Ponderings and Musings

I was driving home from the airport this evening along the Tri-State Tollway. The air was damp, the wind was blowing quite a bit. The temperature was 58ºF; a little warm for this time of year in Chicagoland. The radio was tuned to classic hits 94.7 WLS. Gerry Raferty’s “Baker Street” came on. I cranked up volume and really enjoyed my drive this evening.

Enjoy the little things.

Walking outside in the sunshine with temperatures above freezing has done wonders for my mood in a very short time. Happy New Year!

As the sun sets on 2017, I can’t help but feel excitement about the New Year. The reality of it all is that tonight just marks a moment in the manmade construct of time where the Earth is approximately in the same position it was one revolution ago. We’re not lined up with anything, it’s not the beginning of a season or the ending of an era, it’s just a mark on a timeline. But still, we like to think of it as a chance to make changes, to celebrate ushering in something new, to do something to better our lives, so tonight we celebrate the end of 2017 and welcome a New Year.

What will 2018 bring? Only time will tell, but I have plans. I always have plans. But honestly, I’m anxious to start working on those plans. I’m wired to always need a pivot point to better myself, and ringing in the New Year is #1 with a bullet when it comes to the list of pivot points to choose from.

Moving to Chicago earlier in 2017 was a good start, but I brought some old habits with me. It’s time to push in the clutch, rev the engine, and shift for even better things.

I feel hopeful. Let’s make 2018 the year of hope.

From my first New Year’s Eve blog post, December 31, 2001.

With New Year’s just around the corner, it’s time to completely revamp one’s life with what I call the Resolution Revolution. I tend to take New Year’s Resolutions very seriously. With the dropping of the ball and the birth of a new year, its the best time to take a new lease on life, slip into the body that I’ve always dreamed about, clear my skin, become more spiritually focused, get involved in civic affairs, become a cook, a gardener, a sky-diver, a nuclear physist, the list goes on and on.

But seriously, I do have hopes of improving my life and well-being around the New Year’s holiday. The holiday holds so much promise.

Last year, one of my major New Year’s resolutions was to become a full-time vegetarian. I had been dinking around with being a part-time vegetarian for a couple of months beforehand, mostly when it was convenient, but I told myself I needed to become dedicated to the cause. If it had the ability to take a dump, I wasn’t going to eat it. That lasted until we went out west for vacation and I discovered “Sonic” and “In and Out” burger. So much for that.

Another resolution I made last year was to not spend unnecessary money. In celebration of this event, I went crazy on ebay and purchased a cash register system from a defunct department store. I guess I needed a place to store all the money I was saving.

One of my better resolutions of last year was to learn to speak French. I did the whole CD tutorial thing, along with “French for Dummies”. Earl and I headed up to Montréal for a weekend, the perfect opportunity to test out my French. Trying to be friendly, I tried to strike up a conversation with a nice older woman in the mall. Since it was July, I simply said “Boy, it’s hot”. After she slugged me with her purse I realized that I had said, “I’m in heat.” So much for French.

The first resolution of this year is the only one I am going to share. I’m not sharing my resolutions with anyone. After years of making promises to myself, and announcing them loudly to everyone within a 50 mile radius of my mouth, people tend to not take me seriously anymore. But after my Resolution Revolution of 2002, suffice it to say that I’m going to be rich, famous, a contributing member of society and absolutely gorgeous to look at.

At least until January 15.

Not to be deterred, or maybe because I’m just stubborn, this evening I walked a little over a mile from Wrigleyville to our condo. According to Siri, it was 1ºF at the time. The colder temperature kept my step lively. I was rewarded with Exercise Bling Circles on my Apple Watch when I reached the warm of the lobby of our building.

I can handle the cold better than I can handle the feet of snow they’re getting right now in our old stomping grounds. I grew up in the Lake Ontario Snowbelt, and there was always a certain amount of excitement surrounding heavy snowfall, but after the excitement wore off the excessive amount of snow was a bit of a pain to deal with. We have less than two inches of snow here on the north side of Chicago. I can handle that. I can even handle the overnight sub-zero temperatures. I come prepared.

I am looking forward to warmer weather, though I’ll probably have to wait a few months.

We live alongside one of the stations along the CTA Brown Line. For those not familiar with the ‘L’ in Chicago, the ‘L’ is our version of the subway. Most of it runs on elevated tracks throughout the city, with only some portions in the downtown area underground like a traditional subway. It’s one of the best run mass transit systems in the country. The lines are marked by color; it is a prime example of the KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid) concept. I love the ‘L’.

