Category archive for ‘CHICAGO’ 
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The End of Marina City
In 2005 this blog began with the subtitle, ‘The life and times of a former New Yorker living in downtown Chicago.’ I’ve almost left downtown twice since then. At the end of this month, I finally will. I’m heading to Edgewater–and realizing more than just my address is moving on.
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Reprising the Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
I am officially a big, fat hypocrite. A big, fat hypocrite who’s moving back home…to Marina City.
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Dominick’s Just for U Aimed at…1990s Web Users?
Free food is a hard thing to turn down in a recession. But one month using Just For U, Dominick’s new electronic coupon website, is a few weeks too much. I appreciated the gift cards I received from Dominick’s PR firm to try out the service. But the clunky, outdated website and lack of a real-time mobile app had me wondering how any blogger could end up recommending the service to anyone who actually uses the web on a daily basis.
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Daley Off the Rails on O’Hare Fast-Train Idea?
Now that Daley is a lame-duck mayor, should he be proposing an expensive maglev rail link to O’Hare–especially since his last airport-train idea cost $300 million, ruined a Loop ‘L’ station, and still failed?
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The Deviled Ham’s in the Details
I’ve been studying kashrut, the Jewish dietary laws, but in Reform Judaism keeping kosher would be up to my conscience. I never expected my conscience to care. Yet as I begin my conversion journey, I can’t seem to make it past the supermarket checker anymore without taking several of my favorite food items out of my basket and leaving them behind.
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Pork Bun Dressing with a Hungary Chaser
Wow Bao may be the most responsive local eatery on Twitter. But would you dress like a life-size steamed bun for them? Wow them with your fannishness in a new contest to win free food. Think: “What would you do for a Klondike bar?” Only meatier.
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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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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.
