Illinois

A new indoor baseball and softball training center called The Cage plans to open Oct. 6 in Champaign.

Located at 2815 Hundman Drive, it will offer batting cages, dirt pitcher mounds and open spaces for drills, owner Shawn Tabeling said.

Two high school baseball coaches will provide lessons at The Cage: Tabeling’s brother, Tuscola coach Ryan Tabeling, and St.

(Read the full post about ‘It’s Your Business: The Cage all set to play ball’…)

CHAMPAIGN – A Champaign-based company has been chosen to take part in a federal solar energy project that could bring the firm as much as $6.25 million in revenue. SmartSpark Energy Systems will be one of several companies participating in the Solar Energy Grid Integration System, a collaborative effort between the U.S. Department of Energy and Sandia National Laboratories. The project is trying to increase the amount of solar power on the nation’s utility grid while maintaining its quality and reliability. As part of the project, SmartSpark will develop, test and commercialize solar-inverter technology, as well as an interactive monitoring system. (Read the full post about ‘Local company focusing on converting, outputting solar energy’…)

Big wins translate to bigger profits for the University of Illinois.

Sales of all things Illini climbed last year, setting another record for the university.

The UI’s royalty income from merchandise sales, from Rose Bowl hoodies to Juice Williams jerseys, came in at $2.18 million for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2008, up from $1.93 million in fiscal year 2007 and $1.8 million in 2006. Back in 2000, the income was $435,000.

“Overall, the trend has been moving up at most schools,” said assistant athletic director Marty Kaufmann.

But the Rose Bowl, not surprisingly, provided a nice boost in sales for UI items, he added.

“We feel good about our increases,” Kaufmann said.

(Read the full post about ‘Sports teams’ success boosts sales of Illinois merchandise’…)

DANVILLE – How are John Deere tractors, BMW cars, Chiquita bananas and Kawasaki motorcycles connected with Vermilion County? Companies here do business with them, and those companies are looking for skilled workers for good-paying jobs, such as engineers, graphic designers, computer programmers and more. Kevin Stroud, owner of the NexLAN computer software business in downtown Danville, said it’s a challenge for him to find skilled workers for his small business, which employs only eight people but has 100 clients across the United States, including Delmonte, Kawasaki, Chiquita and Fidelity Investments. NexLAN provides mid-tier accounting software for those companies and others with annual sales in the $5 million to $500 million range. (Read the full post about ‘Vermilion officials hear of growing need for skilled workers’…)

by Cal Skinner Huntley might become quite the exclamation point for how education issues are handled in Obama’s home state. Sunday, what could have been a big bargaining day to get a deal done for Huntley teachers, turned into a big fizzle. The Huntley teachers only had time to meet with the school board for three hours yesterday the day before school starts today. Or did they? Or was it less than two hours because the HEA wouldn’t meet with the board because one of their negotiating team members was an hour late and then had to "confer" with the rest of the team chewing up time for a while longer? (Read the full post about ‘Huntley Teachers’ strike a national GOP opportunity’…)

DENVER — The DNC platform podium dripped with estrogen last night as Caroline Kennedy, who lived in the White House as a child, and First Lady wannabe Michelle Obama each gushed prescribed sentimentality and well-timed emotion to reach enthralled Americans throughout television land.

I turned off the TV after bearing through Caroline’s intro to her beloved Uncle Teddy, Kennedy’s charge to his fellow Democrats, then Michelle’s Obama’s mother and brother’s mushy intros to Mrs.

(Read the full post about ‘Michelle ain’t no Margaret’…)

by Andy Haaf

I wonder what Congressmen Bill Foster thinks of Senator Biden as the choice for Vice President? Hum, let’s see what his website has to say on the matter:

"most often our country is put at risk by good people who have been in Washington so long that they start confusing their own interests and those of their party with the true interests of our nation. And when that happens, the people of the United States have usually had the good sense to thank their long-serving party and long-serving representatives for their way-too-long service, hand out the gold retirement watches, and rinse the system clean.

(Read the full post about ‘Bill Foster Must Be Disappointed’…)

Running this week in Michigan:

Thoughts?

H/T www.jillstanek.com

Remember that group of insistent folks at Decatur Celebration across from the Post Office? The ones who were essentially demanding you sign up for their offer of a free car and five years of gasoline?

Well, if you were annoyed with them, you weren’t the only one. Some people from other cities have been so irritated with the group - Silverlead Resorts, Inc. - that they’ve filed complaints with the Dallas Better Business Bureau.

According to a report on the Dallas Better Business Bureau’s site:

The BBB processed a total of 240 complaints about this company in the last 36 months, our standard reporting period.

That’s 80 complaints a year, or one every 4 1/2 days.

(Read the full post about ‘Be aware: Celebration timeshare’…)

If you’re looking for a movie tip for this weekend, it looks like you ought to check out something old rather than something new.

Reviews were not available for three of the five films bowing this weekend in the Herald & Review’s circulation. This is never a good sign. Film distributors often hold back films from review, hoping to sneak at least one relatively respectable weekend of box office fortune before word of mouth reveals exactly why the films weren’t allowed to be reviewed.

This week, that effort is hampered a bit by the fact that these genre spoof films have been so miserable.

(Read the full post about ‘A bad new film weekend?’…)