Sucks to be these guys

Although you have to admit, it does seem to be pretty much self-inflicted...

LONDON (AP) -- Contestants in a traditional British cheese rolling competition broke bones and took skin off knees and elbows Monday in their pursuit of a giant piece of cheese down a steep hill.

The competition, in which participants hurl themselves 640 feet down a hill after an eight-pound piece of cheese, has been celebrated for centuries in Gloucestershire, northwest of London.

The race is thought to originate from a heathen festival to welcome the spring. The first person to follow the cheese across the line at the bottom of the hill wins the cheese and a small cash prize.

Thousands of people attended Monday's event and the local ambulance service reported three people were taken to hospital with suspected fractured limbs, while 18 were treated for bruises and abrasions.

Read the full account here.

Boom goes the dynamite

OK, if you haven't heard of this yet, I understand. But please, by all means, download it today. It's a big file, but it's worth it. Trust me. If you don't think this is at least somewhat funny, I don't want to know you.

Great freakin' day

To start with, Jack has tonsillitis. Now let's work backward from there.

Jack woke up at about 4:30 this morning, a few minutes before my alarm. I went straight in to feed him, hoping he'd go back to sleep (Which is how Wednesday started). Instead, after he ate, he seemed to be madder than when he woke up. But I had to get in the shower, so Kristie got up to take care of him, which I felt kinda bad about.

Anyhow, work was fine, a fairly decent day. At about 2:15, I called Kristie's mom to see how Jack was doing and if I should go get him right then. She said he'd gone to sleep about 10 minutes ago, and I thought "Hey, free afternoon for me." Then she told me she'd made the doctor's appointment for 3:20.

Since I had no knowledge of his illness, I was a bit taken aback. Apparently, Jack was uber (apparently Blogger does not do oomlats, or however you spell the little dots above a vowel) cranky today, didn't eat all that well and slept oddly. Then they noticed a little lump on his neck.

Not to worry in the long run since it's just a swollen glad since his tonsils are swollen, but still a little off-putting because I went from zero to suspicious lump in about three seconds. Plus, I was ticked because no one had called me, which is usualprotocoll when Jack is ill because I have the more flexible job.

Anyhow, I got of the phone with the MIL and was just about to leave. Just before I turned the newsroom TV back to CNN, I saw Mark Prior get drilled on the elbow and collapse on the field, writhing in agony. Keep in mind, this is the third time this year a Cub has writhed on the field in agony (Nomar, then Chad Fox about a week later, then Prior). Not good at all.

Anyhow, if you click here, ESPN.com will tell you the initial x-rays on Prior's elbow were negative and that the team doesn't expect MRI results until Saturday. So I've got that to look forward to, which is nice.

At this point, Jack is asleep and the Cubs won 10-3. So for the most part, things are good. But still -- the 90 minutes between 215 p.m.. and 3:45 p.m. have not been the best of my life.

Baby update

In brief, here's a status report on Jack:

■ Three teeth, two lower, one upper (and almost a fourth).
■ No talking, but intense babbling.
■ Independent walking almost non-stop. No more crawling unless he's throwing a tantrum.
■ Can point out noses, eyes and mouths as well as mom and dad in pictures.
■ When he wants something (e.g., a bottle, bath, nner or to go outside) he grabs a finger and walks with you to the item in question, then stops and looks up until you give him what he wants.

That's the gist.

All you need to know to get through college

A brief sample of today's column:

... when registering for classes, avoid like the plague any class taught by the professor who wrote the textbook. Consider changing your major first. Should you be forced into one of these classes, your only task is to learn to think exactly like the professor and tell them only what they want to hear.

When buying textbooks, don't buy anything that hasn't been assigned. If you ignore this rule, the end result may be a bookshelf stocked with mint-condition copies of novels like "Anna Karenina" the professor never got around to working into the syllabus.

Likewise, learn your bookstore's return policy. If you can pick up a copy of "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight," then read it during one band rehearsal where you don't play for two hours, then take it back the next day, you'll likely get a full refund.

Read the whole deal here. And when you're done with that, scroll down to the bottom of our main page to vote in a poll about your favorite "Star Wars" character.

Family fun

We attended a graduation party for Kristie’s cousin, Max, Sunday afternoon.

I had a great time, despite not knowing a ton of people there. That said, I have to tell two stories, both pretty short and not in chronological order.

