Excitement and Turmoil

There was a fire next door tonight. Our building is fine, but one of the apartments next door is burned out.

We went to Evanston to enjoy the beautiful evening, and came home to get decent parking spot on a fairly unremarkable evening. As we were coming home, there were some people on the corner shouting. This really isn't anything unusual, so when the sirens came and stopped right near the intersection, I was thankful for Chicago Police coming to silence the loud people. We came in, and heard a three beep alarm out in the other building, and I was annoyed, thinking that it would stay that way all night. It wasn't long afterwards when the rest of the sirens started coming, and we realized that something was legitimately amiss.

After that, it was pretty much a brief and somewhat somber block party. The neighborhood was out, and we got to meet several of our neighbors while we watched the firefighters do their job. They blocked off our street and the cross street. There are still a lot of emergency vehicles outside, and the lights make me glad I don't have photosensitive seizures.

This was an interesting experience, but one that I'm very glad I'm seeing from this end. Several families have been displaced, and one guy (who wasn't home) completely lost his whole apartment. Fortunately no human died, but at least one dog did. This is a tragedy, plain and simple, but it doesn't stop me being fascinated about the process or about the reactions of the people dealing with it.

Sharing Experiences from the Chicago Monsoon

Everybody will have their own stories about the storm we've been having. It's arguably the biggest rainstorm I've ever experienced, and it's really fun. Admittedly, I'm sure it would be less fun if I or someone I loved was involved in some property damage as a result of this, but right now, I'll accept that it's fun.

Some observations/experiences:

-The bus from the train station was leaking, as if it was a poorly constructed submarine. I kept feeling like I'd hear metal groaning under the weight of the depths.

-I've never been so happy to have Timberland work shoes. They're pretty much all waterproof, which makes for very pleasant walking experiences when walking through a park under an umbrella when the ground is flooded and thousands of gallons of water are coming down and there's lightning all around.

-Because of said lightning and walking though the park (from the bus stop to home) under an umbrella, I've never before thought I'd get hit by lightning. It was kinda scary, but I can't say that it wouldn't be interesting to experience.

-It's so freakin' cool to be standing at a bus depot and almost seeing where lightning struck (it was a few blocks away) when it struck. I felt the blast from the thunder.

-All we're hearing is sirens. They're not so common now, and the rain is dying down, but for a while there, if we heard a vehicle, it was an emergency vehicle.

-I'm happy that we had planned to be home anyway, and that we have leftovers in the fridge.

Did you see me waving?

Hey, you know that Metra train that derailed? I was on that.

It was just the back two cars. Nobody was hurt, just a few people were annoyed, and we all got to work an hour later than anticipated. Here's what I know happened: we stopped, we started again, and we stopped again. The conductor got on the PA and told us we'd derailed the back two cars. Here's what I think happened. We stopped with the front five cars on one end of a switch, and the back two on another end. Somebody turned the switch, and we started moving, pulling the two back cars off.

Yay for an adventure on a Monday morning commute!

Gotham Ongoing

The new Batman movie is using the Post Office Building for a lot of things. Set, staging area, all sorts of crap. For weeks, I've seen film trucks outside and signs pointing to the set. It's getting almost commonplace. I lived in LA, and worked in film (occasionally). This really isn't that big a deal, but (A) it's freakin' Batman and (B) it's freakin' Chicago!




Anyway, to share the love, here's a couple shots taken with my crappy camera phone. The Gotham Police department here was zoomed in about as far as my phone will go, and subsequently cropped, so it doesn't have much of the image, but doesn't really need much either.





The truck here is sort of a maybe. Don't know much about it, although I'm sure it'll all come together when I see the movie next summer. You can't quite tell, but it looks to me inside like there's a lot of pyrotechnic gear. And it's an upside down smashed truck on top of another truck that's supposed to cart it to its location.

That's all I got.

Through the wall

Roughly half of the people who read this blog already know this, but I'm going to mention it anyway: we're moving.

We're going to Rogers Park, the northmost neighborhood in the ciy limits of Chicago. It's also one of the most (if not THE most) ethnically diverse neighborhoods in the country, which I think is cool. We're living just south of Devon street, frequently known as "Little India." It's a good neighborhood, and a lovely home. We're paying $40 less per month than we are in Schaumburg (in part because we're choosing to do some minor maintenance), and it's roughly 1.5 times the size. Admittedly, it's in a vintage building, and therefore doesn't have a lot of the amenities that a newer building has (like the one in which we currently live). But it will make a GREAT party place, even better than our current residence.

It'll be an adjustment, living in the city after a year in the suburbs. I'm not a big fan of Schaumburg, but parking is bountiful and traffic is not such an issue. There's a lot of space and it's quiet. You can see more than five stars at night. That said, it's kind of soulless and feels somewhat "corporate."

