So, how did you spend Boxing Day? Unless you’re wearing a toque and scanning the web for creative ways to incorporate Christmas leftovers into poutine, you spent it staring at the Amazon.com home page in a kind of disconnected-post-holiday stupor, head propped on your coffee mug and desperately trying to remember what day it is and how you got to work this morning. At ease, Suzy Snowflake. The color-coded Christmas threat scale has been changed from fuchsia to magenta, signaling a "less-than-elevated-but-remain wary" threat of continued holiday madness. Time to check the expiration date on …

A few years ago, I volunteered to teach my daughter’s kindergarten class all about Seurat and pointillism during Art Awareness Month, one of the most rewarding mornings I’ve ever spent. I put more time and effort into that presentation than I ever have any creative pitch I’ve ever been involved in professionally. Marketing wonks are easy to impress, just pepper your narrative with a lot of jargon (“So the ROI on this activation ideation will be both integrated and experiential…”) and they’ll believe you’re the smartest guy in the room. Trust me, it works. But jargon has no hold on a room full…

The holidays are defined by traditions. One of my favorites is the arrival of the Restoration Hardware Holiday “Sourcebook,” which is a snooty synonym for “catalog.” I remember when this mall staple had a Mayberry hardware store vibe, where you could drop four grand on a roll-top desk and pick up a few Moon Pies at the cash register on the way out. Now the brand resembles the mournful sparseness of the mausoleum interior from the cult horror flick Phantasm. When did decorating for the holidays become so somber? Flip through the pages of “melancholiday” home decor ("This candle holder was …

“A tavern chair is the throne of human felicity” – Samuel Johnson My wife pointed out that most of my favorite expressions come from Disney/Pixar movies, which either means I'm living under the same roof with two kids under 7 and they control the remote, or I need to grow up. The Incredibles is not only my favorite; it’s the most quotable. Not a day goes by that I don’t repeat pearls of wisdom such as, “I never look back darling, it distracts from the now!” (Edna Mode), or “Et ton costume est complètement ridicule!" (Bomb Voyage). Occasionally when I’m stressed at work I’ll close my eyes and …

Aside from Christmas morning, Halloween is the most cherished day on the kiddie calendar. What could possibly be better than door-to-door candy larceny? I’m sure I loved it when I was younger but now that I’m a grumpy old fart (with suspect dental work earned from years of amateur hockey), I can honestly say the holiday holds no magic for me. In fact, I refer to the entire month of October as “Fall Craptacular." Forget about relaxing on Sundays watching early season NFL games, it's time to pack the minivan for the ritual visit to some pumpkin farm on the outskirts of a rural county Mapquest …

My wife is addicted to those home improvement shows that dominate cable on weekends. “House Hunters,” “Renovation Realities,” “Mitre Saw Misadventures” (Watch this homeowner try and install his own crown molding! Hemorrhaging and hilarity ensue!)—she watches them all. Saturdays are spent wandering the aisles of Home Depot searching for the hunky young host of "Yard Crashers," hoping he’ll come back to our house and remake our yard into a tropical island paradise (free of charge of course). I don’t care if he does the work shirtless and she invites her girlfriends over to watch; as long as he …

The holiday weekend afforded my wife the opportunity to organize a play date with some other moms, and when the last raindrops of Isaac passed through the group decided the festivities should be held outdoors at a local park. A few parks were suggested and quickly dismissed until they decided that McCollum Park was worth the drive. The consensus seemed to be some of the local park options were not "as safe" as McCollum. Since when are some area parks considered "safer" than others? What makes you feel nervous in the parks? Where are we, Zombieland? Have the undead been cornering the living in…

I’ve learned a few things since this column’s inception. The first is that flaunting my credentials as a Patch columnist will not score me a lap dance at PoleKatz. The second is you simply never know what stories will resonate with your readers and which will become the proverbial tree that fell in the woods. I’ve had my fair share of both. Occasionally, however, something I’ve written touches someone deep inside (between the pancreas and small intestine), and they feel compelled to drop me a line and try to put into verse the fathomless depths of their feelings. It’s a beautiful thing. While…

The point of view for this column has always been community first, but sometime events (in this case tragedies) occupy such a huge portion of the collective conscience that they become all anyone is talking/tweeting/posting about. They become to big to ignore. No, I’m not talking about the sanctions against Penn State. I watched with morbid curiosity as authorities brought the Colorado theater shooting suspect into court to be formally charged. Watching live on CNN was like slowing down next to a fatal car accident—you don’t want to look but you're compelled. I don’t know what I was expecting…

I love summer. Like McAdams loves Josling. Like a tornado loves a trailer park. Like my son loves missing the toilet. I spend most of April staring longingly at my “summer bin” in the closet, waiting for the day Tom Skilling tells me the temperature will break 65 and I can break out my camouflage shorts and flip flops. By July I’m practically naked. I plan backyard chores around the hottest hours of the day. Nothing will make you forget the chill of January like pulling weeds while the merciless heat wraps around like a steam phantom in a wool coat. I have staring contests with the squirrels …

