I know it’s not my best, and it may even be an eyesore, but I had to change my layout for the Superbowl! My Bears have made it to the Superbowl and its still hard for me to believe it. It’s so weird to see my boys out in Miami on shows like Access Hollywood. Here’s my little tribute to them, and from Marlon a nice little comparison of what life was like 21 years ago - the last time the Bears were in the Superbowl.

In honor of the Chicago Bears going to Super Bowl 41. Here are 41 things that have changed from the last time the Chicago Bears played in the
Super Bowl (which was Super Bowl 20 in 1986):

• Brian Urlacher was in 2nd grade. 
• Rex Grossman was in kindergarten.
• Peyton Manning was 10 years old. 
• Eli Manning was 5 years old. 
• Their dad, Archie, had just retired from the NFL two years earlier.
• Lovie Smith was in his first college coaching job at University of Tulsa .
• Ronald Reagan was the President, and Harold Washington was the Mayor.
• James R. Thompson was the Governor running for re-election and his office was in the new State of Illinois Center, which is now called the James R. Thompson Center .
• George W. Bush was 39 years old and still drinking. His father would run for President two years later.
• Rod Blagojevich was just out of law school and was a low-level prosecutor working for the Cook County State ’s Attorney, Richard M. Daley.
• Barack Obama had just moved to Illinois, and Osama bin Laden was fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan .
• Red Grange and Sid Luckman were still alive.
• The Colts had just moved to Indianapolis from Baltimore and were the doormat of the AFC EAST. The Bears were the champions of the NFC CENTRAL.
• Property in Wicker Park and Bucktown was cheap because they were really bad neighborhoods.
• CD players, cellular phones and fax machines were expensive, cutting edge technology and only a few people used them.
• “Surfing the net” meant a volleyball game at the beach, and virtually no one used the “@” key on their TYPEWRITER.
• Sam Walton was still alive and was wealthier than Bill Gates. Windows were panes of glass…not a computer operating system that was a pain in something that rhymes with glass.
• The Soviet Union was our main enemy, and Saddam Hussein was our ally.
• There were no lights at Wrigley Field, and the oldest park in baseball belonged to the White Sox.
• Michael Jordan and Ozzie Guillen had just finished their “Rookie of the Year” seasons. Jordan’s coach was Stan Albeck and Guillen’s manager was Tony LaRussa. (Three out of four of those guys are now wearing championship rings, but what ever happened to Stan Albeck???)
• Soldier Field had AstroTurf. The Houston Oilers played in the AstroDome.
• The Fox TV Network didn’t exist, and ESPN had yet to air a single live pro football, baseball, or basketball game.
• MTV played music and so did some AM radio stations.
• Lindsay Lohan and Hilary Duff weren’t born yet; Jackie Gleason and Richard Nixon were still alive.
• Hillary Clinton had dark hair and was the First Lady……of Arkansas!
• “The Love Boat” and “Diff’rent Strokes” were still on network TV every week.
• Martin Luther King Day was about to be celebrated as a National Holiday for the first time. 
• “9-11″ was a phone number many cities were just adopting for emergency calls - not a date of terror.
• I-88 was called “Illinois Rt. 5″ and I-355 hadn’t been built yet.
• What the CTA now calls “The Blue Line” had just been extended to O’Hare, and the Orange Line to Midway hadn’t been built yet.
• Q101 played adult contemporary music and most teenagers listened to WLS.
• Music from the 70s and 80s wasn’t “retro” yet.
• Tiger Woods hadn’t won an amateur golf tournament yet.
• Most people knew Seattle just as a city in the Northwest U.S. - not the home of grunge or Starbucks.
• Only Southerners went to NASCAR races and only Northerners went to NHL games.
• The Chicago area had no Wal-Marts, Targets or Home Depots, and Walgreen’s was only in the Midwest .
• Depending on your bank, your ATM card was good at only “Cash Station” machines or only at “Money Network” machines, but there were no fees.
• “The Phone Company” was Illinois Bell.
• They still sold leaded gasoline and you couldn’t pay for your gas at the pump.
• Discover Card hadn’t been discovered yet, and Miller Genuine Draft hadn’t been brewed yet.
• Stereo TVs were the rage that HDTVs are now. 
• 8-track tapes were still being made.
• All of the Blockbuster Video stores that are now closing hadn’t openedyet. Betamax was still competing with VHS.
• You paid cash for your groceries and fast food, and you used a travel agent to book airline flights.
• Bowl games didn’t have corporate sponsors, and if the #1 ranked team was in a conference that played in one bowl game and the #2 ranked team was in a conference that played in another bowl game, then so be it! They let the sportswriters vote on the national champion. (and no college football games were played after New Year’s Day)
• The Baltimore Ravens were the Cleveland Browns. The Tennessee Titans were the Houston Oilers. The Oakland Raiders were the Los Angeles Raiders that had just left Oakland . The Arizona Cardinals (the former Phoenix Cardinals) were the St. Louis Cardinals, and the St. Louis Rams were the Los Angeles Rams. The Jacksonville Jaguars, Carolina Panthers, Houston Texans, and the Cleveland Browns (not to be confused with the Cleveland Browns that are now the Baltimore Ravens) didn’t exist. The Seattle Seahawks (last year’s NFC Champions) played in the AFC.
• Number 9 on the Bears was their Punky QB…not their perky field goal kicker.
• There were no iPods - just Sony Walkmen - so if you said something about a “shuffle” on your Walkman, they assumed you were listening to “The Super Bowl Shuffle”

