DPC: Free Study (May 2009)

Brought to you by April Showers

Tea Bagging Protest

I had the misfortune of walking passed the "Tea Party" protest, filled with people angry as hell about a black Muslim foreign socialist spending government money (but who were all strangely silent when it was a white Christian republican running up a huge deficit).

Even to my untrained eye the group in Chicago didn't appear all that organized, and as far as protests go their numbers were a tiny tiny fraction of the number of people who marched in protest of US Immigration policy. The best comment I've seen:

I’ll bet they’re wishing they had a COMMUNITY ORGANIZER now.

Game Night Recap

We had just enough turnout (4 players, including 2 out of 3 Sarah's) to be able to play all of the really fun games. The previous night, our friend Ruby helped us make a batch of tamales, and Sonya made peach ice cream (non-dairy!). And despite the naysayers on Facebook, people thought the food was delicious.

We played:
    Blokus
    Uptown
    Quirkle
    Puerto Rico
And then hit the Wii for Guitar Hero and the latest Raving Rabbids game.

The next game night will likely be on April 25th.

DPC: Grey

dismal winter skies

One of my few entries not to get any comments during the voting week.

DPC: Free Study (September)

Lakeside Parking

I took this shot from outside the Chicago Field Museum last month while I was on my way to the planetarium for the fireworks show.

City of Inspiration

Fall Fireworks at Navy Pier


Looking north from Roosevelt St bridge

Photographic inspiration, that is. While the family is away, I've been able to head downtown a couple nights with my camera and have fun being a photographer. I have some of my better images in my DPC portfolio, here and here. I got myself signed up for a portrait class taught through the Chicago Digital Photography meetup.com group, which I'm excited about.

Earthquakes

Jason, born in Hayward, ended up playing for a team named "Earthquakes" here in Chicago. I'm not making this up, and I had no input on the team name. His first real game is this coming Saturday.

Indiana Sand Dunes

Jason likes sand, so in a cruel twist of fate I took him to a place with so much sand he hated it. We trekked over to Indiana to Mt Baldy, along Indiana's sand dune park system. The "mountain" is about a hundred feet tall, and offers some nice views (which would be nicer without so much cloud cover casting shadows on everything).

I hear the refinery in the background spews out so much radioactive waste that locals have grown gills and can swim like fish!

We picked a good day to not be in Chicago, as when we looked out over Lake Michigan we could see Chicago was submerged!!

This is what we get for not taking mass transit to the sand dunes. Fortunately, traffic was heavy and with the delay getting home Chicago had time to dry out.

Preseason Thoughts: Chiefs vs Bears

I caught most of the Chiefs/Bears preseason game last night, tuning in to catch Grossman's missteps. Hadie looked really good, showing some pocket presence avoiding the pass rush, and making good decisions and fairly accurate throws. Some caveats though:
1. It's preseason. Teams are playing to see which players are worth keeping, not so much to win the game.
2. It's the Chiefs, not exactly a dominant team.
3. It wasn't even the Chief's starters on defense against Hadie. Then again, he didn't have the Bears starters on offense. It's hard to tell sometimes with the Bears, since their offensive players are, well, offensive.

I'd like to see Hadie get some more time in the next preseason games. From what I saw last night, he shows more potential than both Orton and Grossman. Those other two "starters" really lower the bar for what we in Chicago want from our quarterbacks. If Hadie ends up being below average, it would be a huge step forward for the team.

Big Bugs!

This weekend we discovered the Morton Arboretum just outside of Chicago, and caught the Big Bug exhibit. We had a blast, and maybe only saw a tenth of the park. We'll be returning often, especially in the fall.

Traditional Anniversary Gifts

New 7th Anniversary Gift: Matching iPhones!

Yep, I stood in line for four and a half hours at the Apple store on North Michigan Ave in Chicago, but unlike many people (particularly those at AT&T stores) I did not come home empty handed. I was surprised there were no hot dog or other food peddlers feeding people in the line; they would have made almost as much money as Apple did that day.

