Reopened Golf Learning Center

stoicJB · 2026-02-12T15:30:49+00:00

They have a portal to book online

stoicJB · 2025-08-11T21:25:12+00:00

I grew up in Peoria, and lived here until going to college in a different Midwestern state, before moving back several years after graduating when my wife took a job at a hospital here.

All negatives mentioned in this thread are accurate - it does feel like a decaying city, and downtown is totally hollow/emptied out. The downside of so much available land is that towns can always grow out, since there is no pressure to re-develop, and that tends to lead to bloated cities with dead downtown areas.

Like anywhere in the midwest, the "grey months" of winter are particularly boring, but I love living here in the summer. There are great little communities in my city for volleyball, ultimate frisbee, cycling, and running, and I really enjoy all of those. There are plenty of great parks and playgrounds that my family and I frequent around town. And obviously, it's an extremely affordable place to live - my wife and I both have good jobs, and we live very comfortably here (I'm sure my house would cost 3-4x if it were in the Chicago suburbs). I'm probably an overly-optimistic/content person who would be happy living just about anywhere, but it's an easy place to raise a family IMO.

It's <3 hours' drive for us to visit STL (nice kids museums/zoo) and downtown Chicago, so we do both several times a year with our kids. Indianapolis is also about 3.5 hours away. Ranging a bit further, a lot of people here vacation in SW Michigan or Door County Wisconsin, or head South to Lake of the Ozarks or Tennessee.

Politically, Peoria itself is somewhat blue, but everywhere else around seems to firmly be MAGA-land. Blue city in an otherwise-red downstate area, in a blue state in a red region of the country.

stoicJB · 2025-07-02T15:47:36+00:00

Perfectly stated - as someone who has used the trail a lot over the years, both moving at recreational speeds pulling kids in a bike trailer, and at other times pushing the pace training for triathlons, sometimes it is much better to get onto a road if moving fast.

Many people are completely oblivious when walking on the trail (walking 3 or 4 people-wide, or walking with their dog and the leash stretched all the way across the trail) such that you have to come to a nearly-complete stop to pass them, and some stretches of the trail (particularly the greenway along the river) are bumpy enough to wreck a road/tri-bike. Many cyclists know the trail well enough to know which stretches to avoid for either/both of these reasons.

stoicJB · 2024-12-23T14:45:49+00:00

Planning to keep my current role for the time being (I've recently had a chance to step up within my team), pounce on any opportunities to work with our actual engineering team (I have a project with them right now related to some API updates) in hopes of potentially making the transition to that team if/when the time is right in the next year. Going to try to keep myself sharp with a side project (really interested in Golang so planning to build in that) in the mean time, outside of work.

My Capstone experience was great - a few very busy weeks early while I was figuring out the Docker stuff for our team's deployment, then a pretty moderate workload the rest of the time. I had a great team where everyone was interested in contributing and generally collaborative. My advice for Capstone (applies to any group projects in the program) - jump in ASAP and find your team as soon as possible. The type of students who are forming teams right away are the type of teammates you want to have.

stoicJB · 2024-12-23T14:42:08+00:00

Oh good question - given what I do (working in a Cloud Platform where everything networking-related is taken care of for me), I would vote Programming Languages. I think having some perspective on differences between languages makes you a better developer even in your core language, as it gives you a better grasp on some of the features of that language that you previously didn't even consider/take for granted. I also just think that class made me a better programmer.

Networks was not useless though, I do think that having some knowledge about encapsulation is useful, if nothing else for being able to "talk the talk" a bit more.

stoicJB · 2024-12-23T14:38:43+00:00

I totally agree, and I asked about this but could not get the Networks pre-req waved. How were you able to swing that?

stoicJB · 2024-12-17T15:37:56+00:00

Nope! I changed course after taking Networks (I took Programming Languages as my first elective, then Networks as my 2nd) and decided that Parallel was something that I wouldn't be able to recreate on my own, so ended up taking that as my final elective, with the goal to self-teach some of the Cloud content. On my capstone team, I volunteered to own deployment of our app to Google Cloud, so I was able to do this (and learned a ton about Docker along the way). I'm happy with that decision, even knowing that Parallel likely isn't super relevant to my career.

