Looking Up

It's a bird...no, it's airplanes. Loud, crazy, air show airplanes.

London Signage

These should probably be labeled under "Time Warp"--I was in London a few years ago and loved their friendly "Cheers!" and their signage.

Dedications

Last night I opened up a new book (The Invisible Hook, by Peter Leeson, if you must know) to find a rather unusual dedication page:

So then that got me thinking- first of all, did she say yes? The powers that be at Google found me the answer (she did) but this also got me thinking, what else is written in the books that I own? I never gave much thought to dedications before, I don't even really look at that page ever. So after perusing a few books that I've got here, I got the usual "To my Mother"s and "To my wife"s but one of my books fittingly proclaimed it to be:

The Tiny Mishap

There were a pair of robins nesting right by the door to my dad's house, under the eave, and then they vanished maybe a few weeks ago. Two days ago I found this on the sidewalk...was there a baby robin inside at some point? Could it have gotten out of a whole that small? I'm thinking that a tiny, baby robin-sized mishap must have occurred...

A Rare Culinary Success

Many of you know how I love to partake in my own little culinary disasters- I'm much too spontaneous and creative a cook to be really any good at it. However, I've been slowly endeavoring to get good at baking, and I'm starting to have some success. In celebration of summer and easy to bake things, I made a blueberry and a peach cobbler. I took the peach to work and the blueberry to my dad so they could all try it out for me--and--success! The verdict seems to be that I did just fine. Here's a before and after of the blueberry...

Milwaukee gets a Film

There's been talk all day at work of old-time cars and horses and buggies on Brady Street. After work, I wandered down to see what was going on, and lo and behold, they're making a movie! I would just like to note that I rarely, if ever, saw film crews actually filming in NYC, so the fact that I went out of my way to go find the one film shoot in Milwaukee does not escape me. If the chatter among the lookers-on can be trusted, then the film is No God, No Master starring David Strathairn (who played Edward R. Murrow in "Good Night and Good Luck").

Brady Street as movie set.

David Strathairn hard at work.

Family Round-Up

I'm feeling kind of lazy tonight, so I thought I'd post some pics of the cousins from the latest family gathering in Chicago. With the birth of the newest addition this week, I'm now at 12 younger cousins on my Dad's side.

My grandfather, cousins (from left to right) James, Everett, and Madelynn. Everett can't decide whether he wants to hold his cousin James or stop his cousin Madelynn from messing with his feet.


Braden and Nathan (center) are at an age where all girls, even ones they are related to, suffer from a severe case of cooties. I hope to make a full recovery soon.

James hangs ten.

Fearless explorer.

Teenagers. Pfft.

Time Warp- New York City

I'm admitting it right now- I miss New York City sometimes. I kind of wish I could catch this cab (that I took a picture of a few years ago, when I lived in New York City and kept cursing how dirty it was) and take it to City Bakery, or to Sundaes and Cones, or even to just to Cosi for some smores. Maybe I'd even decide that the pungent smell of garbage bags on the sidewalks, waiting to be picked up, isn't so bad.

East Side Personal Ad

Ok, so this is admittedly not my personal ad (in case you were wondering) but I saw this walking around my neighborhood today. Now, I have to say, it's kind of original, if not a little...in your face. For the sake of whoever wrote it, I hope Bike Guy sees it and takes heed. Unless he's a serial killer. In which case I hope he doesn't see it, and that it rains soon.

Friday Means Fries Day

Or it could mean Cheeseburger-and-fries Day. Some co-workers and I headed down to Northpoint Custard near Bradford Beach to partake of some lunchtime deliciousness. It's a true blue Milwaukee place, owned by Bartolotta's restaurants and catering to the burger and custard crowd. All the benches and picnic tables are painted like black and white spotted dairy cows, and named accordingly. Today, we enjoyed our grub while sitting on Dixie, one of the picnic tables.

I like that we eat hamburger while sitting on tables named after cows. Seems either really mean, or really fitting. Or both.

The New Office-mate

Ale decided our office-space needed some sprucing up...so she bought us a plant of indeterminate type, and named him Edward (yes, after the Twilight character....). Being quite the crafty soul, she promptly added some decorations for her Edward, including marbles and a name-tag. She then watered him and wondered aloud, "Do you think I'm at the age where my mothering instincts are kicking in?" Yes, Ale, they are. If you can't have kids, you can always have a houseplant. Just be sure to tell the houseplant it can be anything it wants when it grows up.

Everyone Loves a Parade

Ah, the 4th of July. A time to spend with family, celebrating our country's independence. If you're from my family, you celebrate by getting up at 9 am, putting on an outfit of red, white and blue and driving to your Great-Grandmother's house in Niles, Illinois to watch the annual Niles Fourth of July Parade from her front lawn and then enjoy a classy afternoon of Boston Market catering and Bud Light. Here's Michael J. ("the J is for Jackson") Pierski setting up the obligatory red, white and blue lawn chairs for the parade.



The parade approaches...it always includes the marching bands, the clowns, the elected officials in shiny convertibles, the Shriners in their funny hats and bicycles, parade floats, and free candy and mini-American flags. We're Polish, so we love anything cheesy, like the parade, and anything free, like the candy and handouts.

My cousins are, by now, experts at this yearly parade stuff. They're saving their enthusiasm for the good stuff, the parade floats that throw out candy and cheap toys. If you look closely enough, you'll see that just about everyone's wearing the red, white and blue, and two of the girls are even sporting red-and-blue eyeshadow.


Everyone loves a parade...except if you're two years old, like my cousin Madelynn. She mostly preferred to check out the bugs in the grass.

Summerfest- Keepin' it classy

On this last day of Summerfest, I figured it would apropos to put up another picture from this year's Fest of one Milwaukeean who's definitely keeping it classy Midwestern style by rocking his own, home-made beer hat. He looks like he's thoroughly enjoying his own ingeniousness, and his beer buzz.