DPC: Urban Landscape 3

Financial Giants

See, I told you I'd have a better picture to show tonight. This is looking up from Adams St, and yes, that's the Sears Tower on the left. I don't know what the building on the right is called.

Grandma Visits

"Nonny" came to visit us last weekend! The picture is at a moon rock outside of the Shedd Aquarium.

Korea Culture Day

Jason and I went to the Korean culture exhibition at the Children's Museum.

Field Museum

Didn't I just post about rites of Spring? Yesterday about six inches of snow dumped on Chicago! I had the day off, and had plans to take Jason to the Field Museum. Yesterday's weather gave too many other people the same idea, and it was crowded like a weekend afternoon.


Even though we had just been to the museum recently, we were still able to spend hours there and not see anything that we saw on our last visit. The Field Museum is just that big and that impressive!

Diversey Hill

All that cold weather and snow we had the last couple of days, coupled with a nice day today, made for some excellent sledding conditions on The Hill. Sonya was even able to join us this time! We have a two of those disc sleds, and the three of us had a blast.

Tomorrow of course is the Superbowl. We don't have any plans to watch the game with other people (yet), and Sonya has to work at the hospital all day. Jason and I will play in the snow at home during the day most likely, and watch the game here.

I think the Patriots should sell "Official Team Camcorders" on their website..

Dropped 50!

The "Ugly Fountain" at Embarcadero in San Francisco.

It dropped about 50 degrees yesterday afternoon, from around 46 to -4, and the wind chill made it worse. While I was visiting the Bay Area last week, my aunt apologized for it raining every day (as if she controlled the weather). At the time, I thought rain was great, it meant it was warm enough to rain! I'd look up Chicago weather, and see numbers like "1" or "5", and think about how happy I was to not be in the middle of it. Winter decided to start without me, but there was plenty left for me to enjoy when I got back home.

During my vacation, I got in some quality Wii game time with my friend George. Resident Evil was fantastic as a two player game, and the Lynx Crossbow game that comes with the Wii Zapper was fun to power through. Mario Galaxy didn't excite me, but then the only Mario title that did was MarioKart64. We tried out Geometry Wars and Alien Syndrome; those played alright for filler games, but when we were done taking a break it was back to Resident Evil.

I'm finally able to get my car repaired from when I got rear-ended in November. Unfortunately, I have to drive this rental in the meantime that doesn't even measure up to the lofty standards of the 1979 Toyota Corolla I drove in high school. I didn't know modern cars were built without power locks! It handles exceptionally poorly on snow dusted roads, and doesn't even get decent gas milage.

In other news, I will be at FAnime this year.

Unobstructed View

That "hole" in the building is on the floor where I work, and it was one of two windows on our floor that had to be replaced that day. The night before there were gusts of wind up to 74 mph, and some hail.

Navy Pier Fireworks: Take 2

This time we camped out just outside of Navy Pier, on a grassy stretch just outside of the crowded areas. I figured no matter where the fireworks were launched from, we'd be able to see them. They weren't launched all that high, and luckily for us there was a break between the trees near us so we could see the whole show.


Jason was much more impressed this time, and afterward he got muchas smooches from a 6 year old señorita. This was no quick peck on the cheek, but looked to be the kind of kiss he shouldn't get until he's a surly high school student--a get a room kind of kiss. And just like that, she was gone.

Fireworks: Take 1

Waiting for the fireworks, we got this visual treat. That's the John Hancock building on the right.


This was the view we had from North Ave beach, where the fireworks were not launched from Navy Pier, disappointing the thousands of us waiting for the show.


Looking out from our neighbor's deck, we had a better skyline for the fireworks, but they were still too far away to be spectacular. To the left of the burst is the Sears Tower.


This Wednesday, if the skies are clear, I'll take Jason out to Grant Park to try to gete a better view of the fireworks show.