Velcome to the party. I vant to drink your Jack Daniels.
My favorite sister Karen and her awesome husband Bud.
Fun! As a result of the shocks, a 3-4mm piece of what doctors thought was a 7+mm stone made a splash on Saturday night after a few Miller Lites.
I carefully recovered the stone and doctors will analyze it next week to determine what in my diet is causing the stones. The decided to magnify and shoot the stone and post it online was clearly a non-medical decision.
I know what you are thinking: What a nice, old black-and-white photo of Dick Butkus that Mark has put on his long-ignored blog as part of his anti-Packer, pre-Monday Night Football frenzy.
Not so quick...
As I discovered when I lived in upstate New York, sometimes the best place to be a Chicago Bears fan is far away from Chicago.
Back in the late 1980s and early 1990s, those Starting Lineup action figures of Bears players were the rage. At an Illinois Toys R Us, those babies would be snatched up before even reaching the shelves. In New York? I could find them in the discount bins...
On Sunday, I was in Target and saw a group of the much-cooler McFarlane NFL figures. A couple of things: First, there were no Cleveland Browns figures for any Target employee to snatch up, should or she be so inclined. Secondly, way in the back, I found a McFarlane Toys NFL Sports Picks Legends Series 6 Dick Butkus Action Figure!
Try to find one of those at an Illinois Target...
These figures are amazingly life-like. In fact, I posed mine in front of my laptop thusly ...
... in front of a turf background and then took a series of photos with my trusty Kodak. I then manipulated one of the pictures a bit in iPhoto to give it a grainy, black-and-white looks and – VOILA! That's the picture at top.
So, it looks like a vintage picture of the greatest Chicago Bears defensive player ever (who my Dad and I met 41 years ago this month at Father and Son night at St. Teresa Catholic Church in Kankakee, Ill.), but it's just a cool reproduction.
I can tell you for a fact that it makes a cool computer wallpaper. So, my gift to Bears fans all geared up for the Monday night blow out of that Green Bay team is this:
These are busy days at the Sweetwood Orchard. Mary and I spend part of the morning tending to our apples.
The previous owners clustered four trees together down the hill in the back 40 providing us, neighbors, groundhogs, deer, birds and worms with both red delicious apples and granny green apples. There might even be some macintosh.
Last year they ripened when we were in Florida and by the time we got to them, they were in bad shape. It was a sad harvest. With an earlier vacation this year, we spied some ripening apples and harvested a few pounds today.
Those VERY red things in the basket are actually tomatoes from the neighbors who were nice enough to bring us some of THEIR harvest. We sent them home with a bag of apples!
Mary plans to make both applesauce and apple pie this year!
The downside: With vacation over, apples ripening, football training camp over and schools opening everywhere, reality is starting to set in. Summer is nearly over! Sigh...
Mary and I got back from Florida Sunday and we had a terrific time! The weather was awesome, the Americano Beach Resort was fabulous as always and we had a blast with Mom and Dad.
I also shot some of my best Florida pictures ever. Here are a few:
This storm cloud spawned a tornado warning one afternoon. We watched and watched for a tornado or water spout, to no avail.
One morning, we spied this boat during sunrise.
Shot from our beach-front room, I captured this sunset one night.
Shot from the pool deck at the Americano, a nice late-day walk along the beach.
Another game of volleyball at one of our favorite haunts, the Ocean Deck.
The area near the Main Street Pier has been spiffed up and new ride have been added.
Reading the obit, I was struck by the reference to his wedding to Aunt Linda which was in Elwood, Ill. way back in 1967. My Dad, brother Eric and sister Karen and I all had roles. I had to try and light candles which involved fire and what seemed to be a large crowd. My Dad rescued my attempts, as I recall.
My grandma had earlier chronicled his Vietnam service in a poem, "An Undeclared War" which is somewhere in my vast collection of everything. It was published in the Joliet newspaper and was a pretty good bit of writing. I knew I got it from somewhere...
Three years later after that wedding, my grandma was gone and things were just never the same. Looking back, 1967 seems like such an innocent time. Or maybe I was just a more innocent me.
Just before dusk, the deer returned. This time, we got to see more the entire family: Mama Deer was joined by two baby deer.
Forgive me for fawning...
