Peoria Illinoisan

The Cardinals are in a free fall and they don’t appear to have a parachute!

Only 10 short days ago the Cards were giddy with an insurmountable 8 1/2 game lead on the Houston Astros.  And now?  A 1/2 game lead with three to play.  This could rival or even surpass the famous ‘69 Cubs as one of the greatest baseball collapses in history!

My prediction: The Cardinals will lose 2 out of 3 to Milwaukee and the red-hot Astros will go to the playoffs.

If I’m wrong, you can all go back to heckling my last place Cubs.

Can we move on now?

Stevie Ray Vaughan played at the Peoria Civic Center on December 13, 1986. I was a freshman at Bergan High School. My brother asked me on the day of the concert if I would like to go. Although I was well versed in all things WHO and was beginning to learn about this crazy guy named Dylan, I was clueless to Stevie Ray Vaughan. I had about two hours of prep time to familiarize myself with him before I went to my first concert ever. I put the needle down on “Couldn’t Stand The Weather” and couldn’t believe my ears! I thought Jimi Hendrix had died years earlier!

The concert was general admission, no seats, lots of Harley looking dudes, and was held in the exhibit hall. The stage was a flat-bed trailer and there couldn’t have been more than a thousand people there tops. Stevie jammed full bore- guitar behind his back, picking notes with his teeth, busting guitar strings seemingly on every song… a fight up front required the Peoria Police Department and prompted a lecture from Stevie about loving your fellow man (this must’ve been a common occurance because the vinyl of “Live Alive” has a similar lecture; it was chopped to allow the double album to fit on a single CD).

My life would never be the same.

Set List:

 

After the concert he went to Duffy’s to jam with Bernard Allison. Oh the lucky few…

Buy now, ask later. Between Bradley University’s buyup of Maplewood and Dist 150’s purchases around Glen Oak Park, the ‘buy now, ask later’ process of expansion has been an all too common occurance around town lately.

In the Uplands, surrounded by the streets of Columbia Terrace, University and Elmwood is the Bradley-Epworth United Methodist Church. It is no secret that they’ve been interested in expanding for some time now. Quietly, they’ve purchased three adjacent properties along University and one next door on Elmwood. A few more on Elmwood and they’d really have a nice chunk of land.

The obvious objection to this is the loss of more historic houses and the shrinking of the neighborhood to put down more pavement. To be honest, the houses on University aren’t all that spectacular, but what really bothers me is their recent purchase on Elmwood and the fear that they are looking for more. Secondly, if this is allowed to happen, a precedent will have been set at which point Avanti’s will have the green light to tear down a few houses on the other end of the street to expand. A few houses here, a few houses there… I’m starting to feel a squeeze coming on.

A few years back Walgreens wanted to take out the Avanti’s corner at Main & University to build the bohemouth that now sits on Western. Bradley has been trying to peck away at us in the past along Main Street; for the most part their efforts failed. How is this current situation different, and why would anyone think it is a good idea? I, for one, don’t like the notion of selling off the Uplands, especially when it begins affecting interior streets.

Mayor Ardis says “we agreed to disagree”.  I think what he wanted to say was “we can go back and forth and back and forth, but ultimately Ken Hinton is going to built at the park site no-matter.  It’s futile and I’m sick of playing these silly games.”

I’m waiting for Mr. Hinton to come out and say “well, we tried to negotiate, but the city didn’t want to work with us, so we had no choice except to built at the original site.”

Mr. Hinton wanted the park.  Mr. Hinton got the park.  Period.  Game over.

Glancing over the paper this morning, I had a sinking suspicion that the anonymous donor to the zoo was Bill Dennis, but he claim’s it wasn’t him.  I’d still like to thank whomever the anonymous donor is for bringing the new zoo that much closer to fruition, even if the majority of the blogosphere thinks it’s a bunch of crap.

