Author Archives 
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Things That Are Older Than I Am
I knew this heinous day would eventually come. Oh well. The one good thing about turning 40 today? At least I’m not the oldest thing on the planet. These things are.
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PR Firms: You’re Never “Anonymous” on the Internet
I’d like to know how an anonymous, scathing comment about my recent criticism of the Visit Milwaukee tourism campaign got on my blog from…the IP address of a PR firm employed by Visit Milwaukee. How about you?
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Hello “Nature Boardwalk,” So Long South Pond Swan Boats
The Lincoln Park Zoo has rehabbed the park’s South Pond into a spiffy new Nature Boardwalk. But now that the pond’s former shabbiness is gone, so are the paddle boats that plied its waters for more then a century. It’s a piece of the rehab project zoo planners haven’t mentioned much in the past two years.
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Happy Anniversary: Five Years of Chicago Carless
Happy Birthday to Chicago Carless! My little blog that could is now officially five years old. Here’s a look at why I created it and where we’ve been together in the past 12 months. And thank you for being here to read it.
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“The archives will remain online”: The Troubling History of Geoff Dougherty
Media entrepreneur Geoff Dougherty ran two multimedia news ventures into the ground. Now, the embattled Chicago Reader has hired him as associate publisher. Maybe they didn’t read his press. Here’s a look at the track record the Reader’s new owners may have missed.
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“Do you want to meet your dolphins now?”
What do you do when you realize the company you applied to isn’t the company you want to work for anymore? Especially when they have no idea anyone would ever turn them down?
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The Homing Pigeon of State Street
Two months ago I moved out of Marina City to head for a quieter life beyond downtown. But there’s something to be said for living at the center of it all. I’m learning the grass isn’t any greener outside the Loop–and the roaches sure do put up a fight.
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The Status Quo Vs. The Local Blogger
In Chicago, how people feel privately about the status quo and what they say about it in public are rarely the same. That applies to Chicago’s blogosphere, too. In a new-media space where dissent makes people run for cover, how can local bloggers hope to make change happen?
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Blown Away by MSI’s Science Storms Exhibit
Two years ago, Pastry Chef Chris and I visited Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry and I blogged that the most modern technology in the place was the Dyson hand dryer in the men’s room. In March, museum staff read that post–and invited me on a private tour of MSI’s jaw-dropping new Science Storms exhibit 24 hours before opening day. It’s amazing how easily a 40-foot man-made tornado can sway my opinion.
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Transformer Ire
This summer, downtown Chicago has been handed over to the Transformers 3 movie shoot–to film scenes glorifying Loop devastation and the the deaths of rank-and-file Chicagoans. As citywide media goes ga-ga for gargantuan robots, I’m wondering whether $20 million is the going rate for ceding civic pride?
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