What I find interesting is the psychological barrier between the suburbs and the city. I've commented on this before, but a lot of people actually fear going through "the wall." It seems the transition from suburb to city is easier than the other direction, and few people will admit the fear, but it's evident. We actually had friends say, "but then we won't be able to see you anymore," when we mentioned we were moving back into the city. There was less commentary about moving into the suburbs when we did, simply because it was almost beyond a Chicagoan's comprehension. Heidi's father is particularly noteworthy (and kind of funny) in the fear of the "other side;" he actually told us "you don't want to live in a neighborhood where you hear gunshots at night." And whereas that is a true statement, the underlying assumption was that it's dramatically more common than it really is (no matter that in the one year I've lived in Schaumburg, I've heard more gunshots at night than I'd heard in two years in Chicago and seven years in LA).

I look forward to feasibly taking public transportation on an entire journey (as opposed to driving to a public transportation parking lot). I look forward to going to a show on a whim (or even auditioning for some). I'll miss Pita House and Asian Noodle House, but we'll be able to find ethic dining in neighborhoods where it's really not all that ethnic for the inhabitants. We'll be able to hit the Hopleaf or go to the lakefront at will.

I'll still go into the 'burbs, as now that I'm aware of the wall, I will intentionally defy it. Heidi's folks are out there, as are many of my Mensa friends, and I've started gaming with Heidi's brother's group (all of which are suburbanites), so I'll need to be out there on a regular basis anyway.

It's a good move. I look forward to seeing what it will bring us.

Back to the Bank

A couple months ago, the old Post Office building downtown was transformed into the Gotham National Bank temporarily for the new Batman movie. The filming stopped there due to some unfortunate circumstances: they set the Post Office on fire. This was unintentional, but I'm sure they were shooting the six fire trucks and the whole cacophany surrounding it and will try to find a way to work it into the movie. But that meant that they couldn't shoot there for a while.

Well, they're back, and I got a picture. Since it's my phone, and it's grey on grey, and it was kind of a cloudy day, you need to pop the picture a little bigger to really see the signage, but I can also give you a bit of a closeup.

Oh come on, you knew it was coming!

Every year there's a big warmup, and we think spring is here. Every year there is the subsequent blizzard that makes people complain about it being winter again. Yes, it's later than usual, and it's kind of funny in light of the Easter post that I recently wrote, but really, is this blizzard a surprise to anyone who's lived in Chicagoland for any significant amount of time?

Officially a Suburbanite

I like the city. I miss being in the city. Whenever I go into the city, I want to be there for a while. It's the vibe, the closeness, the depth of the place. Moving out to the suburbs was a change of pace, one that was not particularly welcome, but made a lot of sense at the time. I do love the home we've created, one that we couldn't have created in the city for twice what we're paying now, but it's in the 'burbs.

I figured I'd be able to maintain a tie to the city by staying at First Free, my church in the city. But the sense of community was difficult to maintain when I was living there, and being this far out, it would be borderline impossible. As if to say a semi-permanent "goodbye" to the city, we've officially decided to go to Willow Creek, a much more local-to-us church (and I believe it to be the largest church in the world as far a building square footage). It's a great church for creative people, but small group community is practically essential with a population greater than some towns. I'm hoping it will be less of a challenge to maintain friendships here; meh, we'll see what happens.

Fortunately, like most suburbanites, both Heidi and I like going into the city. Unfortunately, it's going to be a challenge to maintain the city-relationships I do have, as city folk tend to fear the suburbs. Two of the most adventurous people I know in the city both said, on separate occasions, "Here there be dragons" about areas pretty darn close to where I now live.

Sure, the best relationships will stay, because that what good friends do, but I expect to lose touch with a lot of people whose company I really enjoy. Admittedly, I'll be creating new relationships at the new place, but I guess I'm just not ready to let go of the old ones.

So my last real tie to the city is gone, one that I've had since I moved to the Chicago area. I'll miss it. A lot. Might as well buy an SUV now.

On the weekend

I've been trying to figure out how to write about the weekend, yet it's difficult as this weekend had a lot of stuff going on, and not much time to write. I'll hit some pertinent points. I'd like to expand on them, but there's that time thing.

Saturday:
I watched Cinderella Man while I was working on the Reception party favors. I remember a theatre was offering a refund of the ticket price if you didn't like the movie. It was that good, and that unnoticed. I still didn't see it in the theatres (more for time reasons than anything else), but thought it was funny that Russell Crowe was playing a boxer (due to the stories that he beat up paparazzi). But here's the thing about Russell Crowe: he's a phenomenal actor. I have never seen a Russell Crowe movie that I didn't like, and most of the ones I've seen, I love. This is one of them. It's the true story of Jim Braddock, a boxer in the depression. It's really about his struggle from one of the rising stars of boxing to complete failure at almost everything, to his struggle back into a lucrative, if dangerous, profession. I might write more about it later, we'll see.