The closest crosswalk to our building is near the ‘L’. It is controlled by a traffic light installed specifically for the crosswalk. We lived here for less than a day when I discovered two things about this traffic light: 1. The light will not change unless you press the button at each end of the crosswalk and 2. The light will change in tandem with the traffic light at the nearest intersection. It will not change separately.

One thing that amazes me about this crosswalk is the number of people that can’t be bothered to press the button to get the light to change. The buttons are marked with large signs. The roadway is busy enough that at many times of the day it can be a challenge to use the crosswalk against the light. There’s a reason the traffic signal is there. But several times a week I’ll see people trying to run across traffic, narrowly missing getting hit by cars whizzing by. Often folks will just stand there and stand there waiting for the light to change, when I can see the light at the nearby intersection going through its cycle. Had the pedestrian pressed the button as instructed, they would have been able to cross the street with ease.

Occasionally drivers will stop at the red light that allows pedestrians to cross and once it’s clear they’ll run the red light. Sometimes the crosswalk isn’t clear and people start driving through anyway. Like many other parts of the country, motorists in Chicago can be quite inattentive, especially the ones that are busy on their phones while they’re driving.

I think it drives Earl crazy that it can be 2:00 a.m. and I’ll press the button and wait for the signal to cross instead of crossing the empty street against the light. He always claims that I must have been Boy Scout in a previous life, but I assure him that was not the case.

I just try to follow the rules, especially the ones that follow logic.

Television was first introduced in 1939 at The World’s Fair. The first news broadcast was in 1941, the first live presentation from meteorologists, the first weather forecast on TV was in 1954. In the early days, it was said that television would never catch on because it required the viewer to watch it all the time; one could multitask while listening to the radio. The television would be an appliance of education. Viewers could watch Latin in their spare time.

Oh how we have strayed from the television as an instrument of education.

When I was a kid we had a donated black and white television in our elementary classroom. We watched “Free To Be… You and Me”, “Inside/Out”, “The Electric Company”. Television programming taught us something. I don’t know if that continues today. I hope it does.

The news it too bleak these days to be assaulted with it after a hard day’s work. But I do enjoy television shows that go beyond blowing things up or are mindless television. This is one of the reasons that “Madam Secretary” remains as one of my favorite shows on television today. The plots are mostly plausible. The storylines are somewhat reflective of the current political climate, albeit with a lighter twist. The show is well scripted, well acted, and isn’t dumbed down for the lowest common denominator. I am reminded of “The West Wing” in its early years. I occasionally end up wondering what I can do to better the world after watching an episode of the show. It’s smart. We don’t have enough smart on television today.

Entertainment can be educational. And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that.

Last night after work Earl and I took the train downtown to visit Macy’s on State Street, which in the local vernacular is called Marshall Field’s, after the original department store, Marshall Field and Company. A huge building that takes up a whole city block, we had heard that there are some amazing Christmas decorations at Marshall Field’s, though they’re not as good as they used to be since Macy’s bought the chain and changed the name in 2006.

Honestly, the decorations are beautiful. The window displays are gorgeous, the decorations through the huge building are quite nice and honestly the spirit was fairly festive for a Thursday night.

I’ve read quite a bit about Marshall Field’s over the past few months of living in Chicago and there are many people that are still quite attached to the name and a little bitter about Macy’s taking over the space. Marshall Field’s was Chicago, Macy’s, is well, Macy’s. There’s nothing really special about Macy’s, especially in today’s retail climate. That being said, the State Street location is well stocked, has a vast selection, seemed rather clean and there were plenty of salespeople to be found. On the other hand, the gorgeous building, complete with an old-school impulse clock system wired throughout, is starting to show signs of a lack of upkeep. Marshall Field’s was immaculate, Macy’s is, well Macy’s without the mall.

Maybe I’m just a nostalgic guy.

Overall, the visit to Marshall Field’s was quite enjoyable and it helped me find my holiday spirit. I’m getting there. I’m looking forward to the holidays at our new home in Chicago. And since it’s already December 1, I should really go out of my way to find my holiday groove.

I’ve mentioned before that my interest in computers, and technology in general, was kicked into overdrive when our local Ames Department Store converted over to a computerized point-of-sale system in the early 1980s. Prior to that I was interested in anything that had a button. I wanted to know what that button did, how it did it, and more importantly why it did it. I was fascinated by anything connected or systematic: the telephone network, washing machine cycles and their predictability, how traffic signals worked. All of this was fascinating to me, and when Ames brought in and IBM 3680 Retail Store System to replace their mechanical (yet inventory tracking) cash registers, I was awestruck. Keen observation taught me how the old inventory numbers from the mechanical cash register price tags were modified to work with the computerized system. Since Ames was basically the only game in town, we went there often and I’d discreetly watch every keypress the cashier made. I could easily remember all the notes taped to the cash register, for example, I knew who wrote bad checks at any given time.

