Is That A Spot?
Wednesday, September 19th, 2007
Shama: Who does this guy think he is?
Archive for the 'Chicago' Category
You Win Some, You Lose Some
Wednesday, September 5th, 2007While I’m very excited about the Montrose Brown Line station reopening this winter, I was kind of bummed that they moved it to the other side of the street, increasing my commute by a whole twenty paces.
Then I realized that the Armitage station also moved to the other side of the street, decreasing my commute by twenty paces.
Blue Bags Carts
Tuesday, August 28th, 2007
Much has been written about how ineffective Chicago’s blue bag program is. Most people, myself included, have a hard time believing that a thin layer of polyethylene will survive the gnashing claws of a garbage truck long enough to make it to some magical sorting chamber where enchanted elves separate recyclable cardboard from baby Chester’s dirty diapers. And while that process probably worked more effectively than I suggest, it offered us, the recycling public little confidence. So little, in fact, that few bothered to use blue bags.
In lieu of a civic recycling program, I hauled my cans and bottles and papers and what not to the 7-11 parking lot at Wrightwood and Lincoln (and Sheffield — three-way intersections, yo!) where The Resource Center has set up recycling bins. It was a pain. On the up side, I often ran into the founder of The Resource Center, Ken Dunn. Ken Dunn is a strange and wonderful man who has founded many strange and wonderful projects in Chicago including City Farm and Blackstone Bicycle Works. Often I’d be throwing cardboard into the truck-sized bin only to see a slight, soul-patch-ed man pop out of the pile like Scrooge McDuck in his money bin. This is a guy who was featured in a cover story for Chicago Magazine and who Mayor Daley has on his speed dial.
I remember several years ago we were chatting as he gleefully loaded trash bags full of used coffee grounds into his truck (to use as compost at City Farm.) He mentioned that Chicago’s recycling program was going to be drastically improved in the next couple years. “Yeah, right,” I thought.
Never question Ken Dunn. Look what I found behind our building a couple weeks ago:
The whole alley is now lined with brand new City of Chicago blue carts. The 46th and 47th ward, it seems, are part of the trial program, and let me tell you, the 46th and 47th wards are pretty excited about it. The suckers were packed to the gills all up and down the alley.
Here’s me breaking in my blue cart (apparently after a wild night of Squirt drinking.) And by the way, you don’t need to use blue bags — or any bags, for that matter — but I figured I wouldn’t be using them for anything else…
Water Water Everywhere… And You Can Drink It, But It’s Gross.
Tuesday, July 17th, 2007In Chicago, and probably many other cities that reside along lakes or oceans, there are two types of people: beach people and everyone else. Beach people go to the beach every chance they get. They need to live near the lake. They read at the beach, run at the beach, eat at the beach, and if all the e coli swimming warnings are any indication, those probably aren’t the only thing they do at the beach.
I’m not a beach person. I’ve gone whole summers without setting foot on the beach. It’s not that I don’t like it there, it’s just that I don’t need it like others do. But I like beach people. Some of my best friends are beach people.
When Thea asked me if I wanted to go to the beach, my initial thought was, “nah,” but I didn’t have anything better to do and it’s only a couple blocks away, so I figured, “why not.”
The beach is great!
We built two different sand castles, ran out in the water, and, most importantly, dug an awesome hole. I don’t know what it is about beaches that make me want to dig a hole, but dammit if digging a hole at the beach isn’t the most fun in the world.
We dug and we dug and eventually we hit a layer of greyish clay stuff that stank real bad. REAL bad.
THEA: I think I’m gonna fill in the hole. It really smells.
We also talked with one of the metal detector guys. He’s a beach person. He told us about his greatest success (a diamond ring and some sort of gold jewelry from India) and seemed generally happy that someone wanted to talk to him. We put some change in our hole before we filled it in. I hope he finds it and not the other metal detector guy… the evil metal detector guy.
It was a pretty awesome day. We even got poopsicles, although I almost immediately dropped mine. Blip blop.
It’s All Fun and Games Until Someone’s House Burns Down
Monday, July 16th, 2007
Midwestern thunderstorms have always been one of my favorite things about living in Chicago. On the night of Chicago’s fireworks, some friends and I sat on the front deck and craned our necks to see the show. Later that night, the lightning put the fireworks to shame.
Thunderstorms are fun and exciting, but sometimes it’s easy to forget how destructive they can be.
On my way home from work last week I stopped to get a sandwich and lightning struck the building across the street. The sandwich shop folks called the fire department, who came and did their thing.
I couldn’t leave since the firetrucks blocked me in, so I took some pictures and tried to stay out of the way. I don’t know how much damage there was, but the roof was smoking something crazy.
