July 13, 2013

The last week or so has been the 4th of July Parade season.  The morning of the 4th I drove up to Racine WI for their annual Parade which is the 5th largest in the country.  The WI Garrison has had a float in that parade for many years and they don't just make a "sissy" float.  The float is constructed on a flat bed trailer and pulled by a Semi.  Each year has a different Star Wars theme and this year was Lego Star Wars.  The float, as always, was genius and looked great.





 Last time I did this parade I walked the nearly 4 miles, but members of Nar Shaddaa Base wanted to dress in Rebel Fleet Trooper this year and my RFT boots are not made for walking so we rode on the float.  I guess I prefer to walk and be down near the crowd.  It didn't feel the same up there on that flatbed.  As always, the crowd was enthusiastic to say the least and usually erupted as "Star Wars" went by. 






Then on Sunday, July 7th, we had the annual Bartlett Death March.  The Bartlett Parade generally ends up to be one of the hottest days of the summer.  This year it did not start out so bad but temps shot up to probably close to 90 degrees as the parade stepped off at 1:00 PM. 

I wore my "Clone Wars" inspired Jedi costume that is a little cooler than my other Jedi costumes, but still hot.  You have like 5 layers at your waist and then there is the long pants and tall boots so any Jedi costume is pretty warm.  We did another "theme" in the Bartlett Parade, we did a "farewell to the Clone Wars" group which was Clones and Jedi. 




















The Jeep was in the parade again as the "medical frigate".  I gave it a good wash job and cleaning and next week we are supposed to start the project of giving the Jeep a new roof.








Today is the annual summer meeting for the Resource Management Volunteers...and...for a change I am not going.  I don't find anything accomplished at these meetings so rather than talk about restoration, I plan to go out and do some. 

I am still waiting on the results of the x-rays I had taken on my foot and hip.  The pain is there, but I do admit that the pain is lessening as the weeks go by.  I tried calling the doctor about my results from my home phone, but I don't think that the phone is working right and I don't think my voice got on their voice mail.  I will have to try to call next week from work. 

The garden is fast becoming "Jungle World" as it does every year about mid July.  I invited the family over tomorrow as a kind of last minute thing to hang out in the garden.

 I don't know if we will pull it off, but sometimes the last minute things work out best.

June 30, 2013

Another month gone.  I really have not done much the past several weeks other than work.  If I was not at work, I was working at my prairie restoration site or working in the garden.  With all of the rain we have gotten this year, gardening has come down to mainly weed management as the weeds are out of control.  The vegetable garden is not doing too well this year due to all of the flooding and the insects.  Everything is getting eaten within an inch of its life.

This past Monday we had another storm rip through and this time I lost power.  Fortunately it was on a Monday and at night so I was able to get out the generator to keep the basement pumped out.  The power came back on after 11:00 PM so I was grateful that I didn't have to get up for work in the morning.

I have also been making lots of jam as the serviceberry and cherry trees put out a bumper crop of fruit.  I made 11 1/2 pints of cherry jam and 10 1/2 pints of serviceberry jam.  This morning I might make some nectarine preserves as I was able to buy some really nice nectarines this week. 

Yesterday I went downtown to Soldier Field in the morning for the annual Chicago Food Depository Hunger Walk.  I used to do that walk years ago but haven't made it down there for quite some time.  This year I didn't walk but only went down with the rest of the Star Wars costumers as "entertainment" for the morning.  I wore my Imperial Gunner costume because it was a pretty cool morning and I wasn't too much worried about the fact that I can't seem to get enough air going in my helmet with the two fans I have in there.  Those fans are pretty useless so I think I am going to remove those two fans and put in one larger one.  Even with 3 nine volt batteries hooked together there is not enough juice to power two of the larger fans.  I thought that the cfm moved by the two smaller ones would be about equal, but it does not work really well at all so back to the drawing board.

I have also been out butterfly monitoring a couple times this month.  Results have been pretty dismal.  I guess the cold and way to wet spring has played havoc with the butterflies this year and it just does not look like it will be a very good year.

June 6, 2013

Jeez....almost a whole month has passed by again.  May was a month that saw me doing not much but working on different projects.  Hmmmm....that sounds about typical.

I did a LOT of work at my prairie restoration site earlier in the month at the invasive garlic mustard was growing full steam and flowering.  I managed to get as much of it sprayed as possible before the never ending rain and threats of rain started.  Can't spray in the rain or before it is going to rain and the later weeks of May it was all about the rain. 