I was 14 or so when I went to Ames with older friends from the neighborhood. They walked around; I did the same and decided to buy a candy bar, a card for some occasion, and a Billboard magazine. None of these things had price stickers on them and this was before the days when scanning was mainstream outside of a handful of grocery stores in bigger cities, so all of the data was punched in by hand by the cashier.

In the spirit of speeding up their cashiers by forcing them to use “touch typing” for the numeric keypad, all the number keys were covered. Apparently cashiers were expected to know certain inventory numbers by memory. Notes taped to the cash register usually helped in this regard.

The customer in line in front of me was completing their sale when I noticed a change in the rhythm of the printer and the precise moment the cash drawer opened. Usually the drawer opened when the receipt finished printing and ejected for removal; in this instance the cash drawer opened immediately after the amount tendered was entered. This was a good thing, the cashier didn’t have to wait for the cash register to do its thing before making change for the customer. I deduced that the software must have been upgraded to be more efficient.

The cashier was a young woman named Kelly. She had graduated a few years ago and had been working at Ames since graduation. She’s was kind of snotty in high school. Her father drove our school bus and he picked up his daughters every morning. They were the last stop on the run before heading to the school. Kelly would take her sweet time coming to the bus, sometimes making us wait three or more minutes. Normally the driver would just move on, but he knew his daughter was going to school so he’d wait. She’d take her sweet time coming down the driveway. We’d all roll our eyes and make comments under our breath. We didn’t want to get hollered at by the driver for being disrespectful. She’d get on, glaring as she did so. Her hair was big with lots of Aqua Net.

Her hair hadn’t changed much since graduation. She wasn’t particularly happy in her job. A few years later, my friend Scott and I were hanging out in the break room (Scott worked the service desk at the time) and she was back there reading the National Enquirer. That was 1986 or so. She told us she thought the government should move all the “gays to Mars” so that they didn’t “infect the good people with the AIDS”. That was the same night Scott and I came out to each other.

Back to the checkout line.

Kelly looked at the candy bar and typed in 67200000. The register complained with a large beep. She sighed, hit clear and did it again. 67200000. Beep. Clear. 67200000. Beep. She had tried again. I mumbled “67235515”.

“What?”, she asked, looking squarely at me.

“67235515. The SKU for candy bars was changed a few months ago and it’s now 67235515. You entered 67200000 the last time I was here and it worked but the software changed and it must not work anymore.”

She looked at me, aggravated yet quizzical at the same time.

“67235515”, I said once more.

She entered the number and the register didn’t complain. She then entered the price. 39 cents.

She came to the card and entered the SKU. 81230013.

Next came the Billboard magazine. 02700000. Beep. She sighed again.

“02730021”, I replied.

“How do you know that?”, she asked as she entered in the number.

“I don’t know, I just do.”

I actually knew all of this information from the notes I had seen taped to the cash register and from careful study of the receipts any and everyone brought home from any store. Those receipts were my connection to this budding technology and I wanted to know everything I could about them.

“You’re a freak”, was her only comment as she laughed at me.

I turned red as I handed her the money. The drawer opened immediately as soon as she entered the amount tendered. It had never done that with me as a customer before.

My friends and I were in the ’69 Dodge truck my friend Ray owned headed back home when he asked, “how did you know those numbers”? He had watched the whole thing from end of the checkout stand as he waited for me to come through the line.

“I study these things because computers are the way of the future.” I was too embarrassed of being called a freak again to admit that I had collected dozens of these receipts, had figured out every nuance of the cash register system and had even drawn out flow charts of how they worked.

“You need a life”, was his only reply. He then turned up Van Halen on the cassette deck and we motored home.

I munched on my candy bar.

Since I’m restricted from cycling this season (due to my surgery earlier this year) I’ve been doing a lot of walking. One of the beautiful things about Chicago is that it’s a very walkable city. Our neighborhood has a nice blend of commercial, industrial, and residential streets to choose from. There are people out at all hours of the day and night. Many dogs live in the neighborhood and they enjoy walking their humans around.

Tonight the weather was misty and it was dark early. I still managed to go for a stroll around the area. The homeless man that sleeps under the railroad bridge was getting settled in; a woman stopped by and gave him a pizza. I found that encouraging. I now feel more comfortable doing something similar in the future. I watched their interaction. She called to him from across the street making a point to not invade his space. I do the same when I walk by.

I’m hoping to continue my daily walks regardless of the weather, something I couldn’t do before we moved to Chicago. It’ll be cold soon and I’ll be bundled up like crazy but I’m hoping the streets will remain walkable. I’m feeling benefits from the increase in exercise. I want to continue that trend.