Grutz says, "Aaaayeeee! Mon-ti-cello, I-o-wa!!" (In the voice of the Fonz)

So what's better than mini-bikes?
Hot-rods.

What's better than mini-bikes and hot-rods?
Large Rubenesque mid-westerners.

Ok, So what's better than mini-bikes, hot-rods, and "husky" mid-westerners?
Kids in biker gear.


I can go along with that.  So what's better than mini-bikes, hot-rods, "doughy" mid-westerners, and kids in biker gear?
The Fonz.


SHUT.THE.DOOR.  


Nary does it get better than mini-bikes, hot-rods, "big-boned" mid-westerners, kids in biker gear, and the Fonz.  Throw in a Jonesy's colossal pork tenderloin?  (insert gagging sound here) But that's what you would have found yesterday at the Monticello Auto Show.  Henry Winkler, aka Arthur Herbert Fonzarelli, graced eastern Iowa with his presence to attend the auto show.  I watched the clip at the Telegraph-Herald, chuckled a bit, grinned seeing the Fonz, noted how sweet the kids were, gawked at the patrons and then said to no one in particular (Carleen's away dancing), "Yep, ah, that's a good, um, representation of your average Iowan, at least from eastern Iowa (a total dis to the western part of the state).  Why didn't I become a cardiologist?"  Followed by, "I miss Iowa names of cities and rivers, like Keokuk or Wapsipinicon or Nevada (pron nə-VAY-də.)"  Hearing the director of the auto show say "Keokuk" a couple of times made me smile.  ATTENTION: All our Iowa readers, add a comment below with your favorite or odd Iowa city, county, or river/body of water name. Here's some examples, Allamakee or Balltown. Heck, even our non-Iowan readers, lets hear about your places, too!


But back to my observations of the patrons of the Monticello Auto Show, maybe this is why many of the men at the show wore jeans with elastic waistbands and the ladies wore sweatpants:

While in Solon, Iowa you could eat this.  I'd recommend visiting with the Linden clans instead. You won't need a breath mint or bypass surgery after hanging with Uncle Tim or Uncle Jim.   

Other than the Sunday morning routine of online newspapers, IPR, and seeing Carleen off to her contact jam, I built a towel rack.  Our new place in Pilsen is quite nice, dare I say the nicest (bells and whitles) place I've ever lived.  But there's a lot of wee problems.  The buzzer, the mixed up hot/cold faucets, poor insulation, no towel rack in the second bathroom, just a lot of half-assed jobs that yours truly has been fixing/addressing.  Our last apartment in Logan Square was plain, simple, solid.  Not a damn thing wrong.  Kind of like a a buttermilk biscuit.  Our new place is like a fancy french pastry, but prepared by someone who really should stick to making toast.  Anyway, with some scraps and some dowels I found, here's the rack drying, waiting paint.

I roughed up the edges to make it more rustic as the scraps were in no way square or true.  Not a chance in hell.

Here's a peek at some of the other items I've thrown together when I'm not squirting foam insulation in to  thousands of gaps throughout the apartment or weatherizing the doors.

Notice the bookshelf I threw together of few weeks ago.  No books.  No, Carleen & I are not ignorant simpletons.  All our books are vacationing in Dubuque (they like the bluffs and the casinos).  Hopefully, we'll have them back soon.

Here's a simple desk.  Carleen picked a great color.  I found the chair in an alley.

One of the sets of hooks I've made.  This one's mounted in between the dressers, that happened to be mounted in wall of the dormer second floor. Notice the trim is not painted or stained and you can see the filler. Gah, more half-assedness at work.

A mirror in the entryway.  To make sure I'm hot before I leave.  Wait, I don't have to worry about that, I'm always hot.  Kidding aside, I picked up 6 12"x12" mirror tiles and will be building frames around them in the future.

Best get moving on this Sunday, what's left of it.  I'll keep you posted with the rack and other projects.  Also, my new ventures into cooking, stand by for kitchen mayhem.  Now your smart part of the day, our happy birthday shout outs!

Irwin Shaw (February 27, 1913 – May 16, 1984) was an American playwright, screenwriter, novelist, and short-story author.

John Ernst Steinbeck, Jr. (February 27, 1902 – December 20, 1968) was an American writer. He wrote the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Grapes of Wrath (1939) and East of Eden(1952) and the novella Of Mice and Men (1937). He wrote a total of twenty-seven books, including sixteen novels, six non-fiction books and five collections of short stories. In 1962, Steinbeck received the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (February 27, 1807 – March 24, 1882) was an American poet and educator whose works include "Paul Revere's Ride", The Song of Hiawatha, and "Evangeline". He was also the first American to translate Dante Alighieri's The Divine Comedyand was one of the five Fireside Poets.

At the very least you're getting some slice, however slight, of culture from this blog.  Yippee!