As I mentioned, I was called for jury duty this week.  I’ve never been inside of a court room before, and even though I was never ultimately chosen to hear any of the cases, it was interesting to see how the process works in real life.  Of the two cases that I was on the jury pool for, both were young black males.  There were also three misdemeanor cases that were either settled out of court or switched to bench trials.  Those three were also young black males.

Yea, so what?

The number of potential jurors was by my estimation, over 100.  There seemed to be a random cross-section of Peorians from all walks of life… strangely all were white except for two.

Stats from City Data show Peoria’s population to be 68.3% white, 24.8% black, and 6.9% all other races, yet the potential jury pool for this week was 98% white.  That’s quite a difference. 

I’m not saying the juries aren’t fair and impartial to the best of their ability, but common sense tells me that something just isn’t right.

Today my number came up for jury duty.  I feel like watching 12 Angry Men.

Apparently, the previous owners of what is now Sully’s has to pay $62,500 for trying to remove asbestos pipes before it was sold. “E & E’s (deli) actions jeopardized the safety of both the public and untrained asbestos removal workers”.  On Saturday we learned that Peoria had been given a gift of $3,000,000 to help out with lead abatement programs.

When we were looking to get the exterior of our house repainted several years ago, I asked the fellow that we were hiring about lead paint.  We had young children and didn’t want lead paint chips all over the place.  Who better to ask about lead paint than a painter!  He told me that he had used bleach on a previous house and it worked very well.  I found empty beer cans in my garage (Milwaukee’s Best, or something equally cheap) and my wife had to keep the blinds closed because he kept peering in.  It eventually took the Peoria Police Department to force him to leave and never come back.  Ok, he was an idiot, and I was an idiot for hiring him.  He got my deposit, but no more.  We had to scrape off his half-ass job a couple years later and repaint it outselves.  His name was Bob Herman.  Stay away.

I’m a firm believer in education.  You’ll never get all of the asbestos out of the schools or older buildings, and you’ll never get all the lead out of all the old houses.  It’s just not possible on a large scale, no matter how much money you throw at it.  BUT- knowing when it is nescessary for removal and when it is not, and more-so, understanding how to control it is critical.  That’s where the money should go.  Educating the idiots.

Today’s the day the residents of the Gaslight Square Apartments, by no fault of their own, were encouraged to leave. I was driving past and curiosity got the best of me, so I thought I’d check it out. As I pulled in, a caravan of loaded pickup trucks drove past, giving my first signal of what was going on. There were alot of people milling around, sitting on the porches. I saw a few PODS, 8-10 U-Hauls, and a bunch of cars and trucks backed up and huddled around the entrances. As I was following the loop that goes around the complex, and heading back out to University, I saw where the action really was. Several police keeping the peace, the Red Cross, and all of the local media.

If you read some of the tenant’s reviews, you’ll wonder why this place wasn’t shut down earlier.

Free wireless internet is already a reality in some parts of the city.

I currently have a choice between “default” or “linksys”.

“default” has a stronger signal.  I wonder which one of my generous neighbors’ signals am I borrowing?  I hope they don’t mind… 

 

As the city continues to push for the tearing out the only tracks that connect from Downtown, through the heights, and out to North Peoria, there is talk of Amtrack coming here?

Oh the irony.

I really doubt light rail would fly around here. We’re too small of a town. It takes 15 minutes to get practically anywhere in the city, but more than that- we love our cars. I’d ride it for the novelty, but not much more than that. I don’t ride the bus, and I don’t think I’d ride light-rail.

Amtrack, on the other hand, would be very useful. I looked into taking the train up to see the Cubbies, but having to drive an hour to Princeton to get on the train seemed pointless. If it originated here though, I’d be all over it. I hate Chicago traffic. Not so much the traffic, but the traffic JAMS. I love the vibrancy of the city and driving through it, but being locked in a traffic jam on I-55 is nothing short of a nightmare. It’s the sole reason that I don’t go up there more often.