It’s Been Mild in the Midwest
Tuesday, July 10th, 2007Every day Yahoo shows me the top 5 news stories of the day. Today one of those top five stories is “East Swealters in 2nd Day of Heat Wave.” The story explains how temperatures are expected to hit 93 degrees in New York today. Yesterday in Chicago the high was 94.
A couple of days ago, one of the top headlines was “Heat Wave Broils West.”
It used to bother me that the entire center of the country gets no respect or attention. Now I like it. This town is our little secret — all ten million of us. Then again, maybe it’s just hard to write headlines without a coast: “It’s Really Hot in That Part Of The Country Between the East and the West.”
I think I want to work on the Olympics.
A Living Cubs Fan’s Last Request
Tuesday, June 5th, 2007Back in March I received an e-mail announcing the start of the fantasy baseball league I’ve played in for years. I actually wrote a whole big thing about baseball season getting started that I never posted. It went something like this:
“I think last year was one of the worst years to be a Cubs fan. I know those of you who were around in the 50’s and 60’s (i.e., Dad) may dispute this, but there was something about last year that was particularly brutal. They weren’t even lovable losers. They were just losers.”
This year might be worse: losing on a walk-off hit batsman, being thrown out on a walk… they really are amazing.
Normally before our fantasy baseball draft I rate some Cubs players a little higher than they deserve. I figure, if I’m going to have mediocre players, I might as well have mediocre players I want to root for. This year I forgot to rate the players and for the first time ever I don’t have any Cubs on my team. Last time I checked I was in first place.
No one understood it like the late Steve Goodman:
Superman!
Sunday, June 3rd, 2007
I walked through the Lincoln Square Mayfest just in time to catch the Jesse White Tumblers. As is often the case, Jesse White himself was there, and he was wearing white pants. The Honorable Secretary of State did some headstands and other near-tumbling activities as Chicago youths between the ages of 6 and 16 bounded about the street. I’ve probably seen them perform 100 times, yet it’s one of those things I’ve never gotten sick of. I’ve also never seen them screw up. That’s kind of weird, I think.
Today, as one fella was flip flopping and flipping and flopping… his shorts fell off. But dammit if he didn’t stick the landing.
Math is Hard
Wednesday, May 30th, 2007Ali was asked to sing at her friend’s wedding and she asked me if I’d play guitar with her. Originally I was supposed to harmonize with her as well, but a quick skills assessment confirmed my suspicions that I suck at harmonizing. So Kelly was brought in to do the harmonies, forming the most powerful Indigo Girls-singing-wedding-trio ever! Except for the Police. I think they’ve done Indigo Girls songs at a wedding.
The thing about weddings in Grant Park is your audience isn’t just the wedding party. All the folks milling about Buckingham Fountain decided to stop and watch as well.
After the ceremony, the groom shook our hands and said we did a great job.
GROOM: I hate the Indigo Girls, but that song was perfect!
The song was called “Power of Two.” It’s a nice enough song, but I do have a problem with it. The titular line is: “Adding up the total of a love that’s true / Multiply life by the power of two.” Now, I’m all for the love/math metaphor. Lord knows I use it myself, but you can’t multiply anything by the power of two. You can raise life to the power of two or multiply life by two, but you can’t multiply life by the power of two.
That line ruined the whole wedding for me.
UPDATE: I’m aware that in my math song, the line “You’re as complex as the square root of negative one” isn’t quite accurate. Complex numbers must have real and imaginary parts, so the square root of negative one is actually just an imaginary number. Hee haw.
The Thrill of Victory… And Burning Cars
Monday, May 28th, 2007Speaking of brutal, I just received the schedule for this year’s Team Demolition Derby. Last summer Claire wasn’t sure what to do for her 30th Birthday. I had just learned about Team Demolition Derby and put the idea on the table. Claire’s response: “That’s perfect!”
So one rainy July afternoon, we trekked down to the dirt oval in Joliet to see some hot station wagon on station wagon action. The rules are simple: each team has four cars. The first team that gets one car around the track 5 times wins.
I wouldn’t have known it, but we (apparently) saw one of the greatest team demolition derby matches in the history of this storied track. The heavily favored Orange Crush jumped out to a quick lead, but their opponent, the resilient Junkyard Dogs, staged an amazing comeback. After 20 minutes of twisted metal and muddy wrecks, the Junkyard Dogs only needed to get their car 50 feet to win. Unfortunately it had stalled… and overheated… because it was on fire. The only other functioning car on the track was an Orange Crush Oldsmobile barely visible through the smoke billowing out from its hood.