I also spent a good deal of time working on selling off a good part of my Star Wars collection on E-bay.  It is amazing how much time that actually takes to do photos and listings.  I would sometimes turn around and a couple hours would have went by.

Since I could not do outside painting with the weather so crappy all the time, I did get some inside painting done.  I painted the computer room.  Brother, that room has not been painted in a long time and needed a fresh coat of paint.  As always, emptying the room and masking things off takes longer than actually painting and then there is giving everything a good cleaning before it gets moved back in.  I really hate painting, so I am glad to have that room done but also need to do my bathroom.  That hasn't seen any work in a very long time too.   I also have outside painting that needs to be done.  Ugh!

I finished planting the vegetable garden too and the weather has been just kicking the crap out of that.  My yard has been flooded more times this year than I can remember and all of the plants look sick because of the water logged soil.  I think I will be lucky to get much out of the vegetable garden this year. 

One of the things I spent copious amounts of time on was the Joliet Library Star Wars Day event.  I wanted to make the Rebel Legion display the best I could so I finished up a few pieces that I had laying around for quite a few years, made signage, and started packing totes full of costumes and props.  The display filled the Jeep front to back and floor to ceiling.  That did not include Artoo who was hanging out at the Joliet Historical Museum since the morning of the television taping and my lightsaber collection that was put in the display case at the Library about a month ago. 

The event was June 1, 2013 and it was insane!  I went to the Joliet Historical Museum on 5-31-13 to set up the Rebel Display and got up the next morning and headed to Joliet again.  The rest of the day and the event is really a blur.  I went from setting things up, to getting people to where they needed to go, to doing the shifts of volunteer work that I signed up for, putting out fires, and before I knew it - it was time to pack everything back up again. 

We ended up with something like 85 costumes and 5,000 visitors.  Crazy!  After the event was over, there was also an "after party" that I worked on putting together.  Things got nutty for that the last couple days.  All of that display stuff had to all be put away again and that seemed to take forever too. 

On Tuesday, I was back in Joliet to pick up Artoo at the Historical Museum and from there we headed straight to Silver Cross Field for the Joliet Slammers game.  They were having Star Wars night at the ballpark and had asked the SW costume groups to come out.  So, I figured that I would kill two birds with one stone if I picked up Artoo and dragged him along with me.  Worked out great because Artoo assisted Dan of Bug's Pals with his fundraising to buy books for the patients at Hope Children's Hospital which is another event coming up in August. 

Wednesday I was back in Joliet...again...this time to pick up my lightsaber collection out of the display case at the Library.  One thing is certain, I no longer need Google maps directions to get to either the Joliet Historical Museum or the Library....I am on auto pilot now when I go there.

 

 

May 12, 2013

I have switched from a lot of indoor chores to outdoor chores as my garden and landscape are now in full blown growth mode.  We have had a decent amount of rain and some warm temperatures so the lawn needs mowing frequently and I have begun to combat weeds and tackle some pruning chores.  The chipper shredder has already made its first appearance on the driveway.  Some of the cool season vegetables are planted and as usual, as soon as I plant seed for things like beets and carrots, the local raccoons begin digging where I just planted so I had to cover those beds with some plastic netting to keep the raccoons out till the seedlings get a little established.  Same thing happened last year that the raccoons messed up my planting of beet seeds and since last year was so warm, I never got a second chance to re-plant those and ended up with practically nothing.

I have also spent the past week working on the Joliet Library/Museum Star Wars Day event.  On Tuesday I spent practically my entire day off with meetings in that regard.  I also set up a lightsaber display at the Library's display case.  I thought I would not be able to fill the case, but as always, I actually brought too much. 

I also spent a good bit of time making signage for the rest of the display and trying to go over in my mind what will be needed for the Rebel Legion and R2 Builder's display.  I will need a bigger truck than my Jeep to haul all of the stuff home.  I would love to find some old school/industrial lockers for the display and will keep my eyes open, but I don't have a lot of money to waste on that.  I can always find a use for the lockers after the event, so that is something to consider.  I did find one set of lockers on Craig's list, but it was a set of 4 and was pretty large.  I am going to try to find something a little smaller. 

Today I am heading out to spray garlic mustard at my restoration site.  I hope it will be the last time that I have to go out for the year.  I am really tired of spraying gm as I have been doing that for a month already.