and one thing that will be the same from the Chicago Bears last Super Bowl appearance…..
THEY WILL WIN!!!! GO BEARS!!!!!!

If you don’t like the layout, feel free to change it using the “Pick a Style!” option on the sidebar!

Go Bears!

Tags: Page Update by Yano
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November, 2003

More Wordless Wednesday here.

Tags: Weeklies by Yano
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I’m going to start posting my Ten on Tuesday’s here, since I’m the one running it!

1) The President

2) The Educational System - “No Child Left Behind” needs to be left behind! Howabout giving more money to our schools than to the military?

3) How divided our country is - it’s always Democrats vs. Republicans

4) The amount of troops we have in Iraq - we don’t have enough to protect us in case someone were to attack us

5) Gays should have the right to marry. Even better, government has not right to say whether or not they should…that’s a case for religion.

6) Change the way the electoral college works - it would be proportional to how people within a state vote, rather than an all or nothing win of all the states electoral votes

7) No more life time terms for judges. They could have a long term, like 10 years, but lets not keep them in there forever!
Lower the drinking age to 18. I never understood the reasoning behind letting 18 year olds have the ability to elect the people to run our country, but not let them have a beer.

9) Have some sort of way to lessen legal disputes. Americans have fallen into a bad habit of suing each other over anything, we need a way to filter the stupid ones out before any money is wasted on them

10) Lessen the amount of negative political ads, which turn off voters from voting at all and concentrate on having candidates send out positive messages.

I really try to stay out of politics, but most of these things are issues I feel strongly about…

Tags: Weeklies by Yano
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My #1 New Year’s resolution last year was to lose at least 20lbs of the baby weight that I still have left over. I was pretty good for the first week of the year, but having to take care of the baby and working at night when the baby sleeps has left me little time to work out. Add to that the fact that I have no self control when it comes to late night snacks and food that tastes good. Also, whenever I travel it’s hard for me to just get a salad when there’s a whole menu of foods I’ve never tried before.

But I still want to work on it. What I plan to do (which probably won’t happen, but putting it in here will give it a higher chance of happening) is wake up a little earlier for work when I’m working at home, and go on the elliptical for at least 15 minutes, for my “commute” to work. When I’m done, another 15 minutes for my “commute” home.

I guess another reason this is so hard for me to do (which is a reason why weight loss is a problem for a lot of other people) is that I never had a problem with my weight growing up. I was a thin little thing and never had to worry about what I ate, so I pretty much ate whatever I wanted. In college I was still pretty slim, and walking to and from class, as well as demanding fashion show practices (not as glamorous as it sounds, trust me) and football practices kept me moving. Really, the only time I started gaining weight was about 2-3 years out of college, which was when my metabolism probably started slowing down and my eating habits started to catch up with me. When I got married I was the heaviest I had been at any time before that. That’s when I learned that stress makes me eat.

So I’ve learned bad food habits, and never found that high people get when they work out. I just find it to be boring.

But I’ve got to get over that if I ever want to fit into my old clothes. I’m tired of having nothing to wear or having to go out and buy clothes for special occasions because I have nothing that looks flattering on me.

We’ll see what happens. I’ll keep you posted!

Tags: Daily by Yano
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We took Ben on his first roadtrip last weekend. Dave had a conference to go to in Michigan, so we decided to make a trip of it and visit my sister who currently lives there in wedded bliss with Redpac. It’s about a 5 hour drive, but it ended up being a lot longer with that since we took breaks for Benjamin. We had stopped by a rest area on our way there, but to my surprise, there were no changing tables in the bathroom! I ended up having to change Ben in the car, and he was NOT happy about it!

