The process itself took a few hours and was well worth it. Before the cleaning started – they put a camera into our ducts and showed us what they looked like (which was disgusting). After the cleaning – they showed us the same view and low and behold – it was clean.

If you live in the Chicagoland area and are looking to get your ducts cleaned – please give these guys a call. They do great work and are very easy to work with.

• How to always be able to start a snow blower
• The difference between “Upstate New York” vs. “Western New York”
• How to not root for the home team
• How to actually deal with snow

Out here in Chicago I have seen a trend which I call the “ok – it is our turn for the big news story”. Chicago always prepares and hypes up all storms and then after all the schools close down in fear – we end up getting snow that is easily moved by using a broom instead of a snowblower or even shovel. I feel like Chicago has felt left out with all the news and attention on New York’s storms this year so the media can barely hold back their excitement for this attention.

I am sure all the Chicago stations have been gearing up for this “Blizzard which will soon hit the area with all their fancy graphics and catchy phrases but most likely – we will get some accumulation but nothing near what they expected.

What I hope for: a lot of snow. I miss hard core snow blowing where I have to literally push the snow blower with my arms and one leg (oh yes – a hidden talent for extreme snow blowing). I can then go out and build a sweet snowman that will last weeks. What I think we will get – no more than 6-9 inches at most and a lot of hype/wasted time for all the catchy news phrases/imagery.

It was great to get out and enjoy the nice fall weather while golfing on my favorite course: Foxford Hills. While only my second time out all year (pathetic) – I did pretty well and came home excited to go out again this week. I need to work on my putting but everything else felt pretty good.

During show commercials – I often pick up the iPad and see what actors have done/are doing and decided to take a look at the Little House on the Prairie cast. I noticed the actress who played Nellie Oleson (someone that is in the thick of things in all my favorite episodes) was in town doing a book signing for her new book. I decided I had to go meet her in person and so on Saturday – I drove down to the bookstore where she was at and listened to her talk, had her sign my book, and told her how much of a pleasure it was to meet her.

Listening her tell stories and just seeing her in person was a real treat. I look forward to going to more book signings in the future. It was great to be able to ask questions and make a real connection face to face with someone you thought you “knew” all those years. Of course playing golf was also a blast and I am looking forward to a lot of fall golf in the next few months.

When it came time to upgrade our 2002 Land Rover Discovery – we decided to give the Patrick Land Rover dealer in Naperville, IL. Within moments of getting out of the car – we had a friendly salesman come over and not hassle or hurry us at all. He was extremely interested in buying the Discovery we drove there (they are hot items) and we took a few test drives in some of their LR3s. The LR3s are basically an upgraded version of the since discontinued Discoveries which are much more elegant than the Discoveries but still built for the off road adventures that Land Rover is known for.

Once we found the one we wanted to buy (2008 LR3), the manager took a look at the Discovery and offered a very reasonable offer on the car we drove in, and I actually got him to go up $500 – which I would have been fine if he did not. There was no long drawn out back and forth – and we were able to move through the process. We then moved over to the finance manager which was very nice and we moved through all the paperwork very quickly.

Over all process was completely stress and hassle free – and I appreciated that. If you are from the Chicagoland area and looking for a new car – check out the Patrick dealer group before going anywhere else. The level of professionalism was and has been top notch.

Side Note:
While we were going through the process I realized that the LR3 did not have any floor mats (a mistake I made with 2 previous car purchases). Knowing the driver side floor mat retailed for $267 (there was an ad on the car salesman’s desk we were at) – I knew if I wanted to purchase Land Rover floor mats – I would have been out another few hundred dollars easily. I mentioned it to the salesman and he told me to bring it up to the finance guy. I told the finance guy and he told me to go talk to the salesman who promptly told me it was up to the Business Manager.

I walked into the Business Manager’s office and said “I was told you were going to give us some floor mats since they were missing from the vehicle”. He looked at me and told me I was crazy because that was easily and extra few hundred dollars. I did not give up and told him that he was going to make a few thousand on the car we traded in and that this would be nothing compared to that. I think I caught him off guard because he stood there for a moment and then came back with “if I make $1500 on it after commission, etc I will call you”. I said great – I will expect a call in a few days since our car salesman already had someone picked out for the Disco we brought in. I told him I would be checking inventory daily.

I think he was getting tired of me – and so he asked me (to change the subject) if I had ever taken the Land Rover to one of the Land Rover events (they set up off road courses). I told him no and so he went over and got a book to show me the photos from last year’s event. The first page included a few Land Rovers covered in mud and I said “wow – it really looks like a lot of fun…and it looks like I will certainly need some floor mats for that!”. He laughed and kept going through the book. A few pages later he was showing us a LR3 on a “teeter totter” and the winner of this balancing event won prizes. I said – “wow – that is really cool. I hope the prizes included floor mats”.

After that – I finally broke him down and guess what? I got the floor mats Phew.

Chicago is a fantastic town with all kinds of gems that people who have never been here don’t have any clue about and it is a bit sad to me that the world will not see our city for what it really is (our lakefront, great neighborhoods, amazing food, nice people, clean streets, world class architecture, etc).

Perhaps it was not meant to be, but man…I was really looking forward to it!

So many people have little or no expectations for our great city and I would love for the world to see what all we have to offer. We have an amazing (perhaps great) lake, an unforgettable skyline, some of the nicest people, and some pretty interesting history.

Sure the traffic will be out of control and it will be a bit overwhelming, but the excitement, jobs, and the opportunity to see some events in your own city would be amazing.

Let’s just hope we get some good news in October!

• Chicagoland fishing information and reports
• How to ditch cable but still have quality TV programming options (thanks @htoddcarter)
• TV.com – TiVO again and again proves it is the coolest thing around. You can find shows available on TV.com and send them to your TiVo.
• ESPN 360 – Oh my – I am so close to canceling my $100+ a month cable. This becomes available for Comcast high speed internet subscribers on August 1. If it proves to work well for two weeks worth of programming – look out!