My Chicago Garden » Musings

Chicago Highland Games next weekend!

tyler — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 03:53:04 +0000

The St. Andrews Society of Chicago has released their schedule for the Chicago Highland Games on Friday, June 18th from 4 p.m. to 10 p.m and Saturday, June 19th from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m at the Oak Brook Polo Grounds, 700 Oak Brook Rd, Oak Brook, IL 60523. All children under the age of 12 are FREE!

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Weekend away

tyler — Mon, 24 May 2010 02:02:35 +0000

Thanks to Melissa’s sister and one of our neighbors who watched our kids this weekend, my wife and I got to have a weekend together. We decided to spend 2 nights at the Crowne Plaza hotel on Rossevelt in Glen Ellyn. Our first choice was to stay in downtown Chicago, but the hotel [...]

It’s a Jeep thing…you wouldn’t understand

tyler — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 15:49:16 +0000

Back in 2000 when Melissa and I lived in the bay area I fell into a fair bit of money from some stock options in the days of the .com boom. Instead of doing the responsible thing and saving for a down payment on a house, I went to a Jeep dealer and purchased [...]

Looking back, and forward

tyler — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 23:52:26 +0000

2009 In review

Purchased a worm bin in early March and got it going. Still going strong in the garage. Spring started on March 15th for us with a trip to Scooby’s Went to the Wheaton Native Illinois Plant sale, like we do every year. Need to get in line no later than 7:30am. [...]

Trip Report for Western Michigan/Mackinac Island/Blueberry Trip

tyler — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 01:12:42 +0000

I finally got around to writing up our trip report for our 5 day trip up the Michigan west cost along Lake Michigan. Beautiful country up north. Great fun was had by all. Read about it here. [...]

Scottish Highland Games 2009 – Chicago

tyler — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 01:13:58 +0000

This was the first year for Mel and I to go to the Scottish Highland Games in Oakbrook, IL (chicago area). We have been to others before, just not in Chicago.

The folks at the Illinois St. Andrews Society put on the games and in general I think they did a fine job. Especially [...]

Scottish Highland Games this weekend

tyler — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 03:57:04 +0000

Quick post…

If you have nothing to do this weekend come visit the Scottish Highland Games this weekend at the Polo Grounds in Oak Brook.

Visit the Illinois Saint Andrew Society website for more info. See you there!

Spring Poem

tyler — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 17:14:17 +0000

I heard this poem on a Celtic music CD my wife picked up at the Wheaton Public Library. My kids love it. Sierra (the oldest) goes around humming/doo-dooing the famous Scottish pipe and drum marching song “Scotland the Brave“. That song gives me chills. I’ve told my wife that when I die I want [...]

What I’ve learned so far

tyler — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 03:17:05 +0000

In the last 35+ years I’ve learned several things about the world. Some of them I’ve seen described by others and by experience I find them to be true. Thus, these are not all my original ideas or wording…but they are soo true. There is a very fine line between “hobby” and “mental illness” [...]

Snow and ice brings power

tyler — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 01:01:17 +0000

With the forecast in Chicago of up to a foot of snow and 1/2 inch of ice, I decided to bite the bullet and get a small generator. For some reason our neighborhood has about 5 or 6 power outages a year, and we’re always the last ones to get power in Wheaton. No [...]

Pack a lunch and save $600 a year?

tyler — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 16:30:20 +0000

For the past 2 years I’ve been spending roughly $8-$10 a day on lunch. Sometimes less, sometimes more..but that’s about the average. I should know…I was on a budget

In conjunction with taking the train (see last post) I’ve started taking my lunch to work instead of buying. I did some notepad calculations [...]

The switch to public transportation

tyler — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 19:23:52 +0000

For the past 2 years I’ve been commuting from Wheaton to the northern edge of Chicago proper in my 2001 Subaru Outback wagon. My day job recently moved their facilities to downtown Chicago, about 4 blocks from Ogilvie Station. I had been waiting for this move for some time, as it allows me to [...]

Art Institute of Chicago

tyler — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 02:15:19 +0000

Last weekend the family took the Metra to downtown Chicago so I could have lunch with an ex-colleague of mine who just became a US citizen. Afterwards, we took the opportunity to take the girls to the Art Institute of Chicago. They did pretty good for 4 and 3, considering. Of course the museum [...]

