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Post by chevypower on Feb 24, 2015 0:14:06 GMT -6
15 in all.......7 full time and 8 more in the winter months. but I know who cares right lol
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Post by chevypower on Feb 24, 2015 0:15:01 GMT -6
still maybe going off the movie lol grom I think so.
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Post by roman on Feb 24, 2015 10:17:23 GMT -6
Grumpy old men? Retired lawyer? LOL! I am more mellow now than I have ever been. Growing up in Streator back in the day, working in the Drain Tile and practicing the kind of law I did are not experiences which produce an easy-going personality. Instead, those experiences tend to produce a Travis Bickle "are you looking at me?" type. My daughters describe my mini-transformation as my "Indiana personality." For example, I just returned from the store. When I was checking out, there was an old, scrawny black guy sitting near the door trying to sing "Wait for the Midnight Hour." I leaned toward the check out woman and said in a very serious tone: "I s that Wilson Pickett?" She was still laughing when I left the store.
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Post by Anonymous on Feb 24, 2015 10:33:12 GMT -6
Thanks for sharing your vacation with us friend. I enjoyed every word of your accounting of The Villages. I could picture the day vividly.
Reminds me of a travel blog I followed with great interest a few years ago. ;-)
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Post by dive61364 on Feb 24, 2015 10:40:06 GMT -6
this has to be one of the most entertaining thread ever on SOL.
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Post by roman on Feb 24, 2015 11:18:10 GMT -6
Everyone seemed to think that I would have a hard time retiring. The consensus was that I was too Type A to retire. They were wrong. It is my wife that has a hard time simply relaxing. She is doing a series of workshops in the libraries in the area on Sea Turtles, Owls, and Bats. We are going down to New Port Richie where her former teaching partner lives, and she will do some workshops in the schools in that area. Along with our youngest daughter, she has done some work tagging giant sea turtles as they come ashore in Costa Rica. In order to show kids how big the turtles are, she constructed one out of an old sail from my sailboat.
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Post by Blue Star on Feb 24, 2015 11:43:52 GMT -6
Everyone seemed to think that I would have a hard time retiring. The consensus was that I was too Type A to retire. They were wrong. It is my wife that has a hard time simply relaxing. She is doing a series of workshops in the libraries in the area on Sea Turtles, Owls, and Bats. We are going down to New Port Richie where her former teaching partner lives, and she will do some workshops in the schools in that area. Along with our youngest daughter, she has done some work tagging giant sea turtles as they come ashore in Costa Rica. In order to show kids how big the turtles are, she constructed one out of an old sail from my sailboat. Now you're getting close to 6, 2 in Rotunda West. We've driven to New Port Richie for dinner.
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Post by Lucky1 on Feb 24, 2015 12:23:59 GMT -6
Thanks for sharing your vacation. My cousin and her husband live in The Village and love it. They are from Streator.
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Post by dumdave on Feb 24, 2015 12:31:57 GMT -6
Thanks for sharing your vacation. My cousin and her husband live in The Village and love it. They are from Streator. WOW! Small world.
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Post by roman on Feb 24, 2015 12:40:01 GMT -6
My wife's former teaching partner is married to a really great guy. He grew up dirt poor and was a very poor student in school, mostly because the schools back then did not understand dyslexia. When he was in the Navy, they discovered his very high aptitude for anything mechanical. He became an expert on torpedos. When I met him, he was the chief mechanic at the largest garage in Chicago Heights. He got me into both sailing and skiing. He is one of a handful of people I have met in my life who can feel comfortable with and talk to anyone.
My favorite story about him involves our ski club's trip to Telluride. (I have probably told this story on this forum before.) Because I had a trial, I missed the trip. As is not uncommon in skiing, he found himself on the same lift with the same guy a number of times. When Will is on a ski lift, he always gets to know the other people on the lift. In this case, he got to talking to this guy.
"Do you belong to a ski club?"
"No."
"How did you get here?"
"I few in."
"How? There's no airport here."
"I have my own airport, and I landed over there."
"Jesus, you must be rich. That house is bigger than the lodge. What do you do?"
"I'm a rock singer."
"What's your name?"
"Sting."
"Sting?" I've never heard of you."
You might think that Sting would have been offended, but he wasn't. In fact, when they got back to the lodge, he played pool with the younger members of the club. He then invited the whole club over to his place for a party.
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Post by roman on Feb 26, 2015 6:45:13 GMT -6
The thread about the Medieval Dinner posted earlier reminded me of a trip we took to the Hoggestown Medieval Faire last month when our daughter was here. I figured that with a great name like Hoggestown it couldn’t be too bad. Names are important. When our kids were small, we used to take them to a self-styled Renaissance fair in Illinois near the Wisconsin border. Because the Illinois fair featured jousting and had no paintings or sculpture, I could never figure out why it was called a Renaissance fair. Most likely, the sponsors had a shaky knowledge of European history. The Illinois fair did have some very good turkey legs, and it was always fun walking around munching on them. We had wanted to go to the Hoggestown fair last year, but dogs are not allowed. This year, we decided to go in relays. Our daughter and husband went in first and we walked the dogs around the parking lot and otherwise entertained them. After an hour or so, my wife and I took our turn. It was a huge event, covering a large area. The costumes worn by hundreds of people walking around the grounds were near Hollywood level, possibly the University people helped out. As expected, there was jousting and swordplay; and those guys really whacked each other around. In addition to the sword fighting, there were nine stages featuring full-flight falconry, magic shows, music, jugglers, knife throwers, and dog acts. I wanted to see the “World’s Champion Frisbee Dog, but the crowd was too large to get a good view of the dog. There were even camel rides. It was not clear what camels had to do with the Middle Ages. Presumably, the tie-in with camels to the overall theme was the Crusades. At one exhibit, spectators could shoot against professional archers. We all wished that we had one of our friends along, a kid from Illinois who is one of the top archers in the world. He recently won $30,000 at a contest in Vegas. www.teamusa.org/USA-Archery/News/Features/2015/February/11/Wifler-Wins-Vegas-in-Stunning-ShootoffAlthough there were over a hundred food booths, I stuck with a giant turkey leg. Ignoring my observation that sweet potato fries could not have existed in Europe before Columbus, my wife had some anyway. She countered with the assertion that there were no turkey legs around in those days either. At numerous booths, large cups of ale were available for quaffing. One costumed character was a dead-ringer for Falstaff. When he stumbled and nearly passed out, I thought that it was an act. When he walked by, and I saw his eyes, I realized that it was not an act. .
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Post by Blue Star on Feb 26, 2015 8:39:27 GMT -6
I love the Renaissance Fair near Wis. My fav. was the jousting, knights in armor & Portabella sandwiches.
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Post by dumdave on Feb 26, 2015 12:02:16 GMT -6
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Post by roman on Feb 26, 2015 14:38:18 GMT -6
Paul Simon must have been a fan too.
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Post by OutlawwithaSnipeSniper on Feb 26, 2015 16:02:16 GMT -6
Something really cool I ran across the other day. We assume the archer was always slower than a guy with a gun, not even close.
Check out how it really was.
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