I was looking out the porch door when I noticed what appeared to be a deer way up the hill and headed toward neighbor Joe's backyard right next to his house. Mary grabbed the camera and as I slid out the screen door TWO little ones ran back down the hill where Mom kept watch.
In this first shot: Mama Deer stares at me from underneath the apple trees...
In this rather fuzzy shot (let's call it "artsy") the two siblings take off toward the safety of the woods behind neighbor Tony's yard!
Still no sight of the buck. But the herd is growing!
Mary and her Mom, Grace, get ready to blow out the sparklers on Grace's Boston Cream Pie during our birthday celebration Sunday night. We had salad, pasta and sauce, steak and the delicious dessert. All Grace had to make for her own party was the salads and the sauce...
The Fu Dogs and solar lights are courtesy of the clearance bin at Target; the plants were from the local flea market; the cement statues were from a local cement figure store; and neighbor Joe planted the tomato plant (Mary added the cage).
This HEAVY cement guy is from their Easter Island collection, though Mary thinks it looks a little like me ...
... I think I am more like this peaceful Buddha, surrounded by flowers in quiet contemplation.
This angle shows off the Fu dogs and the lights. I lined up a dozen of these lights starting from the deck and wrapping around the patio.
Although the surface of the deck we re-stained last summer has not exactly held up to the harsh winter and a couple of deck washings, we are covering that up with a couple of new lounge chairs and a cool cooler/table Mary found at Sam's Club.
It's been a fun transformation. To put it all in perspective, here's a (small) picture showing a glimpse of the area which is now covered by the patio from right before we bought the house:
OK, I am WAY behind on the blog. So, here is a photo essay to let you know what's been going on lately.
That's Mary and her Mom, Grace, in front of the Seneca Allegany Casino and Hotel near Salamanca, N.Y. We picked up Grace during the Fourth of July weekend and she's been staying with us and having a good time ordering her son-in-law around (kidding!). The casino is our comfort break stop of choice. Today is Grace's birthday, by the way!
That's Jon Moffett. He's a sports writer at The Vindicator who bet me that LeBron James would not be leaving the Cleveland Cavaliers. The loser of the bet, Jon, had to supply doughnuts to the staff. I also won ice cream, dinner and free pop from other die-hard Cavaliers fans, er, suckers.
That's a deer. It's been hanging around our backyard. It gets more brave and less afraid of us with each visit. Our trees have apples and the neighbors have a salt lick. I'll be having salty, applely venison chili in the fall...
That's my Dad hanging with great nephew Kaleb during Kaleb's second birthday in June. Boy, he's growing up fast (Kaleb, not Dad)! We missed the party but ...
... that's Kaleb on the new tractor Mary and I sent him. Kaleb is fascinated by tractors and trucks of all types and he looks like he's ready to get to work!
Our great – and awesome – nephew Kaleb just turned 2!
While Mary and I couldn't join the big bash back in Illinois in person, we were there in spirit. His mom, also awesome niece Angela, sent this picture of Kaleb riding the cycle we sent him at Christmas.
Hmmmmm... Born to be wild!?!
We know he had a great birthday and we can't wait to see him this fall when the family gathers for brother Eric and soon-to-be-sister-in-law Jen's wedding!
Just when you thought it was safe to navigate both the Internet AND your cable channels, Mark's World collides with Keith Olbermann's "Countdown" on MSNBC.
I will relate more of the story later, but for now, here's what television history looked like on Thursday evening:
The esteemed Mr. Olbermann and I actually first traded tweets a week ago. He had asked the Twitterverse if anyone knew of any James Thurber-related baseball stories for his "Friday Night Thurber" segment.
Most people know I am a true-blue Thurberian (it was just about a year ago when I journeyed to the Thurber House in Columbus to receive the Thurber Treat honor) and I immediately thought of the story "You Could Look It Up." In that one, originally published in the Saturday Evening Post in 1941, James tells of a midget baseball player. In my memory, that story had influenced White Sox owner Bill Veeck to send a small person out to pinch hit in 1951.
Keith set me straight, tweeting back at me: "Sadly, no. A very small comedian named Jerry Sullivan played a few games as a stunt in the minors circa 1904. Thurber said THAT was his inspiration. Bill Veeck said the Sullivan story was HIS inspiration, too."