Learning the harmonica

tyler — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 02:40:15 +0000

So today we were at Outdoor World looking for something to blow $50 worth of gift cards on. I remember seeing a harmonica and learning DVD in the store the last time I was there so I went hunting. I found it and snatched one up for $15. I figured I could learn how [...]

Bluegreen Resorts – Free Vacation?

tyler — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 01:35:31 +0000

The family and I were wandering around Outdoor World a few months ago and couldn’t sneak past the free vacation people that are always there. In fact, lately I’ve been upset that Outdoor World has associated themselves with them. Usually I wave them off with a grunt and move past as quickly as possible. [...]

2008 Begins

tyler — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 04:59:52 +0000

I snapped this picture early this evening as a light snow fell. My camera, nor my photography skills do justice to the beauty of the trees covered in a light dusting of fresh snow.

A new year has started and I have at least a few things I want to try and [...]

Get that emergency kit ready

tyler — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 23:40:13 +0000

Now that we’ve had a week of near freezing temperature I’ve resigned myself to the fact that my vegetable garden is dead. But what that reminded me of was that I had not reviewed my car emergency kit lately. After moving to Chicago about a year ago it has been in the back of [...]

First time for everything

tyler — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 01:49:51 +0000

We fired up the fireplace for the first time since we bought the house. We visited a fireplace company last weekend and priced out a new fireplace *sigh*. $10,000 to rebuild our double sided fireplace. It’s probably one of the best investments in a home in the current market (everyone seems to want a [...]

Good Fences Make Good Neighbors?

tyler — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 05:24:43 +0000

Couple things have happened in the last two weeks….

I’ve been invited to present to the Men’s Garden Club of Villa Park on Organic Gardening on August 28th at 7:30PM. The presentation is for an hour or so, which means I can’t just ramble. I actually need to have an outline and do some [...]

Long time no posts

tyler — Sat, 07 Jul 2007 18:32:17 +0000

Sorry about the length of time between posts.

Contributing to the lack of posts is that my free time, which the majority of is spent on MyChicagoGarden and the AllisonHouse weather business, has practically been zero for the last few months. My employer, Neohapsis, has been just slammed with business in the last few [...]

Lots going on with the house(es)

tyler — Fri, 02 Mar 2007 07:07:34 +0000

The house in Northern Kentucky hasn’t sold yet but we are moving forward with the purchase of the new house in Wheaton, IL.

We would have liked to have sold the old house before buying a new house but we simply can’t live 600 miles apart from each other anymore. It has been since [...]

House, Job and a new book

tyler — Thu, 04 Jan 2007 23:12:27 +0000

It’s hoppin’ now at work! I have at least 6 projects I’m managing with lots of different deliverables and more coming down the pipe. I’ve never been this busy at a job in my life, learning new things, feeling a little on the edge since I’m trying something new and I’m loving every minute [...]

Chicago, the house, and the garden

tyler — Fri, 22 Dec 2006 19:14:50 +0000

I’ve spent the last 3 weeks in Chicago doing work for Neohapsis. As expected there is plenty of work to do and they threw me in feet first. I just finished my first "on my own" gig with a customer this morning. Every day has something else going on, which should fit my personality [...]

iPod after 4 months

tyler — Thu, 23 Nov 2006 00:41:12 +0000

Well it hasn’t lost it’s luster. I posted 4 months ago about dropping $400 on a "toy" and wondering if it was going to be worth it or not. Well I can say that I think I have/will get my moneys worth. I’ve effectively turned off my car radio. I never listen to it [...]

Moving to Chicago

tyler — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 19:08:33 +0000

It’s official…well at least the paperwork says it’s official…the family is moving to Chicago. We have our house up for sale here in Northern Kentucky and I’ll be starting my new job with Neohapsis December 4th.

This was totally volunteer and I’m looking at this as a very good thing. Chicago is a much [...]

iPod

tyler — Wed, 26 Jul 2006 00:06:38 +0000

I purchased a 30G black iPod last weekend and have been playing with it ever since. I have to say I am very impressed. I’m finding it very entertaining..which is what I suspect Apple was hoping for. It has been VERY easy to use and iTunes has been easy to manage. I was able [...]

Separation of Church and State

tyler — Sun, 24 Jul 2005 00:19:29 +0000

Often more commonly known as Dispelling Myth’s Surrounding Jefferson’s belief

Vincent Phillip Muñoz does a much better job than I can outlining the historical setting for the separation of Church and State in his article. Mr. Muñoz has graciously allowed me to offer it for download. I’d recommend you read his article [...]