Team Saturdazzle the one with the 5k and the bobble head

Can't beat fun at the old Saturdazzle

 

Welcome to our first post A to Z Challenge Team Saturdazzle of the year. 

I am on the road today so I am literally phoning this post in. I am emailing this directly to my blog from my phone. 

This morning Amy Charlie and I participated in the Northern Illinois Foodbank 5K. It was a lot of fun. We all finished in less than an hour. I wasn't sure if I'd be able to run the entire race without walking but I was able to.

 

In the A to Z challenge this year in the A to Zs of me J stood for Jester and I was in full jester mode at the race. Where my self designated task was to bring fun and merriment wherever I went. I would make jokes as I passed people and say things like don't these Saturday DMV lines get longer every year. When I ran past the 2 mile marker I told one of the many volunteers encouraging us along the path to ask me to tell her a Broadway themed 5 k pun when she obliged. I said 1 mile more and I'll be less miserable. 

The Jesting did not end after I finished the race.  I waited for Amy to near the finish line and let the audience in on the big reveal...

After the race Amy and I grabbed some lunch and drove to the Rosemont L station where we took a blue line train then a red line train to Comiskey park in Chicago. Now in fairness it hasn’t been called Comiskey since 2003 it’s now on it’s 3rd name change I’ll just call it Sox Park.

 

Today the White Sox played the Astros and despite getting 5 strong innings from their starter and scoring 3 runs in the bottom of the first for an early lead they lost to Houston 8 to 3.

 

This is not what brought Amy and I to the ball park today. Amy went because she’s always up for an adventure and I went for the commemorative Dick Allen bobble head.

 

In The Box

Outside The Box

Photo by John Iacano/Sports Illustrated

The Bobble head was modeled after the iconic 1972 Sports Illustrated cover of Allen juggling in the dugout in his first season with the White Sox.  By the 1970's public perception was already changing about smoking.  Allen was reprimanded by the White Sox for the incident.  The bobble head is true to the SI cover except Allen is not smoking.  

As I’ve said in these pages before, as recently as W is for White Sox fan, Dick Allen is one of the main reasons I became a Sox fan.

 

Allen was at long last posthumously elected to Baseballs Hall of Fame earlier this year. Several members of Allen’s family were on hand today for the celebration and will be in Cooperstown in July when Allen will be inducted into the Hall. It was really quite a day. 

Thanks for joining Team Saturdazzle today.  

A to Z's of Me: A Reflection

The 2025 A to Z challenge is over.  I finished.  My theme this year was the A to Z's of me .  

During the last few weeks of each year I spend a lot of time tinkering with the look of my blog.  I made a text box called Me from A to Z.  It had an attribute of me from A to Z. As I shared in my theme reveal the original 26 attributes were :

Amateur Parodist, Blogger, Christian, Daring do-gooder, Evangelical sans Trump Kool-Aid, 

Father of 3 adult children, Giraffe lover, Husband of one amazing wife, Illinois resident, 

Jester, Kindred spirit, Library lover Middle School teacher, Nincompoop, Original, Poet,

Quintessential worker , RITA (Republican in theory, anyways.) ,Sixty something 

Teller of jokes,U of I Parent - ILL,Voracious reader, Willy Wonka Wannabe, Xenophile ,Yankovic enthusiast ,Zoo attender

I made the list , put it on my blog home page and kinda forgot about it.  As I began to prepare for the challenge I ruminated between several ideas for themes.  I thought about going without a theme

 or even not participating and just concentrating on reading and commenting.  Then I remembered the list.  I hadn't even considered using it for the challenge when I created it.  

 

As I began to prepare posts that matched the titles it became clear that some of those titles weren't going to make it to the final product.  I have emboldened the attributes I didn't use in the list above and the attributes I replaced them with in the links below.  For example in the middle of March I stopped subbing at the middle school I'd been at for over 2 years.  So M for Middle school had to go.  Others were so similar that expanding on them made it seem like I was being redundant.

A was for Amateur Parodist

B was for Blogger

C was for Christian

D was for David Davidovich

E was for Evangelical Sans the Trump Kool-Aid

F was for Father of 3 Adult Children

G was for Giraffe Lover

H was  for Husband of One Amazing Wife

I was for Iguchi Appreciator

J was for Jester

K was  for Kindergarten Clear

L was for Library Lover

M is for Muppet Man

N was for Narnian

O was for Optimist

P was for Poet

Q is for Quintessential Worker

R was for R.I.T.A. Republican In Theory Anyway

S was for Stonehill Fan

T was for Teacher

U was for U of I Parent

V was for Voracious Reader?

