Snuggie pub crawl

1 comment March 17th, 2009

A reader writes, when is Rockford going to host a Snuggie Pub Crawl (check out the video) like San Diego?

Business man returns to Rockford radio for a bit

Add comment March 16th, 2009

Tim Larson, president of Skyward Promotions in Rockford, will fill in for Riley O’Neil on the morning show at WROK (1440-AM) starting at 5 a.m. on March 26, 27 and 30, while O’Neil is out of town at baseball spring training in Arizona.

Larson was a mid-day personality at the station for two couple-of-year stints in the early to mid 1980s.

Golan art gallery still in business for now

Add comment March 16th, 2009

Golan Liberman Art Gallery in Rockford will remain open for now, owner and abstract artist Roni Golan said today.

“Can I tell you I am out of the woods?” he said. “No, not yet.”

Golan held a maybe-going-out-of-business sale late last month with discounted prices on his works at the studio at 2209 E. State St. Going forward, he said he’ll keep his prices lower. And there’s more traffic now that the DiTullio’s has opened a deli next door.

Golan will continue to host his free Laughing Club meetings at the studio for the time being anyway. He said he vows to “turn Rockford into a city that never stops laughing.”

Bowling and gambling in Dubuque and our weekend getaway to a close-by city that’s far from where Rockford is economically

1 comment March 16th, 2009

Two of us traveled from Rockford, two hours west to Dubuque, Iowa, last weekend and experienced a reasonably priced good-time getaway.

It was a trip that took us from a 13.7 percent unemployment rate in a city of 150,000 to a unemployment rate half that, of 6.6 percent, in a city of 60,000; from a city where “for sale” signs on houses are to be found on practically every street to one where we spotted very few for-sale signs.

The city was busy, even though a few bed-and-breakfast owners were willing to give us discounts because they considered it a slow weekend. We had trouble finding a hotel room downtown or even on the outskirts Saturday night; there was a dog show downtown and a statewide bowling tournament that continues weekends through spring. By the way, a game of bowling here is $3.95 versus $3.25 at the spanking new Diamond Jo land casino where the two of us lost a reasonable $50 for three hours of playing poker, and shoes were $2.50 versus $3 here.

Comparisons between Rockford and Dubuque were in the local news a month ago. That’s when local business leaders were quoted as stewing over IBM’s decision to transform a downtown building to open a computer hub for 1,300 highly skilled, highly paid workers in Dubuque. Dubuque won out because of its highly educated labor pool, something Rockford doesn’t have. Dubuque is home to five institutions of higher education.

By the way, when we asked a bed-and-breakfast operator there at the Victorian Hancock House  to tell us a few things about Dubuque, the IBM jobs were at the top of his list. Rockford wasn’t in the running for the $100 million IBM project. But like Rockford, Dubuque in the early 1980s was “nearly dead,” according to the head of Dubuque’s economic development arm. But now, it’s poured more than $300 million into its riverfront and downtown in the past five to 10 years.

(Dubuque Riverwalk Plaza)

And the downtown and riverfront look great. It felt like we were in a happening place in a city where we didn’t see hardly any litter on the streets, and we drove downtown and all around the city in its better neighborhoods and those that weren’t tops. We didn’t see any boarded up windows, like there are on many west side Rockford homes.  It was a far cry from the empty pop bottles and plastic grocery bags we noticed on our re-entry into the city in parking lots along Auburn Street, to name one eyesore area here.

In the Feb. 14 Register Star story linked to above, Rockford businessman Peter Provenzano, CEO of SupplyCore, said of  Dubuque, “They’re a symphony, and we’re a bunch of street-corner musicians.”

Maybe we should get the Rockford Symphony Orchestra’s popular conductor Steve Larsen to tutor Rockford leaders in how to pull everyone together so we can be more like Dubuque and make beautiful music? Other suggestions?

