Star Wars Overload (It's a Good Thing)

Dear Disney Company: Thank you for buying Lucasfilms and saturating every form of media with Star Wars.

There has been a ton of Star Wars news this week as the annual convention (Celebration) came to a close. We got to see a new trailer for the December release of The Force Awakens, previews of Battlefront (video game), a trailer from season 2 of Star Wars Rebels (animated series), and find out the droid (BB8) from The Force Awakens actually works and will come to the Disney Parks soon. Add to all that the digital release of the six films! This has us excited for our visit to Walt Disney World in May when we will spend some time in Disney's Hollywood Studios at one of the Star Wars Weekends. We've been browsing sites like teepublic.com, tee fury.com and shirts.com to find the perfect wardrobe for the two days we plan to be at the event. Dave already got this Star Wars/Assassin's Creed (video game) mash-up:

Unfortunately this one does not come in adult sizes

 

Here are some videos to help get you excited about the Star Wars frenzy.

Local Brewery Tour - Spring 2015

In Northern Illinois winter and summer are usually only connected by a few weeks of a spring-like season. This is the period we take advantage of local day-trips that we kept putting off during the winter. So far we have fit in a trip to Chicago (highlights in another post) and visits to three breweries we have never visited before.

Piece in Chicago has been on our radar for years, but because of its location we never made the effort to get there. It's in a nice trendy neighborhood, but the nearby crazy intersection where three major roads intersect makes navigating the area nuts. Our adventures in parking proved once again why we can't go on The Amazing Race together.

Piece is doing many things right. Their bar felt like places we used to frequent in college: comfortable and slightly dilapidated. For some reason they were playing an entire album of Run DMC songs. After settling in we got to look over the beer menu which featured about 6-8 of their own brews on tap, a few guest taps, and many bottles. The house brews are mostly session beers and cover the ranges from hoppy/malty. We enjoyed their stout, kolsch, and dunkelweizen. Our server was great and helped us make the right decision in picking the perfect size and style of pizza.

As much as we are beer and brewery fans, the true star of Piece is the New Haven style of pizza. Being from the East Coast we have a hard time finding pizza we truly enjoy in this part of the country. Tavern style thin crust and pan/deep dish is all the rage in Chicago, but we don't prefer those types to New York (or now New Haven) Style. We choose one small New Haven pie with sausage (no mozzarella, but parmesan and garlic instead)  and a small white pie with mashed potatoes and bacon. Best pizza we have had in a long time. The ingredients were fresh and the crust was chewy with a bit of char. We did not miss the mozzarella on the sausage pie.  Ordering two smalls ensured we had leftovers!

The next brewery on our list was
Scorched Earth in the northwest suburb of Algonquin. Scorched Earth is located in a small industrial park near a creek branching off the Fox River. They don't do food, but invite you to bring in your own. The space they occupy is divided into two sections by a rail separating the brewing area from the tap room. At the time of our visit nobody was working in the brewing section. The taproom decor is a mix of industrial-modern with some natural elements thrown in.  Pleasant!

We started off with flights. We
had 11 beers to choose from. We found anything labeled hoppy was in fact a bit hoppy for our tastes, but still you could tell they were quality-made products. The clear winners here for us were the Hickster, Rugged Coalminer, Der Sommer, and The Bitter Choclatier. While enjoying our beers we got into a long conversation with a father and his 22 yr old son about beers and breweries. Our tastes could not be any farther from each other, which shows that craft beer is truly a diverse industry. Anyone can find a beer they will love.

Bonus: After visiting Scorched Earth we had lunch at Duke's Ale House, a beer-focused pub, in Crystal Lake. Nice beer list (but they needed a few more stouts) including a good selection from Chicagoland. The food was the star here.....Holly had her first burger topped with a fried egg and Dave tried fries topped with cheese and BBQ Pork.

Crystal Lake Brewing was the last stop on this tour. They were a short block away from Duke's so we reccomend parking once and visit both. CLB took over a stand-alone retail location in town, which makes it a bit more accessible to the general public vs. Scorched Earth which is tucked away in a corporate park. The taproom was a large open space with a lot of communal tables and a long bar. While there we noticed a family gathering with 3 or 4 generations in attendance. Food is not available in the taproom, but BYO is welcomed.