Here’s the first:

To give you an idea about the crowd, one of Max’s friends (I’m assuming) had not just a mullet, but also one of those black T-shirts that has a tuxedo shirt/bow tie screen printed on the front.

Here’s the second:

On the way from the car to the party, Kristie and I had this exchange:

Me: Hey, will you point out which one is Max?
Kristie: If I can figure it out myself.

God bless family functions.

More links

Sorry to get all quiz-happy on you these days, but here is a link to an 11-question state capital quiz. It caught my attention because Kristie's borther is studying this in fifth-grade right now, as well as postal abbreviations and the order of the presidents.

I aced it, but there were a few I struggled with before making my final decision.

And, in totally unrelated news, here, courtesy of my Aunt Beth, supplier of our household's copy of "Walter the Farting Dog," is a link to something known as The Flatulence Filter.

The Flatulence Filter is a breath of fresh air for you and your fellow passengers! Flying can cause many travelers to experience uncomfortable intestinal gas, which in turn can lead to embarrassing flatulence. And at 30,000 feet, it's difficult to blame the dog! The Flatulence Filter looks like an ordinary seat cushion but contains an activated carbon air filter that absorbs odors immediately and lasts up to 12 months.

If you think that's good, you should check out the customer reviews, which inlcude phrases like: "WOW! Never in my life have I farted for so long and with such complete comfort."

I am so not making this up.

It's the least I can do

No really, posting this link to the Tribune's comprehensive Sox-Cubs series preview is about the least I can do without doing nothing.

So there you have it. The games are this weekend, starting Friday. I'll be trying to watch as much as I can.

Could you win the National Spelling Bee?

You might not find that out, but you will be tested on 10 tough words when you click here.

FYI, I got nine out of 10, and the only one I misssed was due to an incorrect click. So, in reality, I'm perfect (of course).

(Note: I just typed "prefect" and just caught it before clicking the post button.)

Life outside the bubble

On tap this week...

While glancing at a calendar the other day, I noticed an upcoming anniversary.

Four years ago Friday I walked across the stage to get my college diploma, meaning I've now been in the real world for the same amount of time as I was sheltered inside the Coe Bubble.

(The Coe Bubble is the affectionate term we Kohawks had for what happens when you jam about 1,500 teachers and students on a campus less than the size of three city blocks - everybody knows everything as soon as it happens, if not earlier.)

Four years on the outside won't seem like much to someone who graduated college 14 years ago or 34 or 44. And in my future years, looking back at May 20, 2001, probably won't have the same impact it does now.

And so on and so forth. Read the rest here.

I am a liberal

How do I know this? Because I took the Typology Test, which told me so after analyzing my answers to 25 questions.

Liberal was just one of nine options, placing me with 17 percent of the poplation an 19 percent of registered voters. For whatever that's worth.

Try it yourself-- I bet you'll like it. Or maybe you'll hate it. Stop yelling at me!

Evan's link of the week

Not yet sure what this is all about, but the file name indicates it has something to do with Frasier taking a nosedive.

More than you ever wanted/needed to know

I learned about a new site today, the Encyclopedia of Chicago, an unbelievably comprehensive guide to all things Chicago.... and beyond.

As an example, here's a portion of what the site had to say about Libertyville:

When Lake County was split from McHenry County in 1839, some merchants worked to bring the county seat to Libertyville under the new name of Burlington. Their hope collapsed when Waukegan took the honor and the name Libertyville was retained.

In the late 1860s, Ansel Brainerd Cook, later a sidewalk contractor and president of the Chicago City Council, constructed a large, porticoed house in Libertyville along the Milwaukee Road. The house, which still stands as Libertyville's centerpiece, was located on Cook's horse farm, which provided power for Chicago horsecar lines.

You can read more of that entry here, or see a picture of a guy who wrote the novel version of the new Star Wars movie pictured in front of the Cook House by clicking, well, nowhere, because I can't find it anymore on the Daily HErald Web site, although it was up there just a few days ago.

You can see said house bu clicking here, but there are no authors in the picture. And it's old.

And, of course, thanks to Eric Zorn's Notebook for leading me to the encyclopedia in the first place.

World of Jack

Jack has the mini-chicken pox.

Believe me, it's much more fun than it sounds.

