Rockford

It's not Chicago, so which Illinois city makes the list of the 10 least affordable places to live and work in the country?

I have found video proof that you should never underestimate the ability of Illinois people when it comes to ice sculpting. Some truly gifted people who know how to do incredible things with snow and ice obviously live here.

Back in June, Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White announced that automobile insurance verification would be conducted by a new system that checks auto insurance electronically twice a year.

Here's a little sample of an exchange between several of my coworkers when we were discussing the upcoming 4th of July festivities in a staff meeting this morning:

With the amount of delays and postponements in almost every aspect of our lives that we've had to deal with over the last year, why not add in one more?

If you've gotten the COVID-19 vaccination, you probably did it to protect yourself from contracting the coronavirus, expecting no reward whatsoever beyond virus avoidance.

Depending upon your outlook, that headline may anger, disappoint, and/or depress you; or you may feel like Samuel Johnson felt in April of 1775 when he said "Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel."

Governor Pritzker figures that you might need an incentive to go out and get vaccinated against COVID-19, even after 70 percent of the state's adults have received at lease one vaccine dose.

The definition of fun is different, depending on who you're talking to. For some, fun is lights, loud music, and partying. For others, it's a binge marathon of true crime/serial killer shows on Discovery Plus. For one of my neighbors, it's ordering kids, dogs, and leaves off of his lawn.

I think most of us who've been to a Major League Baseball game held onto the hope that at some point we'd get a chance to catch a foul ball, or better yet, a home run shot.