As the remaining Dog furiously tried to restart his engine, the Oldsmobile slowly accelerated to ramming speed. My friends, when children dream of glory on the dirt oval, this is their dream: The Orange Crush’s attack was mere feet from ending The Junkyard Dogs’ surprising run when the whir and sputter of a dilapidated engine catching hushed the crowd, albeit momentarily. For as that pathetic piece of crap car plodded through the mud towards the finish line, the frenzied audience drowned out the even-more-frenzied P.A. announcer with an unparalleled ovation reserved for the true heroes of team demolition derby.
I hear the halftime show during the finals involves melting a car with a jet engine. So that’s cool too.
By the way, the Junkyard Dogs got killed in the finals. Also, I’m not sure if they were actually called the Junkyard Dogs. But the rest of this story is mostly true, I swear.
The Most Brutal Store in Chicago
Sunday, May 20th, 2007The craft and flower store on the corner of Montrose and Damen closed and a new store recently re-opened in its place: Metal Haven! I assume it’s the same owners.
Metal Haven has a website, but on it you will find this note:
“…The fact remains that metal is itself far more important than the internet. Metal eats the internet for breakfast. And you know this.”
The store is pretty fantastic. I might have to go to the Alehorn of Power show in a couple weeks. Who’s down?
Linetopia
Saturday, May 12th, 2007I mention in just about every post how great Chicago is. Last night was Looptopia, the “dusk ’till dawn cultural and artistic spectacle.” There were hundreds of things going on and we saw none of them. Each one had a line we didn’t have the patience to endure.
We did manage to get into Walgreen’s, however. Some in our group wanted to buy gloves as the night had grown surprisingly chilly. Unable to find real gloves we got a three-pack of bright green gardening gloves.
A couple hours later we ran into these fine folks:
And that’s why I loved Looptopia. Even though we didn’t actually see anything, the loop was filled with a bunch of goofballs. There was the guy dressed up as a gorilla for no reason and the kids who decided to have an impromptu dance party next to The Bean and those weirdos who made a human pyramid in Daley Plaza… oh, wait… that was us.
I think Looptopia II will work out a lot of the kinks from this first experiment. I expect to be back next year.
Are you seriously going to wear that?
Wednesday, March 7th, 2007
The US Olympic Committee is in town today to evaluate Chicago’s bid for the 2016 Olympic Games, so everyone tuck in your shirts. Try not to look like such a slob for once in your life.
I know there are some of you out there who don’t like the idea of millions of people from all over the world descending on Chicago for a two week party, but don’t ruin this for the rest of us, okay?
I’m no world traveler, but I can’t imagine it gets any better than Chicago in the summer. The world needs to see that this is the greatest city in the country. Hell, if it gets all those east coasters and west coasters to shut up about their stupid coasts for, like, 10 seconds, it will be worth it. Mostly I’m excited because the Olympics are a great excuse to take on some big, crazy, weird construction projects. I’m telling you, we’re gonna end up with a 30 story glow-in-the-dark sculpture of a cow that gives people rides into space before you know it. Make no small plans!
My favorite part about the pitch is that Michael Jordan has said he will be available to help “when he’s most needed.” It will come down to the final vote and Chicago will just throw Jordan into the conference room and be like, “kaBLOW! Michael Jordan! Chicago!”
It’s in the bag.
Happy Poop Day
Thursday, February 22nd, 2007I have a terrible sense of smell. If there’s ever a gas leak, I better hope someone else is around. I also have bad tastes in smells. I don’t like the smell of coffee. I recently admitted to kind of liking the smell of horse manure. Kind of. Shut up.
Thanks to temperatures way up in the 40s, the sun is shining, everyone’s smiling, and the snow is finally melting… revealing countless piles of dog poop.
My neighborhood reeks.
Happy Poop Day!
Simple Joys
Thursday, February 15th, 2007You know that song from Pippen, “Simple Joys?” You don’t? What? You say it’s incredibly dorky to like musicals? And of all the musicals, it’s most especially dorky to know all the words to Pippen? Well, screw you then. You like Scottie Pippen, don’t you? Same thing.
Shut up.
My point is, while walking to the Wilson red line stop (my latest search for a route to work while the Montrose brown line stop is under construction) I helped push a lady’s car out of the snow. I swear, this is one of my favorite things to do. It’s one of the reasons I love snowstorms. It’s one of the few times strangers help other strangers for no reason.
So if anyone needs help getting their car unstuck, give me a call. Now put it in reverse. Okay forward. Try reverse again! Okay, turn the steering wheel to the left…