We got to Michigan safe and sound, and we had a great time there. Here’s a couple pictures as well as a run through of our weekend:

Biscuits and Gravy, at the Chocolate Gallery Cafe. This is one of the best I’ve ever had - not too salty, not too lumpy, not too spice. It was awesome!

This was my breakfast on the second day. Banana croissant french toast. Croissants dipped in french toast batter, cooked, covered with bananas and banana sauce. I’m drooling just thinking about it!

The Gumbo Ya Ya at Fishbone’s. Not too spicy, with just enough kick to make me take a sip of water after eating.

Fishbones: Cajun food and Sushi. It seems weird to make together, but actually works out really well!

My Rainbow Roll at Fishbone’s, with my unagi peeking behind it. DEEEE-LICIOUS!

Ben checks out Claudine’s schedule. He had an AWESOME time at Claudine and Dan’s because they had so much stuff for him to touch, from coasters to mp3 players to pennies to tape measures. He had his hand on them all. It was like sensory overload!

The big Uniroyal wheel on I-75 (or I-94, I’m not sure). We passed it on our way home. Several hours after this, we ran into an awful snowstorm in Indiana. Of course, it was during my driving shift and I was ultra alert as I was driving because I couldn’t see the car right in front of me. It was pretty scary! But we got through it, and Ben pretty much slept through the whole thing.

All in all, a great weekend, except for the snowstorm thing. Claudine and Dan were wonderful hosts, taking us to some yummy places to eat! Thanks guys!

Tags: Daily by Yano
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Christmas comes a little late for me, but I took my horde of Best Buy giftcards and bought myself a new lens for “The Camera That I Can’t Afford”. I’ve been doing a lot of research and there’s a great deal for an awesome lens that pretty much every D50 owner that has it raves about. It’s the 50mm f/1.8D AF Nikkor lens, and for a while that meant nothing to me but I now know that it’s a pretty fast lens that can take good pictures, even when the lighting isn’t that great - which is the problen I have when taking pics in my house, since I have to rely on our indoor lighting which isn’t that great.

So I played around with it and it’s AWESOME! My only complaint is that sometimes it’s slow to autofocus and that when it does the autofocus it’s a little loud, but other than that, I’ve come up with some great pictures! It’s really given me some inspiration and drive to go out and take non-Ben pictures again. So here’s some samples for you to enjoy (of course, pictures of my favorite subject!)

Tags: Daily by Yano
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I got this email this morning from Jim Guest, the president of Consumer Reports, which I had subscribed to so I could check out the best and safest equipment for Benjamin.

Dear Christine E***,

By now, you’ve probably heard the news about my decision to withdraw the infant car seat report featured on ConsumerReports.org and in the February issue of Consumer Reports magazine. I took this action when we discovered a mistake in our side-impact crash tests.

We always strive to be accurate and fair, and I regret this error. Going forward, I want to make sure that our actions are as thorough and transparent as possible so that we preserve your trust as we continue to test, inform, and protect consumers. To that end, I’m writing you and the millions of other Consumers Union members to tell you what I know about the situation and what we’re doing about it.

Here’s what I know so far: One of our tests was intended to simulate how infant car seats perform in a side-impact crash at 38 mph. That’s the speed at which many new vehicles are tested in side crashes by the government’s auto safety agency. But upon reevaluating our data, we believe our tests simulated crashes that were much more severe than that.

Some of the questions I’ve heard involve our use of an outside lab to conduct the crash tests. While the vast majority of product testing by Consumers Union occurs in our own labs, we sometimes use outside contractors that have special test equipment or other expertise that we don’t. This enables us to inform you about the safety, reliability, and performance of important products that we couldn’t otherwise test.

That said, we expect all our testing to meet the same high standards, and our own staff oversees all projects. The board of directors and I are appointing a panel of experts to review this incident and determine what went wrong.

We’re also retesting the infant car seats featured in our article as thoroughly and quickly as possible, so that we can publish our findings and help parents who are making this important buying decision. I’ve directed that we suspend the article’s Ratings and other recommendations regarding specific car-seat models until this retesting is completed. In any case, I again stress the importance of what we say in the article: Any child car seat is better than no seat at all.

For 71 years, the staff of Consumers Union has worked hard to earn the trust of members like you and to build the stellar reputation we have enjoyed. We test more than 3,000 products each year, and errors like this one are rare. I apologize on behalf of Consumers Union and I promise you we’re working hard to ensure that such an error does not happen again.