Sears Tower now Willis Tower

Add comment March 13th, 2009

Just so you know, Sears Tower in Chicago, the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere, soon will become Willis Tower after Willis Group Holdings secured naming rights, according to this story in the Chicago Tribune.

chicagoarchitecture.info

Another hometown-ish reference on TV

Add comment March 12th, 2009

We think Shawn Ryan, who grew up in Rockford and became a big-time TV producer and writer, had a hand in Janesville, Wis., being spotlighted in Sunday’s episode of “The Unit.”

The American action-drama TV series is about a top-secret military unit modeled after the real life Delta Force.

A Register Star editor who watches the series, co-produced and sometimes written by Ryan, said that Sunday’s episode focused on a new recruit who was trying to join the team. The reason for his addition was the death of one of the main characters.

At the end of the show, two members of The Unit were at a graveyard to pay last respects to their fallen brother. The site of the graveyard: Janesville, Wis. The city’s name was stripped across the bottom of the screen.

Ryan also created, produced and wrote many of the shows for FX’s “The Shield,” a cop drama series that ended last year.  In the final episode of that series, Rockford wasn’t specifically mentioned, but the Burpee Museum of Natural History of Rockford was referenced. The lead character’s ex-wife was being relocated to Rockford under the witness protection program.

Seeing that little girl this morning made me sad

8 comments March 12th, 2009

Every Thursday morning when I’m going to work at the News Tower after having traveled to WREX-TV at the far west end of Auburn Street to promote fun things happening on the weekend, I turn south on Central Avenue and drive on different streets on the way to my desk at 99 E. State Street, Rockford.

When I’m driving on those streets, I always feel like it’s a different world there than the one I’m used to.

Not that I’m rolling in the dough by a long shot. But where I come from and where I live, houses have glass in the windows. The windows aren’t broken or boarded up like they are on too many of the houses I see on streets such as Furman, Fairview, Bluefield, Oakfield. And too many lawns in the area are littered with junk.

Things are quiet when I’m driving on those streets about 7:10 a.m. About all I see is a few kids walking together on sidewalks to their school bus stops or waiting with one or two others for the bus at corners.

This morning, though, a little girl, maybe 6 years old, with straggly, dark blond hair, was walking north on Forest Avenue almost in the middle of the street. Her coat was open in the 10-degree temperature. She was wearing a back pack.

She was alone. She was crying.

And I felt sad.

I had no idea what was bothering her. I didn’t want to stop and lend her a shoulder to cry on for fear of me being a stranger and scaring her. As I turned a corner, I saw a school bus rambling up another street, and I rationalized it would be her bus. She’d get on it, and the bus driver would notice she was crying and say something to her that would make her feel better. Or at least she wouldn’t be alone.

All I could think of when I got to work was that a little girl shouldn’t be walking in the street to the bus stop by herself on a really cold morning with tears in her eyes.

I  hope the house she lives in doesn’t have broken or boarded-up windows.

More disturbing murders in Mexican drug war

Add comment March 11th, 2009

Almost daily, I read and hear about the terrible murders in the Mexican drug war. This disturbing photo makes me sick to my stomach. Five human heads were found in ice chests on Tuesday under a ficus tree in the central Mexican state of Jalisco, police said.

The grisly find appeared to be the latest indication of drug cartels fighting for supremacy in battles that have left thousands dead, according to this CNN.com story.

Though this scene wasn’t in Ciudad Juarez, right over the border from El Paso, Texas, where many of the murders have taken place, many people in the Rockford area know people who live in Juárez, according to this Register Star story written a year ago. Then, folks here described the cartel fighting like a war zone, and it’s only gotten worse.

Hottest husband contest features Stephenson County man

Add comment March 11th, 2009

David Tessendorf of Pearl City, west of Freeport, is one of 25 finalists in Redbook’s annual Hottest Husband contest.

He’s the only one pictured with a beard. He’s 40, and was nominated by wife, Elizabeth. Tessendorf, a carpenter, was chosen as a finalist from among thousands of entries.

Vote online here. The winner will be announced in the July issue on newsstands June 23. The prize is a weeklong trip to Grand Cayman.

What do you think about immigration issues

Add comment March 11th, 2009

Starting today,  New York Times readers are invited to join a national conversation on immigration and its consequences.

Bet there are lots of local people who would like to weigh in on the issues.