Peoria Charter goes up there, but busses have to sit in traffic jams too. A train from Peoria into downtown Chicago, from which you could walk or take the EL to a Cub game, the museums, shopping, or where-ever sounds great to me. Would you take a train from Peoria to St. Louis to see a Cardinal game or visit the zoo? Certainly! High Speed Rail! Bring it on!

But what benefit would it have for Peoria’s economy? Out of towners could ride it in visit the new Civic Center, Caterpillar Museum and Peoria Museum Square. They might even come for a chance to cycle on the Keller Bike Path.

Tonight I headed up to Tiskilwa to pick up my 12 year old daughter who lives with us on weekends, summers and holidays (long and all too common story that I don’t need to tell now.)

Tiskilwa is a cute little town about 45 minutes north of Peoria and just south of the *big city* called Princeton.

While driving up, I reaaaly had to go to the bathroom. I knew I couldn’t hold it until I got to her house or even the gas station that used to be Caseys, so I had to find a side road off the country road. Once you get past Tanners, it’s farm roads all the way surrounded by corn and bean fields. I’ve had to pull off the side of the road and run into the corn field before, but I usually try to be a little more discreet. There aren’t many cars on this stretch of road, but there are a few. I decided that I would wait until I hit the windfarm and pull into one of their utility drives.

As luck would have it, the one I chose curved a little, so there was no view from the ‘main’ farm road. Out of curiousity, I turned off the engine so I could hear how much noise these big things made. What I heard was a rusling of the wind through the corn fields and a “whoosh, whoosh, whoosh” of the huge blades spinning near me.

As I went about my business I started looking around, as one would do, and unfortunately looked UP for the first time. Yikes!! There were three HUGE blades rotating directly above me! The whole reason that I was in this position immediately came to a halt, as I was in shock. I knew beforehand that I was right infront of one of the windmills, but I was so singularly focused on the job at hand I had not taken the time to look up… when I did, I freaked out!

I’m deathly scared of heights and staring up at sky-scrapers wierds me out a little too, so to stand at the base of a massive electricity generating windmill and watch these huge blades spin overhead was just too much for me to handle!

As much as I wanted to take a picture, everytime I looked straight up and watched the awesome blades of the windmill spin down at me… well, I just couldn’t do it.

I backed up a little and snapped a few though…

For the curious, I posted about this a long time ago while it was under construction (with photos of course).

The majority of people I know say they can’t draw or do any other form of art.  Have you ever heard a 6 year old say that?  At what age do we decide we can’t be artistic?  I would love to do a survey.  In my case, it was when I was 10 years old.  I had an art teacher who asked me, “why can’t you draw like your brother?”  Admittedly my brother, who is one year older than me, is a fantastic artist.  But from that point, until I was in my early twenties, I decided I couldn’t do art.  Sad thing is, I CAN do art!  I’ve even been hired to paint things for people!  Goes to show the things a teacher says can impact you for the rest of your life, but I digress.

Here’s the point - if you know a kid who is up to 14 years old, they can enter an art contest for the Peoria PlayHouse Children’s Museum, with the artwork to be featured in the Design Your Day Calendar.  The calendar is a family style calendar where each person is allocated specific spaces for their activities.  Each month will feature a drawing of “kids at play, everyday.”  Every child whose art is chosen will get a free calendar and a $50 gift certificate.  Good deal, huh?  So encourage those little people out there to use their creative talents and draw (and color!) a beautiful picture for the contest.  Maybe they will win, but if not, at least they will feel good for trying!

Rules [here] (don’t worry, there’s not too many)

Download the official printable drawing page [here] 

 

Mrs. PI, Peoria Playhouse Chairman.

I never ever want to hear Styx’s “Come Sail Away” again.  It’s one of those songs like Disney’s “It’s a Small World” that drives you nuts long after it’s over.  I could certainly live without REO Speedwagon too; I don’t care if they’re from East Peoria or not…

On the flipside, tonight on XM’s Tom Petty’s Buried Treasure show I heard two songs that never get old:

ELO: I Can’t Get It Out of My Head [video]

The Kinks: 20th Century Man