Category: Illinois

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My Favorite Picture!

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I had planned on posting pictures of Blake’s first birthday, but we’ll have to wait a little longer for that. I can’t find them! I thought they had been uploaded to our new computer, but they aren’t. Steve is in Hong Kong & India on business and has our camera with the disk, so…blah, blah, blah. Instead, I’ll post my favorite picture of Blake…he was all sweaty with his hair slicked back but he looks so cute. By the way, Larry, you’re probably the only family member who doesn’t know this, but Dawn is pregnant again. She’s due March 3rd with another boy. How about some Penn State memorabilia if the baby is born on your birthday, the 2nd? Chris’ family has bombarded Blake with University of Illinois stuff and Dawn really wants to get the competition going. Can you help?

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Wonderful World of Winter


A beautiful day at Steve and Mary Fall’s on Friday the first. We had 12″ of snow which started last night and as of about 10:00 am the first day of Dec it is still snowing. I don’t have a name for my snowblower (as Gary has), but it still does the trick. Seems the last two times I have gone to a concert we have been hit by a snowfall. Last year was on the way to a Hot Tuna show. This year we were coming home from Bob Seger. Not really a fan of his, but had some friends who wanted to go and we tagged along. I will say though I was quite impressed. If you like him I suggest going to his show. It was good.

Anyway, here is my first attempt at attaching a picture. Actually, I guess if you wanted to get picky you could say my second as I tried earlier this year to attach a picture of my trip to Mesquite, but since the picture was deleted from the computer I couldn’t do it. At least this time I know the picture is here as I just downloaded it from the camera.

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Eagles

I know, where have I been? So I haven’t been on the blog in a while. Sorry, not my thing.

Anyway, to catch up. I have had many eagles, but only 2 full shots into the hole and neither of them did I see go in the hole. The first was #10 at Chalet Hills where the green is elevated and no way you can see the ball go in the hole. I believe it was 150 yards uphill with a 7 iron. The other was #1 at Old Orchard CC in my league. I stiffed an 8 iron just past the hole. It backed up slightly and stopped a couple inches from the hole, or so I thought. I turned and put my club in my bag, turned back around and the ball was gone. It had been sitting on the lip and dropped when I turned my back.

As you may or may not know I am back in possession of the shirt. I kicked Ron’s ass (low net for all 6 rounds at Battle Creek). Wally and Ron tied for 2nd after Saturdar’d 36 holes and Ron won the tiebreaker to play the 18 hole match play Sunday. I believe the final was 5 and 4.

Last night was our graduation party for Nick. Most of the local family attended. It was a good time. Nick will be going to Harper for at least a year. Will see after that what he wants to do.

Since it’s been so long since I’ve been on here I did want to send a picture of the course we played in Nevada. Unbelievable course. I haven’t added any pictures before so here goes nothing…
Forget the pictures. Don’t know what happened to my disc.

Larry, hope your knee doesn’t become too much of a problem. I did have my knee scoped once and played golf about 10 days later. No big deal. Good luck.

Well, goodbye everyone. I’ll be back soon. Maybe I can get some pictures of the graduation party together.

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Chicago Bandits

A friend of mine will be playing for the Chicago Bandits this summer.

“Who?”, you ask.

“The Chicago Bandits women’s professional fast pitch softball team”, I answer.

UncleLar niece, Missy Beseres (bad photo in the link BTW), was drafted by the Bandits as a pitcher. She’ll join Chicago once her Penn State career end – Penn State is awaiting an invitation to the NCAA tournament expected to come later today.

Missy set a Penn State career record for wins this year – she currently sits at 53 over her four years here. A spot on the Bandits roster opened up when uberbabe Jennie Finch got pregnant. A couple of years ago Finch dethroned Anna Kournikova as ESPN’s Hottest Female Athlete.


Here’s a photo of Jennie in action (I don’t think this is an official Chicago Bandit uniform however).


Here’s a shot of Missy in action (that is an official Penn State uniform).

I suspect that Missy will only be on the roster until Jennie makes it back from her pregnancy (she had a baby boy a week ago). The Bandits have a powerful pitching staff and I’m not sure that Missy has quite reached that level yet.

What amazes me these days is the number of opportunities for women to play professional sports. If Missy makes the squad, she will be the fifth female I personally know who is a professional athlete. The others are Jess Brungo on the Connecticut Sun basketball team, and Syndie Nadeau and Ashley Pedersen who both play professional volleyball in Paris and Barcelona respectively, and Joanna Lohman who has played for both the New York Power and Washington Freedom professional soccer teams along with the US National team. I think it’s wonderful that these girls get an opportunity to continue to excel even beyond college at the highest levels in their chosen sports.

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Congrats to Veronica


We just received notification today that Veronica has been accepted to attend IMSA, the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy in Aurora, Illinois, starting in the fall. We are just floating on air after getting this news!

IMSA is a very unique high school in that it is a public high school funded by the state. Each year they accept the top 225 applicants from around the state. The students specialize in math and science and over their three years get to study and research at places like FermiLab, Argonne Lab, the Museum of Science and Industry, etc.. Most graduates go on to study at universities such as Stanford, MIT, Harvard, Northwestern, etc..

If you want to get a better understanding of just how unique IMSA is and how much of an accomplishment this is for Veronica, go to:

http://www.imsa.edu/

Way to go, Veronica!

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Elliot’s Cross-Country Trek


What a great visit with Elliot and friends Joe and Adam! I haven’t laughed that hard in a long time! They were very interested in learning the dynamics of the Fall family…and engaging themselves in every competition we could dream up (from the proper way to speak to pool and air hockey)! I’m so sorry we had to go away on Saturday. I understand Steve and I missed out on a great day in Chicago.

Gary – you should have a blast on Wednesday!

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Me and the World Series Trophy

The White Sox World Series Trophy Tour was at work today. So I waited in line for about 10 – 15 minutes and they snapped a polaroid.

Here I am! Pretty cool except they move you out of there in about 5 seconds to get the next person in.

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One of my favorites


Shannon’s 21st birthday. Gary and I flew in and teamed up with Ron and Steve to surprise her. We just walked into the bar where she was celebrating the birthday with her girlfriends. When she saw us, she did this double take that was almost as amazing as the look we got from Kenny when we surprised him for his birthday (or the look I got from Marilyn, Mary, and Mary Ann the time I surprised them at a Chippendales show). She then let out a scream and ran over to hug us. I’m sure her girlfriends didn’t have a clue what was going on.