Eight beers were on tap that day and we sampled the blonde, hefeweizen, doppelbock, oatmeal stout, and marzen. Nothing really stood out to us. They all seemed very neutral within their styles. We didn't hate them or think they were made poorly, just overall neutral. They do get bonus points for the lifeguard chair inspired tap handles and life preserver flight tray.

The verdict:

• Piece - Must go back to for the pizza alone. The beer is icing on the cake.
• Scorched Earth - Would visit if in the area and would choose certain product if available at a local bar.  Too far for a stand-alone trip.
• Duke's - Would visit again if in the area - best burger we'd had in a while.
• Crystal Lake - Would visit Duke's down the road before returning to CLB, unless they had an event like a tap takeover.

FREEing Race Chase the Book

As most of our readers know, Holly runs marathons and Dave follows along the course trying to find her as many times as he can. Friends would tell Dave he should write a book on the subject, but he really didn't see a reason to do so until he thought of the charity angle. In 2013 he wrote the e-book Race Chase: Expert Advice on Seeing your Runner on Race Day and donated the proceeds to Avon's Breast Cancer Fund in support of our Disney running team, Team AllEars. We were able to raise a couple of hundred dollars, so all good.....

Race Chase was written for both the spectator and the runner. For spectators we offer tips on navigating a race course, where to look for photo opportunities, and how to use technology on race day. For the runners we give tips on how to plan for destination races and how to coordinate with your runner on race day.

We've kept the e-commerce page, along with dedicated website racechasebook.com, up for a while but feel it's now time to close them down and migrate things to this site. The good news is the book will now be offered as a free download. Go ahead and grab a copy!

Check out the new Race Chase Page here on Team Tizzel, click on the book image in the right side-bar, or use this link to get your copy today.

If you have one of those Little Rascal moments where you enjoy what you see and want to "pay as you exit" please feel free to donate any amount of money to our Charity of The Month listed in the right side-bar.

April Charity of the Month: John Paul II Medical Research Institute

Charity of the Month is the way Team Tizzel is helping to support some very worthy organizations. As part of this program, we dedicate a post to a charity that we will sponsor through the month by donating Holly's training run money.

March: We sponsored Stillbrave to help children that are fighting many form of cancers. We will be donating $125 plus a matching gift to Stillbrave through their online link at www.Stillbrave.org.

April's Charity:

John Paul II Medical Research Institute

jp2mri.org

Remember the excitement surrounding The ALS Association's Ice Bucket Challenge last year? Many people rallied around a worthy cause that raised over $115 million to help those with the disease and hopefully to help find a cure.

When we participated in the Ice Bucket Challenge we were doing so in the name of all people impacted by the disease. At that time we did not personally know anyone with ALS. A couple of days after we filmed our video Dave learned a friend of his from college had ALS. Five months later Dave's friend Bob passed away.

Bob wished that any donations made in his name would go to the John Paul II Medical Research Institute. So to honor Bob we are dedicating April to his charity of choice.

About the institute:

The John Paul II Medical Research Institute is a 501 (c) (3) organization that was founded in 2007 by Dr. Alan Moy. It is a secular organization that is grounded in a pro-life bioethic that respects the dignity of every human life. The Institute has chosen a name honoring the late pontiff, blessed John Paul II, that clearly demonstrates this unwavering commitment to the culture of life. More than 300 institutes and organizations engage in and support human embryonic stem cell research. The John Paul II Medical Research Institute advocates for medical research that recognizes the dignitiy of human life from the moment of conception to natural death. Also, the Institute advocates a new paradigm in research to address deficiencies in medical research and unmet medical needs.

Research Themes

• Regenerative Medicine-Chronic pulmonary disease.
  
• Neurodegenerative disease (e.g. ALS, Alzheimer's Disease, Parkinson's Disease, ADHD, Autsim and other brain diseases). To review progress report of research on Alzheimer's, please download report.
  
• Drug Discovery for Orphan (rare diseases)
  
• Personalized Cancer Therapy Research.
  
  
  
  
  

Holly on The Mickey Miles Podcast Episode 262

Holly joins Mike and Michelle to talk about her decision to run her first marathon, and her decision to run marathons in all 50 States.

Holly's race reports and videos are available from the grey menu items below our site banner (look for the bear).

You can find Mickey Miles Podcast on iTunes and visit their webpage at mickeymilespodcast.com.

You can listen to Holly's episode directly from this page by using the widget below. Enjoy!