Anyway, Heidi's bridal shower was Saturday, and I wasn't planning on going (as it's a chick thing), but it became expected of me. We got a good haul from the loot, and we ate a good meal. But it ended up being freakin' exhausting, which led to a nap.

In the evening we wanted to relax, so we sat down to watch Everything is Illuminated. I didn't even hear about this movie until it was on DVD, but it was really good. It's about Elijah Wood (wearing glasses that magnify is already freakin' enormous eyes), as Jonathan Somethingorother (not his actual name, but I can't remember it), a Jewish man who collects everything around him. He has a wall in his room where all the personal effects of his relatives are posted, but he doesn't really have anything of his grandfather (who passed away when Jonathan was very young) but an amber necklace. His grandmother, on her deathbed, gives him a picture of his grandfather, and another woman, who evidently helped them leave the Ukraine to come to America. He goes on a quest to the Ukraine to find out who this woman is, and is guided around by a very quirky grandfather and grandson. I can't go into much detail, but it's a brilliant film.

Sunday:
Went to church, our outdoor baptism service at Foster beach. The weather was the most beautiful I've seen in probably four years. The temperature was perfect, the sky had all these fluffy clouds where it wasn't pure blue, and there was a lot of wind. I like wind, a lot. I can't tell you why, but I love it. Eventually the wind died down, but it remained a perfect day. I had to stay down in the city, as we were playing D&D that evening, so I had a lot of time on my hands. I took an hour plus long walk along the Evanston path by the lake, and then went to see Little Miss Sunshine. I wanted to see The Illusionist, but it was playing an hour later.

Little Miss Sunshine was another fantastic movie, filled with unique and wonderful characters. There's a lot about this movie that I'm still processing, and I'll likely see it again several times, as there's a lot of depth that doesn't quite come across with the firt viewing, but most of the acting in it was complex and deep (Greg Kinnear doesn't do complex so well, but he's still a really charismatic presence). The evnts in the show are pretty predictable, once you understand what kind of movie it is, but the show isn't really about the events, it's more about the daughter in the show being the binding force in an otherwise dreadfully dysfunctional family.

D&D was a good time, hanging with some people that I don't get enough of a chance to be with. I really value my time with them, and we had some good fun times. A good D&D game should read like a good novel, and I think we're on a good plotline, which would read well.

So it was a successful, if busy, weekend.

It's Winter

I just came home from my dentist. Look at what time this post is. I left my dentist at 4:15. Now, my dentist is in Lake Zurich, which is pretty damn far away normally. I would normally have been driving during rush hour. But normally there isn't three inches of snow on the roads. This surreally beautiful image is of the alley behind my apartment with ankle-deep snow. We've had a few reminders of winter already: single-digit temperatures, a couple snowstorms, but this one is the first of the season that may isolate the city for a day. Fortunately, I work from home, so my "commute" (from my bedroom to my living room) won't be hindered. But winter has arrived.

The Sox Sweep the Series

OK, I'm not a big baseball fan. In fact, I didn't even watch the World Series. But I'm a resident of Chicago, and I dig this town a lot, and Chicago history was made last night. For the first time in 46 years, we had a team in the series, and for the first time a much longer time, we won it. Not only did we win it, we won it with style, with panache. The 3rd game ran on 14 innings, and the whole series was wrapped up in 4 games. Last night as I was going to bed, I heard fireworks going off. Kick ass.

Yes, this is dramatically different than my usual posts, so I'll leave everyone with this, just to know that I haven't gone off the deep end: Which Fantasy/Sci-Fi Character are You?

You are Elrond
A stern yet benevolent organizer who often knows best, your wits are keenly fixed on aiding efforts you deem worthy.

Now at this last we must take a hard road, a road unforseen. There lies our hope, if hope it be. To walk into peril to Mordor.

I like a little chill

It's nice to be wearing a jacket again. I like a little bit of bite in the air. It just makes me happy. Also, a jacket is a convenient source of more pockets. I tend to carry around a lot of gadgets, and with the back problems, I shouldn't carry anything in my back pockets. With the exception of cargo pants (of which I should get more), I'm somewhat limited in pocket space with just the two front pockets and a possible shirt pocket. But with a jacket, ooooooo, the possibilities are much less limited.

Our happy little CTA

So yesterday, I was going home from work, and got on the Red Line. Unusually, I walked into the station, and the train was pulling right up. However, the train pulled up and stopped, and just when you expected the doors to open, it moved forward about another 50 feet. This threw off not only me, but several people around me. The driver continued to show his incompetence/inebriation over the course of the 45 minute ride home, which effectively amounted to random acceleration and braking. By the end of it all, I was getting seasick. I even was staggering when I got off the train onto the Morse platform, as if I had sea legs.

This morning's commute was like butta, however. The person driving was smooth with acceleration, smooth with braking, it was like we weren't even moving, except that we were getting exactly where we were going quicker than usual.