May 5, 2013

"May the 4th Be With You"!

Yesterday was Star Wars Day, so of course I had a SW event that I signed up for.  There were a lot of events to choose from yesterday because not only was it the unofficial Star Wars Day, it was also Free Comic Book Day, which is also a "big deal" in geekdom.  I attended a booksigning with the author Jeffrey Brown for the Star Wars book "Vader's Little Princess".  It is a children's book and is a sequel to "Vader and Son".  These books may be children's books but they are hysterical and very well done so it was a no-brainer to attend the booksigning as my May the 4th event.  The event was held on North Lincoln Ave and traffic was absolutely horrible getting there.  Also, there is no parking really on the north side of Chicago so I had to wander around to get a parking place (parking is something we take for granted in the burbs) but finally did squeeze into one.  It is a good thing I grew up in Chicago because I know how to parallel park....lol...lots of people who grew up in the burbs have no idea how to parallel park.  The event co-ordinator asked me to wear my Stormtrooper costume which is one I don't wear often because I am too short.  It was fun to wear that costume for a change.  I was the only Stormtrooper so not as many people seemed to care that I was too short.  Anyway, it was a really nice event. 

We took some photos of us sitting and "reading" the book.  Sitting in TK armor is not easy, but I did sit and the photo came out pretty amusing.











On May 3rd I did another SW event for Channel 7 news Morning Show.  Channel 7 is doing features highlighting various suburbs.  Friday they did Joliet and the Joliet Star Wars Day event was one that they wanted to feature.  We were asked to be part of the "set dressing" for that part of the news report.  We had to get to the Joliet Historical Museum at 4:00 AM and be suited up by 5:00 AM.  I am up every day at 2:00 AM so it was no big deal for me, but it was a little more difficult for the other brave souls who came.  It was pretty wild!  There were marching bands and all sorts of other things besides us....it made for a crazy scene for sure. I brought along my Artoo and ended up leaving him at the Museum because he will be needed there for the upcoming Joliet Library/Historical Museum Star Wars Day anyway, so that will now be one less thing to haul down there on May 21st.  The video is here: 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9YnsR5nypVk&feature=youtu.be

Last weekend I spent Sunday at C2E2 which is a local comic book and entertainment convention.  I went in Jedi costume to that.  I am not much on Cons and really only went there to help out my Rebel Legion Base with sitting at our fan table and running a game for the kids.  I went in Jedi costume to this event because I knew that there would be more Jedi there besides me.  It was ok....and the day really flew by.  I must have walked 10 miles though as the game we were conducting called for me to be wandering the show floor with stickers and the kids were supposed to find me (and the others) to get one of 4 stickers.  I walked back and forth through McCormick Place (which is huge) for 3 hours.  At least I got my exercise for the day.

I have also been spending a lot of my free time spraying the invasive species garlic mustard in the woods at my prairie restoration site.  Thankfully, the garlic mustard hasn't been as horrendous as the last couple of years so I have been able to walk large areas without having to constantly re-load the spray tank. 

I also have been working in my garden a bit and planting seed for the early season vegetables and working with transplants.  The soil is finally warming up to the point where I can probably think in terms of putting some of the other plants into the ground.  We had some severe rains a couple weeks ago and I flooded from front to back.  It was miserable but the standing water is finally gone.  I just hope that we don't head straight back into another drought like last year.  It seems it is always one extreme or the other around here. 

April 14, 2013

Wow, yet another month has gone by since I posted.  Spring has been reluctant this year to say the least.  Last year at this time we had so many 80 degree days and little rain that I was able to plant a good deal of the vegetable garden already by now.  This year, all I have done outside it toss in some lettuce seeds.  I do have tomato, peppers, and some herb seeds started and today I plan on starting the cucumber seeds.  I don't even have the pump in the water feature as yet.  The trees are just starting to show signs of life and the grass is greening up.

I haven't done much in the way of Star Wars events.  I am kinda taking a vacation from doing events.  The last costume event I did was the Naperville St. Patrick's Day Parade on 3-16-13.  It was really, really cold for the parade and it even snowed a bit, but I suppose it could always be worse.






In the world of sewing, about the only thing I finished was two flags for the Bartlett 4th of July Parade.  Since we are doing a salute/farewell to the "Clone Wars", I decided to make us some Clone Wars era flags to carry in front of the Jedi and Clones for the parade.  Working with sport nylon is always a pain in the ass, and these flags were no different. They look OK from a couple feet away, but don't get too close. 




