Chicago

Walk.

I really love the fact that it’s a short train ride to the downtown area of the third largest city in the United States. Downtown Chicago has so much to offer, and I really cherish the opportunity to walk the area on a school night.

I love watching the business people leaving their offices. I enjoy the tourists as they navigate the city via map or map app, occasionally confused about things like “Upper Wacker” and “Lower Wacker”. I smile when I see out of town folks enjoy our city for a business meeting or a convention or a family vacation.

It’s nifty living in a city that people want to visit. I grew up in a small tourist village along the shores of Lake Ontario, but spent 25 years in a city that not many people visited. There’s only so many times you can visit a replica of the Liberty Bell or see an overgrown watering can.

Chicago has so much to offer and I find it a wonderful place to live. Many years ago Dublin, Ireland tugged at my heart strings as the definite place for us to live.

I’m happy to say Chicago tugs my heart strings the exact same way. I’m proud to be a resident of The Windy City.

7 August 2019 by Chicago Fun and Games Dept 0

New Experiences.

I convinced Earl to take the Blue Line into the Loop so we could take our usual Red and Brown Lines home. This was his first time standing on the platform in the middle of the Kennedy. It’s not quiet.

12 July 2019 by Chicago 0

Decision.

Chicago elected Lori Lightfoot as our next mayor. Mayor-Elect Lightfoot is the first African-American woman elected as mayor for The Second City. She just also happens to be the first openly gay person to serve as mayor for a major city in the United States.

This is what forward motion looks like. I’m hoping Chicago sets an example for the rest of the country.

2 April 2019 by Chicago 0

Exploring.

I’ve renewed my interest in taking photos while I’m out exploring the city, heck, when I’m out exploring life. I could go into a spiel how about easy this is to do with my iDevices, but my gentle readers already know how much of an Apple fanboy I am at heart, even when the company does things that confuses me. That’s a separate blog entry.

I found the modification to this stop sign to be interesting. It’s the first time I’ve seen an attempt to replicate the color and lettering of a stop sign for this particular social awareness application. I’m sure this exists all over the world; it’s the first time I’ve seen such a thing.

My little journey around the city is taking me to places I’ve only seen from afar. After exploring The Loop, I hopped on the Blue Line toward O’Hare and jumped off at the Irving Park stop, which is about 25 blocks from where we live. For those that don’t know how the Chicago street grid works, that’s just over three miles from our condo, though I traveled nearly seven miles to get here, since the L resembles a hub-and-spoke system.

The vibe in this part of the city is a little bit less frenetic than what I encounter around the Loop, or even when compared to our neighborhood of Northcenter. Even though I know there’s plenty of city to the west of us, it always feels like I’ve crossed into the suburbs when I get west of the Kennedy Expressway in this part of town. There’s more car dealers and shopping plaza type property out here. There’s nothing wrong with that.

This is where the Blue Line was built into the median of the Kennedy. This makes for interesting geometry in the design of the stations. I found this stairwell particularly narrow.

Apparently it fills up with water when it rains. And the roar of the expressway when you’re waiting for the train does not lend itself to a meditative experience.

There’s so much to explore out here and with my husband working for the Cubs this baseball season, I feel like I’m going to have time to do more of it than I did last year.

I’m looking forward to the experience.

30 March 2019 by Chicago City Life. 0

Waiting for Clearance.

I’m out exploring while Earl is at work today. The Blue Line is down to one track today which is delaying O’Hare Bound trains. The people watching remains fascinating, especially the mix of locals and tourists on an O’Hare Bound train. I’m enjoying the adventure.

30 March 2019 by Chicago City Life. 0

Cold.

It is -15ºF with a wind chill of -37ºF during my lunch hour here in Chicago. The wind is out of the west at 15 MPH and there is zero cloud cover. I don’t need a fancy hashtag or scary sounding names like “Polar Vortex” (though I did enjoy one of those at a fast food place a couple of years ago) to relay the information that it’s cold outside. It’s very cold outside. As beautiful as the sky looks, I’m going to refrain from going for a walk today simply because it would not be enjoyable.

I like to enjoy my walks.

The CTA Brown Line is passing by our building with scheduled regularity. Folks at the CTA are working hard to keep Chicago moving. Their Twitter feed shows they’re addressing issues as they arise. CNN likes showing images of train tracks being set on fire to unfreeze frozen switches. Fire gets the attention when you’re browsing a website. It creates more web clicks.

The news outlets have been telling us about these bitterly cold temperatures for a week, so I’m sure most reasonable folks were prepared. Earl made sure we had what we needed in the cupboards and fridge. He’s good like that.

It’s cold out. It’s very cold out. But the sunshine still brings warmth and tomorrow is another day.

Don’t be hysterical. Just keep calm and carry on.

30 January 2019 by Chicago Ponderings and Musings 0

L.

Image from Chicago Magazine

This month, Chicago Magazine published an article entitled “What CTA Workers Know.” The online interactive version is quite interesting.

I love riding the ‘L’ and the buses. The CTA is one of the reasons I am so in love with the City of Chicago. I am fascinated as to how well the infrastructure works. When departing near the front of a train I always wish the “motor-person” a good day. I always smile to the bus operator. They’re working hard and many take them for granted.

This particular quote from the article makes me smile.

Despite the bad things that you see, if you

just look at all the

people moving and

actually living, it

brings joy to your

soul. You’re seeing life.

16 January 2019 by Chicago Geek 1

About J.P.

Just a guy with a husband. We’ve been together 28 years and he still makes me see fireworks on a daily basis. Hiker. Storm Chaser. Private Pilot. Tech Guy. Hackerish.

Weird? Eccentric!

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