I saw the first firefly of the summer. I was digging into the cooler for another beer when I caught a quick glimpse of his tiny green butt leaving a phosphorescent streak along the garden’s edge. I’ve always been good at noticing the little details in the background, which my wife defines as “you never pay attention” but I define as “looking past the obvious”. Not surprisingly, she didn’t notice the little guy. Also not surprising is that I couldn’t find another beer. Even as a kid I had a habit of looking past the obvious. In the summer my parents would take us to KiddieLand (sadly closed …

Memorial Day marks the beginning of “summer hours” for our company, whereupon the writing of this column migrates from my office at home to a barstool at Ballydoyle on Friday afternoons. From this pint—I mean point—until Labor Day, if I write anything that suggests a rabid squirrel having a seizure on the keyboard, you can bet Jameson’s was involved. This month also marks ten years since we bought our home here in Downers Grove. Ten years since the real estate agent we were working with smugly told us that our hopes of buying in Elmhurst were “unrealistic in our price range” and my hope of …

My neighbor and I were both staring at the pile of empty beer cans flung on my front lawn and the few dozen more scattered on the driveway. I’m assuming the car from which they were dumped was moving along at a pretty good clip considering I could see a few poking out from under the hedges near the front door. "Yea, well, my daughter had a friend for a sleep over last night so whenever she does we like to load them up in the minivan, pick up a 30 pack of Keystone Light and chug them while speeding around the neighborhood. We like crushing the empties against our skulls and chucking them at …

This is a tough age to be a guy. We’re a long way from the knuckle-dragging hunter-gatherer that our prehistoric ancestors were. There was a time when a man spent his days chasing down a snarling hunk of protein for the dinner table with nothing but a pointed stick and instinct honed from a lifetime of living in the wild. And you can bet when he dragged the beast back to the cave around five he didn’t have to listen to three hours of his wife complaining about how the pet wooly mammoth soiled the bearskin rug and the neighbor’s man makes better fire than he does.   Nowadays our wives can “…

We choose where to live for a variety of reasons. For some its familiarity—we grew up here and decided to stay. For some maybe it’s a job transfer, or proximity to work, or maybe this just happens to be where witness protection relocated us after the trial. Regardless of why, the one constant you hear everyone reference when choosing a neighborhood is the quality of the schools. Ask any real estate agent about a house and sooner or later they’ll mention how good the schools are in the neighborhood surrounding it. Schools weren’t top of mind for us when we moved here in 2004 but we did ask …

Is it just me, or was anyone else unaware that grade school kids get a “Spring Break”? I mean, what exactly does a six-year-old need a break from anyway? Crayons and juice boxes? All of my daughter’s best friends are with her at school every day! Heck, she doesn’t want a break from seeing them. I’ve been in my daughter's class room, it’s the most fun and nurturing learning environment I could ever imagine: hamsters, fish, comfy pillows, cute teacher. Heck, I’d take a break and spend a week there. My first recollection of a Spring Break was college, fantasizing about a booze-soaked orgy on …

As I write this, it’s one week before the election so I have no idea who won or lost. I wanted to make sure this was written ahead of time so no one could accuse me of pandering to either side or gloating on behalf of whoever won. So who won? In the absence of a crystal ball I have consulted the next best thing: Magic Eight Ball. “Who won the hotly contested Senate race?” The answer: Better not tell you now. Who says this thing isn’t sentient? To whomever won, congratulations! Always remember you work for the people now regardless of whether they voted for you or not. I don’t envy you that …

You're welcome. The steaks you grilled outside last Wednesday, the snow drifts you didn’t blast onto your neighbor’s driveway and the ensuing stare down with that neighbor you didn’t have, the scarf you misplaced but never needed to find, the Vicks Vapor Rub you never bought, the furnace you didn’t fix, your grandmother’s Irish stew you swore you’d make every Sunday in January but slept in instead. It’s all thanks to me. I am a Frank Frazetta hero come to life, a stone-faced god riding an angry column of flame high above the earth, flexing his rippling biceps while he wields a bolt of …

Who else but Mister Heat Blister, (Mister Sun, Mister Green Christmas, Mister 101..) could be responsible for the heinous destruction of the beloved ice sculptures that until recently graced the entrances to some of our downtown retail establishments? It's not enough for the man that this has been one of the mildest winters on record, any sign or symbol of winter must be destroyed by his fiery touch. Honestly, he’s too much. In case you’ve stepped over the shards and hadn’t noticed, I’ll explain. Sometime early in the morning of February 12th, someone destroyed a number of ice sculptures that…

During a recent bout of insomnia (always happens when the Blackhawks play on the West Coast and they get their butts kicked) I found myself channel surfing with my buddy Sam Adams, looking for something mildly entertaining or somewhat amusing—preferably a movie I’ve seen a dozen times before. Movies I can quote while blindfolded are a better sleep aid then Ambien with a Knob Creek chaser. I settled on AMC and the 1983 Michael Keaton movie Mr. Mom (it was either that or Scarface but machine gun fire and chain saw amputations are not conducive to a restful sleep). It’s a classic. Everyone knows…