This year I decided to go to the Forest Preserve District of Will County Volunteer Banquet, something I don't usually do anymore.  It was kind of a chance to hang out with the other volunteers without a chainsaw or tank sprayer in my hands.  It is kind of strange...I have spent the last 20+ years trying to learn about plants, ecosystems, and restoration but I can honestly say that probably the most important thing I do for the District at workdays the last years is operate a chainsaw.  There are very few of us chainsaw operators left, and not much gets done at a lot of workdays without the saws going.  Yesterday I operated chainsaw for a Scout project at Thorn Creek Woods.  I have also been out sawing at HCB as we worked on some really large honeysuckles...these were practically tree sized.  I have also begun the spring task of garlic mustard spraying...never fun. 

I have also been sick the last month....a lot.  As it turns out I have an ulcer....go figure.  I spent 10 days in misery and finally did get in to a doctor.  After 2 weeks on meds, I feel better but keep wondering when the next "bout" will strike.  I have also had teeth problems that have been just driving me crazy.  The up-side to all of the stomach and teeth problems is that I haven't had the desire nor ability to eat much so I feel that I have lost weight.  I guess I will have to put on my Rebel Fleet Trooper pants to really see if I lost weight.  Those were getting a bit tight the last times I wore them.

Today we have a wildflower walk at HCB.  I am looking forward to going out to my site and just enjoying it rather than working there.  Of course, even when I plan to "enjoy", I always let the work to be done that nags at me to sour the experience.  It will also be interesting to see the site in the eyes of someone else-in this case a member of the Illinois Native Plant Society who is leading the walk.

March 17, 2013

Happy St. Patrick's Day!  The weather feels like Christmas around here this year.  Last year at this time it was in the 80's.  I am glad that it is not in the 80 degree area as that was a little unsettling to have such warm weather (for long periods of time) in March.  A little moderation would be nice though.  How about some 50 degree days?

Anyway, St. Patricks Day around here means parades.  I did one last weekend...well...almost...and one yesterday.

Last Sunday (March 10th) the members of my Star Wars costume group was asked to march in the Southside Irish St. Pat's Day Parade.  We didn't have a lot of members signed up for the parade in the first place, and many of the members who did sign up, didn't show up.  The weather was terrible, it was cold and raining steadily. With only 4 of us present we decided not to actually march as only 4 people in costume would look more than a little pathetic, but we did suit up to the delight of the host family who opened their home for us to change in.  Next year, hopefully, we can get a bigger group as this parade is really a good time.  After we suited up for photos with the family, we did make our way to the parade route to hang out awhile.  I wore my Imperial Gunner costume to give it a "test drive" after installing fans and a hard hat suspension system.  The suspension system worked out really well...the fans...not so much.

Yesterday was the Naperville St. Patrick's Day Parade and the weather was just as bad.  Cold, drizzle, snow, and wind.  I parked my car at the end of the parade and walked the parade route back to the beginning.  It was then hours of stand around and wait in the cold.  That's the thing about parades.  They are fun...but all that waiting around to step off is usually mind numbing.  We were nearer to the front of the parade than we normally are, so that was a good thing.  I wore my Snowspeeder Pilot costume to this one and where I was not too cold for the first hour or so, it did start to get to me and my hands were numb.  But, as with most all parades, it is always worth it.  All you heard from the people along the parade route was "Star Wars"!!  I did get a few - "hey...it's Luke Skywalker"....lol..
at least it seemed that some of the people recognized the costume.

I have been reading a LOT lately.  I saw a trailer for a movie coming out in August called "City of Bones" and found that there was a series of books called "The Mortal Instruments" and "City of Bones" is the first book.  I picked up all 5 books that are currently out and dived through the first three in a little over a week.  Another record for me as each of the books was over 400 pages.  I really liked the story but am taking a break from the series to catch up on another series I am reading called "The Vampire Diaries".   Since I have no television anymore, I do a lot more reading.

Today I will be a slave to the sewing machine as I work on the softcap for my second Endor Commando headgear.  I dread it...but...so what else is new!  I also finished my Hoth Commander costume and it was judged as "informal" because of the color of the gaitered boots...meh...I have enough formal costumes and I knew that mine were the wrong color.  I don't agree that the boots should be gray instead of tan...but that's life.