Sincerely,

Jim Guest

I think it’s great the CR sent an email to all of its subscribers, as well as made this issue public (I remember hearing a news story about it as well). The main reason I had joined was for the safety reports, and it’s reassuring to know that if they screw up, they’ll tell us about it. When I was reading the artical, I was expecting that the tests were not safe enough, but then I saw that the testing simulated crashes that were TOO severe. Of course, that would have given bad ratings to carseats that would have been just fine in your average crashes, but since I already went out and bought one of the carseats that they had rated in the top five, it makes me feel that much better - my seat is a super safe seat!

On a side note, for you parents out there, here’s the list of product recalls. I had been wondering the other day if there was a website that has a listing of product recalls and there is.

CPSC Recall Announcements

It’s a little scary when you look at the listing of what’s been recalled - things that pose choking hazards, laceration hazards, lead poisoning hazards - don’t they test these things before they get sold?

Name of Product: Reebok Heart-Shaped Charm Bracelets

Hazard: The recalled jewelry contains high levels of lead, posing a risk of lead poisoning and adverse health effects to young children.

Incidents/Injuries: Reebok has received a report of a death caused by lead poisoning of a 4-year-old child from Minneapolis, Minn. The child reportedly swallowed a piece from one of these bracelets.

Name of Product: Chicken Limbo Electronic Party Game

Hazard: The game’s two side poles do not fit into their bases properly making the game unstable. This can cause the game to completely fall apart if touched, hitting children playing the game as well as bystanders.

Incidents/Injuries: Milton Bradley has received 46 reports of the Chicken Limbo party game collapsing unexpectedly. This includes 23 reports of injuries including bumps, bruises, welts and red marks, four reports of cuts, one chipped tooth and one fractured foot.

Name of product: Crib Mobile Toys

Hazard: If batteries used in the mobile leak, the caustic liquid can seep out of the battery compartment, posing a risk of chemical burns to babies.

Ugh…at this rate, I’m just going to keep Benjamin in a box, with only a large sterilized plastic tupperware container for him to play with!

Tags: Daily by Yano
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I’m entering a new phase in my work life, and it’s scary and thrilling at the same time. I’m a person who hates changes, who resists it with every fiber of my being, which may be surprising given how often I change this blog layout. I just like the comfort of things that I know, doing my routine, living life where I feel like I have control and there’s no uncertainty.

But to get ahead, I need to open myself to new things, new experiences. It’s scary and as much as I want to just dip my toe in the pool of the unknown, often with work I’m forced to just jump in, flailing and hoping to stay afloat.

Of course, everything is ok, I’m doing just fine. Things were a little shaky in the beginning, but just like the other times I’ve been exposed to something new, I’ve done much better than I expected. I guess I just doubt myself and my abilities, worried that I’ll be a failure and that the powers that be at X Inc. will find out and fire my ass, leaving Bennie with an unemployed mother forced to sell crack on the streets just so her baby can eat a piece of bread.

But yeah, this new phase of my career isn’t as scary as I thought it would be. I’m actually settling into it quite well. I’m ready for the next curveball you’re gonna throw at me, X Inc!

Tags: Daily by Yano
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I’ve been working on some projects for work, so I haven’t had much time to blog. So to keep you occupied until I can find a few moments to write something fun and witty, here’s a little video to light up your day. Or make you gag. It depends…

Tags: Video Gaga by Yano
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So did anyone watch that Bears game yesterday?

I remember watching the pre-game show and they had a bunch of announcers predicting who would win the game and every one of them said “The Saints”, except for Mike Ditka, who ironically had coached both teams. It frustrates me that all year, the Bears have had this awesome record but we’re always considered the underdogs, always putting us lower on the ranking lists - below other teams with records not as good as ours.

So we have one more game to show the world that we’re for real. Sure, we may be inconsistent, but we get the job done when it matters.

It’s hard to believe we’ve made it to the Superbowl, it’s almost surreal! We were watching the game yesterday and it got pretty scary there near the end of the first half and at the beginning of the second. I got pretty annoyed when Reggie Bush got his touchdown and taunted the Bears defense, and then did his little dance in the end zone. I wouldn’t have minded the dance, but I did mind the taunting and the flip into the endzone. Oh well, we shut him down after that.

There were so many great moments in the game, from the Drew Brees’ safety to Ogunleye’s fumble recovery, to Thomas Jones - the one man show for a whole drive.

My head is still spinning. I’m so happy for my team, I’m happy that Rex has his confidence back, I’m happy that Lovie has made history by becoming the first black coach to make it to the SuperBowl. This guy needs a payraise!

Whoo hoo! We’re going to Miami, baby!

Tags: Daily by Yano
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