HEre's the deal: At his one-year check-up two weeks ago today, one of the many vaccine injections he got was for chicken pox. At the time, the doctor told us she wasn't sure if he'd need another shot later in life, but did tell us that, since the vaccine was a weakened strain of a live virus, there was a chance he would develop some sort of the pox, after which he would be certainly immune for life.

Yesterday he woke up from his morning nap with a 102-degree fever. After the doctor's office finally called me back (more than an hour and one reminder call later) I decided to bring him in, especially in light of one or two red bumps we'd seen in various places that looked like mini-mosquito bites (possible due to our weekend walks). However, other than the fever, he was pretty much acting normal.

The first thing they wanted to do was bloodwork. Well, the first step of that, for anyone younger than 10, is warming up the right hand with a heating pad. Jack hates the heating pad. Jack also hates having his finger pricked. He hates having gauze taped to his hand. He hates walking back to the doctor's waiting room. He hates the examining room. He hates having his shirt taken off. He hates being put down to be weighed. He hates the ear thermometer. He hates a whole big list of crap that I won't bother writing out since I've gone this far already.

Let's just leave it at this: About 45 minutes of constant screaming in my ear is not... not a good time.

Anyhow, he slept from about 6:15 p.m. Tuesday to roughly 4:30 a.m. today, after which he drank a bottle and went back to sleep with the help of a bit of children's Tylenol. Today he wouldn't take a nap for his grandmother, sleeping briefly in the stroller and then the car, only to wake up as soon as the ride was over.

I put him in bed and listened to him whimper on and off for 30 minutes before I finally loaded him in the car, drove to the ATM in Fulton, then to McDonald's in Clinton, then to Taco Bell since the McDonald's drive-through was about three cars deep and they're notoriously slow anyway.

I got my chalupas and headed to the dike (or flood control levee, if you want the technical term) to eat and listen to the Cubs game. Jack slept through all of that, waking up as soon as we got home and I undid his car seat. However, he did stay asleep when I put him in his crib, and managed to get a nap that, in all, was more than 90 minutes.

In summary, he's only contagious for about three days. We don't need to call the doctor unless he still has a fever by Friday. The pox don't seem to itch at all, and it should keep him pox-free for life. The major downside is that he's also working on his top front teeth, which makes it difficult to derive the true source of his discomfort. We just try to placate him with a combination of Tylenol and Oragel (generic, of course) and hope he sleeps it off and will be happy by the weekend.

Taking a look ahead at looking back

Today's column is about current historical festivals and how the people of the future will look back out our present day. I really like this piece, although I think it sounded a bit better in my brain. I wish I had some more time to work on it, but the daily grind sometimes takes that away. Anyhow, here's a sample:

The Dutch Dancing you see on Main Street in Fulton looks, to me, anyway, to be the American equivalent of things like 'Ring Around the Rosey' and 'The Hokey-Pokey.' Maybe in the old country these klompen dances were more like the Charleston, fox trot and jitterbug, all of which in 21st century America have gone the way of taking off your hat during the playing of the national anthem.

So, fast forward to 2205 when we've colonized Neptune and our descendants are holding 'American Days' on the first weekend of Aphlogarph (I'm pretty sure they have their own calendar on Neptune). Are they doing 'The Hokey Pokey,' or are they recreating the dancing that our future leaders were doing at proms throughout the area Saturday night?

If it's the former, they're not getting a great idea of what we used to do here past preschool. If it's the latter, then apparently Neptune has some pretty lax decency standards. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Read the whole durn thing here.

Getting here

Another in my occasional lists of search terms people have used to access this site (in this case, I think, all are through Google):

■ "A bladder the size of"
■ Kerry Wood urinating in public
■ "Eat a live goldfish"
■ Chris speed limit arrest diaper

So there.

Life with Baby

Jack is right now (or was when I started this post) pretty much pacing from one end of the living room to the other, stopping only to drop something new into the laundry basket at the east end or climb up onto the couch on the west. He's also babbling pretty much nonstop at the same time. No real point to the story here, just thought you'd like to know.

World of Jack

Jack is now more or less a walking baby.

He just decided Thursday night to stand up on his own and walk across the living room because Kristie was in the kitchen. He had to step over his trail of toys to do it, which made it all the more impressive.

He still crawls, but only about 15% of the time (when he needs to get somewhere really, really fast), He also falls over a lot, but it's mostly just deciding to be done and dropping on his butt. So far there's been a couple of true wipeouts, but nothing that hurt him enough to turn on the waterworks.

