Parents and students take note: You may no longer use Noble Avenue as an extension of Lake Forest High School's circular driveway. The street recently was changed from a no-parking zone to a no-parking AND no-standing zone during school hours.

"Parents for some reason feel they need to pick up their child on Noble rather than use the front circle drive as the school prefers," Deputy Police Chief Glenn Burmeister told GazeboNews. "Noble then in effect becomes one-way as it is blocked from McKinley to Edgewood, 20-30 cars." The new signs are an attempt to manage a long-standing parking problem that some neighbors say has gotten worse as more and more students drive to school.

People have come up with interesting tactics to deal with the parking situation. Some residents post

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Are you at your nit's wit's end about head lice? The little buggers have become a nuisance in local schools and daycare centers. Wikipedia reports six to 12 million Americans–primarily children–are treated for lice every year—worldwide the number of cases is in "the hundreds of millions."

 People are at odds over how to treat lice. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control & Prevention reports that lice treatment requires an over-the-counter or prescription medication, and it recommends washing/drying/vacuuming all hats, bedding, clothes, toys, rugs and/or furniture used by an infected person. Many Lake Forest and Lake Blufff schools send infected kids home and suggest louse-dousing shampoos. But these treatments have pesticides, which some people just don't like rubbing onto their kids' scalps let alone their own heads (but most do it anyway).  Many, many holistic treatments come up in Google searches, such as tea tree-oil, melted butter, olive oil, vinegar, eucalyptus oil, mayonnaise … It's enough to make the stomach rumble.

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May we suggest pie for dessert? Friday is National Pie Day, a celebration created by the American Pie Council to sweeten our taste for pie in the off-season. Why should we care? Because Lake Forest is home to both the American Pie Council and its Executive Director, Linda Hoskins.

We also like the fact that the Pie Council is asking pie lovers to "pie it forward" by sharing pie with loved ones and strangers. "Get two pies when you're at the grocery store–one to enjoy with your family and one to give to the person behind you in line," suggested Ms. Hoskins, shown here in a photo taken at the Lake Bluff Farmer's Market in October. "Bring a pie to a new neighbor and get to know each other over a slice of pie. You might indulge your co-workers and bring some pie to work, or you can say 'thank you' to someone with a warm hug wrapped in a delicious crust."

For recipes, tips and more information on pie than you could ever imagine anyone having the gumption to compile, please visit the American Pie Council's website.

Here at GazeboNews we try to remain unbiased about stories. But there is one subject on which we cannot remain quiet: dog poop, which can be found in such proliferation on sidewalks and parks that we fear an E. coli outbreak every time we leave the house. We know we're not alone in our disgust. A reader recently sent this e-mail:

"Dog GONE Gross! Has anyone noticed the excessive dog 'droppings' (i.e. poop) all over town? I live on the east side and have been a dog owner for more than 10 years. Never have I seen so many dog droppings all over the sidewalks. Why don't the owners pick it up? It doesn't freeze immediately. Doesn't anyone know what happens when the snow starts to melt? The dog droppings will begin to melt as well. GROSS! Does anyone else think this is a problem?"

Let us know what you think!

With help from teenagers, Lake Forest and Lake Bluff police ran under-cover compliance checks on more than a dozen businesses in the past month and found only one to be in violation of local and state laws regarding the drinking age. "Obviously our goal is for all license holders to be 100% compliant," Deputy Chief David D. Belmonte told GazeboNews. The department has found two violations in the past two years, with no repeat offenders.

Lake Bluff typically uses a minor under the age of 18 to conduct compliance checks, with supervision from a police officer. "The minor has their actual driver's license with them, and if

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Several people with close ties to Lake Forest and Lake Bluff are departing for Africa on Wednesday to climb 19,500 feet up Mount Kilimanjaro, raise $60,000, film a documentary and build 25 underground wells. Why? Because the wells are needed, and they feel called to help.

"When you have a calling in life, it's important to answer that call," said Chris Moses of Lake Bluff,  spokeswoman for It Can Be Done Africa, a group formed in 2007 to help bring fresh water to the 30,000 people of the Uru region of Tanzania. "There are lots of things to do here at home, and we do them. But you have to have clean water first."

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Members of the new Mettawa Transparency Party are in a good mood. "A small hip-hip-hooray for us and our team for winning on Thursday in court!" said Jess Ray, who filed a lawsuit against the Village to stop the development of Costco on Route 60 near I-94. Judge Mitchell L. Hoffman of Lake County Circuit Court in Waukegan last week ruled against two motions brought by the Village of Mettawa in regard to the lawsuit. Mr. Ray said the two motions not upheld by the court were:

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The Lake Bluff Lawn Mower Precision Drill Team is being upstaged on an art form it invented–and it's getting attention from the media because of it. Tuesday's inaugural parade will include The Rangers, from Arcola, IL, an appointment that's slightly irksome to the Lake Bluff team, according to a story in Monday's Chicago Tribune, which was picked up by Chicago NBC-5 TV. The Trib article quotes Lake Bluff's Christian Erzinger, who questioned the parade's vetting process, and Lydon Neumann, who said he wasn't sure if anyone from Lake Bluff even remembered to apply for a parade spot.

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The celebratory mood may vary between Lake Forest and Lake Bluff during Tuesday's presidential inauguration, if local election results are any guide. According to a GazeboNews analysis of November's presidential election, Democrat Barack Obama won in all five of Lake Bluff's precincts while his Republican opponent John McCain won in all 20 Lake Forest precincts. The information was culled from Lake County voting results. 

The little green houses on this map represent polling places. Click on the houses or colored regions for a pop-up showing the percentage breakdown of precinct vote totals (you can also double click on any point of the map other than the icons to make the map larger).  The red area shows the precinct with the highest concentration of McCain voters and the blue area the highest concentration of Obama voters. Surprisingly, there are wide variations in voting strength for the two candidates.

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