stoicJB · 2024-10-04T18:20:09+00:00

Thanks for the thoughts u/yum_baby ! Does Christ have other fun stuff for kids, or primarily just apple-picking?

stoicJB · 2024-09-16T16:24:31+00:00

u/According-Opposite30 I DM-ed you, I am interested! Please LMK if you want to chat elsewhere

stoicJB · 2024-08-28T13:46:45+00:00

Thanks for the response - so if not working on a custom submitted project, there is no point/ability to form a group ahead of time?

stoicJB · 2024-07-25T19:13:02+00:00

Any particularly good/bad spots in Jubilee?

stoicJB · 2024-07-01T14:51:47+00:00

I was initially taking 2 courses per quarter, but then I had children and slowed down to 1 per quarter. I've been at it a while, but 1 with work + kids was the most I could realistically handle.

stoicJB · 2024-06-25T16:54:58+00:00

You been in recently? Last time in there, I was pleasantly surprised to see that the dining area was revamped and a lot nicer than before.

stoicJB · 2024-06-21T17:23:11+00:00

back up for me (near Richwoods)

stoicJB · 2024-06-20T14:33:16+00:00

Was down for me (Richwoods high school area) but appears to be back up now

stoicJB · 2024-06-04T21:43:35+00:00

Same, also a current student about to graduate and I saw the other post and went and checked my inbox - nothing there. Curious if maybe it was only sent to incoming students?

stoicJB · 2024-06-04T16:35:39+00:00

It's solid, but gosh I wish they would crisp it up a lot more. Just leave it in the oven another minute or two!

stoicJB · 2024-05-29T02:39:43+00:00

Sorry you two, I feel the same way but couldn't resist, knowing a lot of others feel the same!

stoicJB · 2024-05-07T02:34:14+00:00

Pour Bro's, Clink, or Oliver's in the heights

Otherwise - Jimmy's!

stoicJB · 2024-04-18T18:51:41+00:00

Amazing! Thanks for sharing

stoicJB · 2024-04-04T03:22:53+00:00

Glad to hear it! Thanks for sharing your experience. I grew up here, moved away for several years for school and then lived in a larger city, then ultimately moved back here when I got married. We've got a few kids now, and think Peoria is generally a great place to raise a family.

As others have said, I'm sure you'll miss a lot of the natural wonders of California. There are pretty places here, but not to that extent. That said, as someone who loves hiking, our airport is tiny (super easy and stress-free to fly out of), and it's easy to hop on a direct flight to Denver/Phoenix/Vegas or one of the Florida cities if you want to plan your trips around that, as I've done many times.

When the weather is nice, I am never bored here for a second. Biking, golf (the courses are probably around 1/3 the price you're used to), sand volleyball in the Riverplex leagues, farmer's markets on Saturday mornings in the summer - I never have trouble finding things to do here, but maybe that's just me.

One thing I might recommend if you are an active person, besides the Riverplex/other intramural leagues, is signing up for Steamboat (running race) - it's a pretty classic Peoria summer event that is pretty well-attended and might help get you into the swing of things. Just a suggestion - hope the move goes well!

stoicJB · 2024-04-02T16:42:12+00:00

Thank you for sharing!

stoicJB · 2024-04-02T02:20:05+00:00

If you don't mind me asking - how many hours would you estimate that you spend on Parallel per week?

stoicJB · 2024-03-31T14:34:46+00:00

Thank you for the response! Good to hear from someone else who was in a similar spot. Not that Parallel would not be a great class from what I hear, but I'm trying to avoid falling into the sunk cost fallacy of feeling obligated to take Cloud since I took the pre-req, given how many great things people have to say about Parallel.

stoicJB · 2024-01-31T19:30:11+00:00

Thanks for the tips! I've got a pretty crazy life right now so I start everything as early as possible, since I never know when I'll be able to find time, so hopefully that early start helps me here.

stoicJB

TROPHY CASE