 

W was for White Sox Fan

X was for Xenophile

Y was for Yankovic Enthusiast

Z was for Zoo Aficionado

This is the 4th year that I have been copying and pasting the same introduction at the beginning of my posts.  I did use 2 variants of the intro this year: 1 for when I was posting on time and 1 for when my posts were late.  In the latter I would say how many posts I was behind.  I stayed up to date from amateur to Iguchi and caught up at Xenophile and was still on pace when I ended at zoo.  I was late for a little more than 1/2 of the challenge.  The funny thing is I posted on my blog on both the K and the L day which is where I fell behind.  They just weren't A to Z posts.

Being behind didn't bother me too much.  I was always confident that I would finish.  It did impede with my reading and commenting on blogs which was the least I have ever done in all my years doing the challenge.  I did get to more of that in the last few days once I caught up.

Something I did this year that really helped me get to this reflection right away is that from day 2 I built the index of the challenge on my daily post.  So, it was a simple matter of changing the topic from the previous day from "A is for " to "A was for"  and then copying and pasting the whole thing to the current letter.  Today all I did was take my list from the beginning of Wednesday's post  and change is to was for Z.  I'll change them all back to is when I put the index on a page in my blog later this month. 

One thing that surprised me this year was how many of my posts had political or spiritual components.  I guess I shouldn't be so surprised since my theme was me and I do have spiritual and political components.  I did go hard after Trump on 3 occasions and restrained myself from making it four when I was writing X is for xenophile.

There were many posts including lots of A, some of B, and all of C where I reused previous posts, pictures, poems and songs.  Again, with the subject being me, it felt natural to share as many examples of me as possible.  

A is for Amateur Parodist may have been my favorite post this year.   It had links to works by 3 other parodists, examples of some of my older parodies, and 2 that were written while I was writing the post.  I was especially proud of Amlodopine, which is a parody of Yesterday that starts  with someone singing the praise of the efficacy of their blood pressure medicine and quickly changes into a rant of how Trumps first 100 days is making him more  dependent than ever on the medicine. In my mind, the song  became an homage  to the old Sesame Street segment when Kermit The Frog would interview Don Music at the piano and after a little head bashing on the piano due to writer's block  the lyrics of the song would change dramatically from the original.  

I enjoyed participating in the A to Z challenge again this year.  For more about the A to Z reflections click here. To sign up for the reflections click here.For the reflections spreadsheet click here.

Dave Out Loud: Undecided, Undeclared, Unsure Day

Now that the A to Z challenge for 2024 is in it's final hour and my final post dropped early this morning. I think it's apprropiate to go back to 2024 where my theme was holidays especially manufactured ones. On the vowel days I let the vowels pitch me ideas for holidays with their letter in it. This is what U came up with...

We are celbrating the 2nd Undecided Undeclare Unsure Day today. I'll be back soon with a reflection post from the challenge.

Z is for Zoo Afficianado

My A to Z Challenge Theme this year is the ABC's of me.  Each day in the month of April with the exception of Sundays I will be posting about one aspect of my life that begins with the letter of the day.  Today's letter is Z so let's get right to it shall we?

A was for Amateur Parodist

B was for Blogger

C was for Christian

D was for David Davidovich

E was for Evangelical Sans the Trump Kool-Aid

F was for Father of 3 Adult Children

G was for Giraffe Lover

H was  for Husband of One Amazing Wife

I was for Iguchi Appreciator

J was for Jester

K was  for Kindergarten Clear

L was for Library Lover

M is for Muppet Man

N was for Narnian

O was for Optimist

P was for Poet

Q is for Quintessential Worker

R was for R.I.T.A. Republican In Theory Anyway

S was for Stonehill Fan

T was for Teacher

U was for U of I Parent

V was for Voracious Reader?

 

W was for White Sox Fan

X was for Xenophile

Y is for Yankovic Enthusiast

Z is for Zoo Aficionado

 Today is the last day of the challenge and to wrap things up here is Dave Out Loud reporting from the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicag Illinois.  

Here are some zoo pics from the last year or so

R.I.P.O Rhino In Photo Only 

Indianapolis Zoo  September 2025

Indianapolis Zoo September 2025

St. Louis Zoo March 2024

Lincoln Park Zoo Aoril 2025

Lincoln Park Zoo April 2025

 

Amur Leopard March 2024
St. Louis Zoo

Lincoln Park Zoo April 2024

That's it we've got a polar bear catching some Z's at the Zoo.  No better way to leave an A to Z challenge than that. It's been a pleasure and I'll be back soon for a reflection post.

To get to the A to Z Challenge webpage click here.  

To see the A to Z Master List click here.