February 2008 Archives

The evidence continues to mount that Waukegan Park District commissioners may be right when they voted to demolish Orchard Hills Golf Course and turn it into sports fields mainly to play soccer. The latest comes from Golf Business magazine which in a recent article quotes a developer of golf courses: "There’s just more than enough golf to go around right now in the U.S.”

Perhaps this is an odd time to bring this subject up, after all we're still in the grips of winter, but according to a recent survey, more than 80 percent of all children in the U.S. never play in their neighborhoods without adults present. The Hound remembers in his youth, just a decade ago, that he gamboled quite frequently in neighborhood parks, yards and of course, The Rockpile.

Without any dog shows on the tube over the weekend, The Hound happened to prowl his favorite Ace Hardware store. It was like a miracle. There, waiting for us big strapping hounds, was everything we'll need come April or May. Except we're in the middle of another winter storm advisory.

Like the "missle gap", the "generation gap" and the "gender gap" new devices are cropping up on the market that may close the gap of those red-light cameras communities are installing for "safety" reasons. It reminds The Hound of when he first learned of radar detectors. It made his stomach dance.

The Waukegan Park District's decision to raze the beloved Orchard Hills Golf Course may be on the right track if you believe a New York Times story Thursday. The Hound threw the "believe" in just in case any John McCain backers are reading this.

In the wake of the rampage at Northern Illinois University a week ago today, there have been calls on both sides of the gun debate to either restrict firearms or expand them with a concealed carry law in the Land of Lincoln. The Hound is siding with the concealed carry aficionadoes.

A nutjob guns down five Northern Illinois University students while they were in a class and now more nutjobs will be invading the DeKalb campus tonight during a prayer vigil for those students killed and the other 16 wounded. These nutjobs would be from the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kan.

The Hound spent much of the weekend traveling around Lake County to see how road crews fared in tackling the midweek storm. Far and away the worst roads were in Gurnee. The Hound has seen better roads in Gstaad when he romped with the Royals last winter. Perhaps they need Swiss plow drivers in Gurnee.

The Hound has seen his share of election night screw ups, but nothing like what happened Tuesday night in Lake County, one of the richest counties in the state and the third-largest in population. It was amateur night at the courthouse and heads should roll.

Waukegan has had red-light cameras installed for the past few months and city fathers seem so delighted with the revenue stream they are expanding the number of sites. Gurnee is moving ahead for installation at key intersections this spring. It's just a matter of time before most communities in Lake County have these cameras mounted on nearby street corners.

The Hound normally doesn't listen to AM radio during work hours. While in the dog house, it's usually Lake County's best FM station on the dial, which would be WWDV/96.9 in Zion. But somebody alerted me to a poll on WKRS-AM that one just can't ignore because it's so lame. It had to do with the Kennedy clan endorsing Sen. Barack Obama for president.