rankings

Although we've seen Rockford receive poor grades on a variety of things over the years, it still sucks to see our city show up on yet another list of the country's most dangerous places.

With my kids in their mid and upper 20s, my wife and I have found it's increasingly difficult to get them interested in Halloween costumes, and the costumes we loved seeing on them when they were little "just don't fit anymore," according to them.

Rockford has drawn a lot of different labels over the years, some good and some bad, but one thing we've never been known for in our area is being snobby (not that we care what the little people think).

As I've mentioned before, we're huge fans of Guy Fieri and Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives in my house, often leaving it on in the background as "comfort television." But, did you know that Guy and "Triple-D" have visited 40 Illinois restaurants?

So you've stayed at places like Motel 6, The Red Roof Inn, Days Inn, Holiday Inn, Comfort Inn, and/or any similar lodging with the words "motel" or "inn" attached. Feel like an upgrade?

I once saw a person get up and leave a live comedy show, saying that they "didn't feel safe there" because the headlining comedian had behaved inappropriately in his private life. Not feeling safe because of that struck me as being far more unreasonable than not feeling safe where you live.

J.D. Power recently released their 2021 North America Airport Satisfaction StudySM, and while Chicago's O'Hare airport really takes it on the chin, at least I got to learn a new term: Mega-Airport.

When you look at headlines like "Rockford’s violent crime, shootings, assaults continue to climb," it really shouldn't come as a surprise that Rockford's position on the Illinois' Safest Cities list is pretty far down.

Over the years, Rockford has been on the receiving end of all sorts of slings and arrows from different publications, and I don't know that it will ever stop. I'm sure they get their numbers correct, but sometimes it feels like we're being piled on.

Pick a county, any county. In the State of Illinois, you've got 102 of them to choose from, but according to a new study, 25 of them are better than the other 77. Our own Winnebago County finds itself in the top 25.