And, in the world of teeth, still just two. He's acted cranky likes he's teething, but nothing's popped through on the top row yet.

Cubs quote of the day

Tribune writer Paul Sullivan sums up my feelings word for word in a story from today's paper:

There's plenty of time left for a turnaround, but a succession of tough losses can have a demoralizing effect.

He was writing about the players, but I think it also appeals to the fans. The story, found here, goes on to detail nine Cubs losses that could have been wins. This falls in line with my post from a few weeks back about the season breaking up into thirds where you pretty much start with a 54-54 record and it's how you do in the other 54 that make a difference. So far, the Cubs aren't so hot in that category, and it's getting tough to watch.

The moral of the story: It is much, much more difficult to watch a talented team underperform (injuries notwithstanding) than it is to follow a team that's lousy from the start.

Helping kids put their 'Best Foot Forward'

What do you write about when you've already written too much about your family or your favorite baseball team? If you're me, you rely on the other love of your life -- walking.

Read the rest of this week's column (and see a picture) here.

Attention ex-Libertyvillians

What’s going on in Libertyville these days? I know you weren’t asking, but I’m telling, thanks to the help of my Google news alert.

New Bears coach Ron Turner apparently lives in Libertyville. We know this because his son, Carson, will be a quarterback at HS next fall, according to the Rockford Register-Star.

In this article, we learn that not only is young Carson now a Wildcat, but he’s also apparently good enough to be a Bear. To wit:

LAKE FOREST -- The Chicago Bears had two quarterbacks among the 32 players invited to this weekend's rookie minicamp at Halas Hall.

On the first day, fourth-round pick Kyle Orton took snaps side by side with an unknown player smaller in stature and, it seemed, importance. As Orton dropped back under the watchful eye of quarterbacks coach Wade Wilson and offensive coordinator Ron Turner, the newest of the new guys, who wasn't even issued Chicago Bears sweats, was fading back in front of the equipment manager.

Though smaller, the unknown had better throwing mechanics and a faster drop back than Orton. The player was Cameron Turner, a junior at nearby Libertyville High School and the offensive coordinator's son.

That either says a lot about Turner's son or little about Orton.

More than likely, it says a little of both.

In the other but of news, apparently some dude named Ike Reilly, who claims to live in Libertyville, is a little fuzzy on what exactly goes on in town.

The Minneapolis Star-Tribune (a fine paper, no doubt) brings us here a tale about Reilly, who I guess is somewhat famous because of some band he’s in.

Reilly's life outside the "musician's bubble" is also illustrated in the "Sparkle" songs drawn from his hometown, Libertyville, a small Illinois community on the outskirts of Chicago's suburban sprawl. He still lives there, he said, "because it helps keep me unpretentious and real," which fans probably would cite as two of his best qualities.

Thanks to Libertyville, Reilly came up with one of "Sparkle's" best cuts, "Ballad of the Choir Boy Bank Robber," about another hometown kid, Tom Justice, who went on to hold up 22 banks. Many fans have mistaken the lyrics ("I'm only in it for the money/ But I'll take a little glory, too") to be a wry commentary on Reilly's new profession.

I think you’ll need to log in to read any more, and I didn’t take the time to try it. But how can someone who lives in Libertyville tell a reporter with any honesty that Libertyville lies “on the outskirts of Chicago’s suburban sprawl.” And is it the $800,000 homes that keep him “unpretentious,” or the seven-figure ones?

I love Libertyville, and I do think (perhaps it’s the rose-colored glasses talking) it’s somewhat shielded from the attitudes of people in say, Lake Forest, but I also think people from somewhere like Antioch or Wauconda look at Libertyville the same way we see Lake Forest and Lake Bluff.

But hey -- I live in Clinton now, so perhaps I’m not even authorized to comment on the subject.

Still here

I'm still here in the land of the living. Don't have too much to say, other than that I've been busy adding information to the new pictures over at ImageStation (the link is elsewhere on this page, if you're so inclined).

I don't have info on any picture past 200 (of 218), and they won't all get info because some of them are pretty darn self explanatory. But, a lot of what I've written about here (his crazy-cool hair, his ability climb on the couch, etc.) is illustrated in some of those pictures.

Plus, he's pretty damn cute.