Category Archives: Miscellaneous

A quick online tour of my home town: Mackinaw, IL

I was playing around with Google Maps today and realized that the Google Street View folks have driven through my tiny little home town of Mackinaw, IL.  They didn’t drive all over the place … they just made a beeline down the main drag.  But still, very cool.  So enjoy your online tour of Mackinaw, Illinois!

Click on any image below to view and interact with it.  Click and drag to “look around”.  Click on the street arrows to drive up and down the street.

[All street view images are copyright and owned by Google.]

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Welcome to Mackinaw, Illinois where the population is around 1,500 very nice folks.  It’s only 30 minutes from Peoria to the West and 50 minutes from Bloomington to the East.

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This is the old historic Mackinaw Train Depot.  It sat empty and in near ruins for many many years when I was growing up.  When I was in high school, the historical society paid me to mow it.  They also paid me to paint the historical sign that was displayed out front for many years.  Some very smart entrepreneurs came up with the idea to make a tea room and a gift shop out of it and it’s been thriving now for many years.

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Here is Mackinaw’s downtown park.  It’s also very historic.  I have some photos from the Mackinaw Sesquicentennial in 1976 of my family dressed up in Sesquicentennial garb and watching the time capsule burial ceremony here.  That should be fun to open up someday.  There is an historic naval ship gun turret displayed here in this park.  You can see it on the left in the photo.  It’s pretty cool and fun for kids to play on.  Last summer I got photos of my boys climbing and playing on it, just like I did when I was their age!

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Here is the only grocery store in the area … the Mackinaw IGA.  I worked here during high school and Junior College along with many of my classmates.  Sadly this store burned down last year.  Here is another photo.  The owner says they’re gonna rebuild, though.

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Here is a view looking downtown.  It’s a very small and friendly little town.

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Mmmmmm.  Ice cream.  This ice cream stand wasn’t quite this big when I was growing up.  It’s good to see that business is good and they have added on to the original little shed building.

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The Christian Church in Mackinaw.  It’s a beautiful building inside and out.  This isn’t the church my family attended, but some of my friends attended here and I visited occasionally and have good memories from it.  My United Methodist church didn’t get photographed by the Google Street View cameras or I’d include it here too.

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Mackinaw Grade School.  It looks quite a bit different than when I was attending.  I attended here from Kindergarten all the way through 8th grade.  The Junior high was in a different area of the building than the lower grades.  I don’t think any of the original building remains anymore.

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The Mackinaw Grain Elevator.  When you live in the middle of corn country, you can’t hardly throw a rock without hitting a grain elevator.

Well, that’s about all the Google Street View folks were able to capture by driving down the main drag.  There’s way more to Mackinaw than what you can see from these few photos, though.  If you’re ever in the area, drive on through and stop by one of the nice little restaurants or stores.  You’ll be glad you did.

Kurt

Kurt’s New Car: PT Cruiser

I’ve been keeping my eyes open for a few months now looking to replace my work vehicle (an old Ranger pickup) with something that I could haul the whole family in … or at least myself and the boys.  The Ranger still runs okay and still looks okay, but when school starts in the Fall I plan on taking both boys to school in the morning before I go to work and the Ranger only holds one driver and one passenger.

I considered the extended cab small pickups for a while but I quickly realized that those little jump seats just aren’t very safe in crashes.  So I started looking at small cars and mini-SUV style cars.  I wasn’t looking specifically for a PT Cruiser, but this one popped up on Craigslist (free online classified ads) and the price was right so I bought it.  It’s a 2005 base model dark blue Chrysler PT Cruiser 5 speed manual transmission with under 50,000 miles.  It’s in really good shape and it’s a very nice looking car too!  I’m very excited!  [Click the photo for a larger version.]

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Midlife crisis?  Possibly.

Cool looking car?  Definitely!

Cool looking, but also a very practical car?  Absolutely!!!!!

So, does anyone want to buy my old Ranger pickup truck?  🙂

Kurt

AIDA photo slideshow on Florida Today website

Florida Today put together a nice little narrated photo slideshow showing some scenes from AIDA with the company singing the music that is playing in the background. Check out the video below. Just click on the play button to watch it.

[Link has been removed from Florida Today’s website. Sorry.]

Call 321-636-5050 for tickets or for more information, or go to the Historic Cocoa Village Playhouse website.

Kurt

P.S. I’m in the show … I’m playing the bad guy’s (Zoser’s) evil sidekick.  It’s an unnamed part without any actual lines, but it’s still a very fun part.  I’m also playing a slave in a couple of the slave camp scenes.

AIDA teaser on front page of paper today

This morning the Florida Today newspaper printed a nice little AIDA teaser on the front page. They actually used the word “blockbuster”! I can’t wait to see the story tomorrow morning in the TGIF section of the paper. It should be good.

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AIDA opens tomorrow night, Friday April 3rd. There are still some tickets left for opening night and right now AIDA is playing through April 19th, although that could get extended if the rest of the performances sell out. For tickets or for more information, check out the Historic Cocoa Village Playhouse website.

GEF Jamboree

Gilchrist Educational Foundation

You are cordially invited to attend “The GEF Jamboree” on Friday April 17th, 2009.  The jamboree features live bluegrass music by Homespun.  This fun evening will also include a barbecue dinner and live and silent auctions.  All proceeds go to benefit the Gilchrist Educational Foundation, which provides scholarship assistance to students attending North Brevard Christian Schools.

The cost of the evening is only $20 per person for general seating, or $180 for a premium reserved table for six.  Auction preview starts at 6:00pm with dinner at 6:30pm. Dress is casual, or impress us with your finest Western wear!

Auction items include, Disney park-hopper passes, Cessna plane ride, Sea World tickets, Handmade jewelry, Deep-sea fishing trip, Certificates to restaurants, gift baskets, Cocoa Village Playhouse season tickets and much, much more!

RSVP by mail is REQUIRED. Email Sam with your name and address if you would like an invitation mailed directly to you.

Hope to see everyone there!

To learn more about GEF go to http://www.gilchristfoundation.org