Now, I should have known better than to tamper in Keith's domain: He is a renowned baseball expert. Who better to set me straight? Anyway, it was great to learn that while Keith might be relatively new to Twitter, he actually spends the time to read what people send his way and even respond.
Now, I have made a habit out of snarking at Sarah Palin via Twitter. I think she is a shrill, disingenuous, obnoxious opportunist. That's as nice as I can make it.
But I don't go looking for trouble. :) At work I use TweetDeck as one of the tools to keep abreast of the news and various people like the ex-governor.
When E-online served up this softball – "Did Sarah Palin Get New Boobs?" – I figured I would be one of many who would knock it out of the ballpark with a response like "No, I am pretty sure she still has the same followers."
I noticed it got a few retweets, one of them being, ironicially, Johnny DiLoretto, the Columbus TV personality who handed me the Thurber Treat honor last June. So, I figured i would send it along to Keith for his consideration and, really, forgot about it.
Flash forward to about 8:30 p.m. We had "Countdown" on per usual and Mary was getting dinner together. When Keith introduced "Tweet of the Day," it quickly became clear it was about the Palin tweet from E-online. Even then it did not register that my Tweet was going to be featured. When my little pic and the punchline filled the screen, I said "Oh. My. God!" and Mary almost dropped the salads as she rushed back into the room to catch a glimpse of the screen. I think she got there in time for. "Well played, sobeditor."
So, that's the backstory, such as it is. We've enjoyed Keith since his ESPN days and his original news shows. The addition of Thurber on Countdown is, to coin a phrase, a treat. To be included in a small segment Thursday was awesome and I will be insufferable for a couple more days. Many have commented that he should have caught on to the "S.O.B.-editor" nature of my Twitter ID, but, as I said on Facebook, I guess you have to KNOW me to get the S.O.B.-part right... Still, reveling in the moment was a great way to spend the evening.
Now, the pressure is on. I picked up a few more Twitter followers who probably expect me to be funny and left-leaning all of the time. By my 300th Chicago Bears post, they will likely move on. But they all seem to have very interesting views and I enjoyed trading a bit with a couple of them, especially @pinkearmuffs and @Bubbe5000. I pledge to continue to take on The Alaskan Quitter Twitterer. Someone has to...
The Sweetwoods spent Memorial Day building their new patio gazebo. The reviews on this metal and canvas beauty warned that this was a two-person, two-hour project.
And that would have been accurate except: Bees.
Not just any bees, mind you. Carpenter bees.
FROM WIKIPEDIA
Ever heard of carpenter bees? Neither had we. Until, as we were organizing the parts for the gazebo construction, a giant bee bumbled its way over the patio and went through a small, heretofore unknown hole in the door that leads to the garage!
Carpenter bees are often mistaken for bumble bees or yellow jackets. The key difference, explained the guy at Home Depot where we had fled both for safety and for advice, was that carpenter bees are harder to kill.
Awesome.
ANOTHER WIKIPEDIA IMAGE
He sold us a bottle of industrial-strength bug destroyer which was so powerful, you only mix one tablespoon per gallon of water. He also sold us one of those pump sprayers that also had to be put together, not that the instructions were any help. To get an idea of how much the Chinese truly hate us, build something from their instructions.
I decided to use a lot more that the recommended tablespoon of bee killer and then sprayed down the door and even sprayed two suspicious holes near the garage roof. It should be noted that this bee invasion could have gone on unnoticed forever as this door is never used and is blocked by the tractor mower on the inside of the garage and the grill-that-can't-be-used-because-a-part-fell-off-during-one-of-the-moves on the outside.
We then set about our original task: Building a gazebo. This set of Chinese instructions, frankly, was quite good and the gazebo – a killer Target deal – was soon under construction. However, we barely had the first set of screws in when a couple of the bees returned.
I sprayed them directly. One fell to the ground and got stomped for his trespassing. And then the pattern was set: Attach some screws; scan for incoming bees; Mark would flee off of the top of the ladder screaming like a girl; grab the sprayer; kill bees.
I hate bees, especially large bees that can easily bore through wood. Gnawing an entire arm off would be easy for these satan spawns...