 

Randoms 2 - March 2015

Please do not forget to check out our current Charity of the Month: StillBrave.

 

Star Wars Card Trader

We have recently discovered a fun new app from Topps (the trading card people). Holly and Dave are both playing the Star Wars Card Trader game. It's all the fun of collector cards without the rubber bands, bent corners, and costs. Upon sign up you are given a generous amount of credits to buy packs from different collections. Each collection features different numbers of cards and chances to collect rarer cards. Each day you log in you are given more credits. Navigation is a little clunky, but we have been able to trade with each other with little difficulty. Our current goal is to collect all 8 of The Force Awakens cards before the April 7th deadline. Completing collection tasks (like gaining all the Rebel collection cards) pays an added credit bonus.

I need 2 more

Cards have fronts and backs

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Bloodline

We just finished watching the first season of the recently-released Netflix drama Bloodline. Excellent show! 13 episodes were released on March 20th and it was not hard for us to watch two or three episodes in a row. The basic plot is a well-respected family has to deal with the black sheep returning and he doesn't make things easy. Flashforwards and flashbacks are used to fill in pieces of the story, as well as to keep you glued to the set. Just in case you want to stay at the beautiful Rayburn House, it is actually the Moorings Village of Islamorada, FL

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To close this post out, here's a monkey meeting puppies:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Randoms - March 2015

Once the weather report is over on the 10pm news we normally flip channels for a bit, or if it was Monday Dave would torture Holly with "Love It or List It" (they never list it). Now, we've settled in on a post-news favorite: Cops or Cops Reloaded (the remastered edition). The show's concept remains highly entertaining even after 25 years since its inception. The overlooked aspects of the show are the level of compassion often displayed by the officers in warranted situations and how difficult their jobs truly are. Check out Cops on Spike TV or Country Music TV for Cops Reloaded.

One night we discovered the show Food Fortunes. It was good, but won't replace Cops in the same time slot. Food Fortunes is a knock-off of Shark Tank on Food Network. Aspiring moguls present their food items or kitchen gadgets to a panel of four financiers and a studio audience. The audience samples the product and votes whether they would buy the item or not if available in stores. Then the panel decides if they want to consider making an investment. At the end of the show they go through the investment rounds. The episode we watched featured spaghetti sauce, plastic plates, a ravioli maker, and cricket crackers (exactly what it sounds like).

We recorded the recent round of TMC's Treasures from the Disney Vault but have only watched two items: I Captured the King of the Leprechauns (a Disneyland tv show episode where Walt gives away most of the plot to Darby O'Gill and the Little People) and the short Babes in the Woods. Babes is worth the watch because it's one of the first cartoons in color, has a scary-fun storyline, and a lot going on from an animation standpoint:

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We are almost 60 days out from our May Memorial Day Weekend trip to Walt Disney World. It's not our favorite weekend to hit The World but we are keeping vacation days to a minimum for use later in the year. On the plus side we are hitting a Star Wars Weekend and we will be there during the Magic Kingdom 24 hour event (5% chance we'll attend the event).

Sixty days out means we can book Fastpasses through My Magic+. Unfortunately Disney has not released the Star Wars event schedule, which includes Fastpass eligible presentations, so we will be booking blind and end up grossly disappointed when we have to shift things around.

We have a split stay this trip: A few night at The Boardwalk (convenient for Star Wars access at The Studios) and a couple nights at The Polynesian. Disney is opening their Vacation Club (DVC timeshare) rooms at this resort and we lucked into getting a few nights here. We imagine we won't get this lucky again. We've always wanted to stay here, but we weren't willing to pay the high price. The flexibility of DVC is making this a reality. We are looking forward to seeing the renovations, the over-the-water bungalows, and the new Trader Sam's bar.

One event that was open to book, but we were closed out of, was the Star Wars Galactic Dine-in Breakfast at the Sci-Fi Dine-In.  At this event you get a photo opp with Boba Fett and Darth Vader together, a fixed breakfast menu with several entree options, and other walk-around characters to visit with while you watch a special Star Wars film package. If you are very vigilant you may catch a canceled reservation when checking the website, or you can farm out the work. Holly found the Disney Dining Buddy, a service that checks specific Disney Dining Reservations for you. She entered our request into an online form and paid them a few bucks. A day later she got a text notice that a reservation was available. She then went on Disney's site and secured our breakfast.  Very handy!