When we lived in Urbana, Ill., I had a morning radio show on a local community radio station called WEFT (WEFT, rhymes with LEFT). WEFT Radio was a nearly anarchical operation, run by citizen volunteers, meagerly funded by donations and grants, but thanks to dedicated people over the years, it survives to this day. WEFT carries some syndicated […]

Last Thursday I spoke to a U of I class in Champaign. Monday morning I spoke with second graders at Chicago’s Francis Xavier Warde School. Yesterday I spoke to visually-impaired adults at Blind Service Association. Each of these three presentations ended with a Q&A, which lead’s me to today’s quiz. Tell me if the following […]

Whitney and I took a train to Champaign Wednesday to give a presentation for an animal sciences class at the University of Illinois. While we were there, we stayed at the house of an old friend: retired Seeing Eye dog Hanni. Whitney and Hanni are both Labrador/Golden Retriever crosses, they are both graduates of the […]

I practiced with Whitney ahead of time, so when the Dukes of Distinction presentation started Thursday night, we knew exactly what to do: follow fellow distinguished alum Dr. Robert Chen (“I go by Bob, he said when we were introduced) down the red carpet, stop when Bob stops, and pivot 90 degrees to the left […]

Tomorrow’s the big day. Every year York Community High School in Elmhurst, Illinois honors a number of distinguished alumni, and six other York alumni will be honored along with me at a ceremony in York High School’s Commons tomorrow night. York is the “home of the Dukes,” so honorees are officially called Dukes of Distinction. […]