Soon, despite much screaming, the gazebo was done.
THE GAZEBO AND ITS AWESOMENESS...
We added the outdoor bar set we bought way back in Crystal Lake and a couple of chairs so we can gaze out over the Back 40...
Note the bricks stacked on the gazebo side panels. This model had cool little built-in ledges, probably for flowers or some other decor. Our second trip to the hardware store of the day yielded a dozen pavers, my ingenious idea for making sure the gazebo was not going anywhere anytime soon...
AWESOME VIEW...
We have been slowly but surely transforming the backyard. We took out nine trees and added the patio shortly after moving in. Mary landscaped around the patio and the side of the garage last year and added new plants. We resealed the deck last summer, too. This spring, I used the Preen with plant food additive around the entire perimeter of the house (I usually just use the plain Preen to ward off weeds). One of the unintended consequences was that some dormant rose bushes exploded back into life for the first time since we moved here in 2008.
WE HAVE ROSES!
It was a busy day. But we triumphed over bees and the gazebo sure looks great. We celebrated with a couple of frosty pints.
(With apologies to Elton John/Bernie Taupin's "Candle in the Wind.")
Goodbye LeBron James Though I never knew you at all You had the grace to slam dunk the ball While those around you stared.
They made you a Cavalier And they surrounded you with stiffs. They set you up to fail And then they dared give you the blame.
[chorus] And it seems to me you spent this time Like a king without a throne. Never trusting who to pass to When the lane wasn't clear. And who are they to judge you? You're just a local kid Who's talent looms much larger than A city's desire to win.
Shaq was all used up Everybody but Cleveland saw it. Mo, Anderson and West can't hack it And you can't win games alone.
And when you failed Oh the press really hounded you. All that Pluto had to say Was Dan Gilbert did all he could.
[repeat chorus]
Goodbye LeBron James Though I never knew you at all You had the grace to slam dunk the ball While those around you stared.
Goodbye LeBron James All the fans in the other towns Will see you as a team's nucleus And not just a Q Arena draw.
ELTON JOHN, AS SEEN ON THE GIANT SCREEN AT THE COVELLI CENTER
Boy, we swore we'd never go to another concert after we were wowed by Green Day last July in Pittsburgh. Little did we know, Elton John would be coming to Youngstown.
Yes, THAT Sir Elton. In Youngstown. Ohio.
He's a legend. You have to go see a legend.
Well, we scored great seats and were among the lucky 7,000 or so fans who filled the Covelli Centre Saturday night as Elton performed his classic hits for nearly three hours.
Green Day? No. But I gotta tell you, that 63-year-old icon gave them a run for their money. He was absolutely the embodiment of Capt. Fantastic. We had heard he was performing two-and-a-half hour shows as he wound his was to Youngstown after stops in Grand Rapids, Mich. and Toledo. He was just nine minutes away from an even three hours when he finished in Youngstown.
I won't bore you with the set list – if you can think of a top Elton John hit, he probably played it. I was just happy to be there to watch this city come absolutely alive. We hung out a bit downtown before the show and it was, to borrow an express, hopping and bopping. This Valley, which has yet to battle back from the destruction of the steel industry back in the late 1970s, let alone the current economic mess, is in need of a boost and this year has seen some positive business developments: The home of the GM Cruze, a third shift, a growing business incubator, hundreds of call center jobs, a top ranking from Entrepreneur magazine, etc.
But while these developments help with the economic morass, the soul needs nourishment, too, and the Covelli Centre and Eric Ryan are working hard to improve our quality of life. Elton John, "Walking with Dinosaurs," the WWE, etc. It's going to be an interesting summer for the small arena.
I'll have some video later (that was not mine up top - that guy was a lost closer than me!) but here are some pics of a truly magical evening:
THE VIEW FROM OUR AWESOME SEATS!
WE ENDED UP SITTING NEXT TO THE FRANKOS THANKS TO TODD'S SCHEMING!
AFTER THE FINALE, THE CROWD WENT WILD>
THIS FAN GOT HER GIANT EYEGLASSES SIGN SIGNED BY ELTON.
During the encore, after a rousing rendition of "Your Song," Elton told the crowd, "That's your song, Youngstown!"
And it really felt that way! A special night, indeed!
