Windy City: By foot, by cell phone.

This week while Jen was in Maine, I was at a conference in Chicago. In my experience, conferences try to schedule venues that have certain appeal to the visitors and presenters, so as to increase registration as much as possible. Well, our locale was the McCormick Place Convention Center about 2 miles south of anything. Though I do hear that that is the venue for the big auto show...

Anyway, having been made aware that the hotel staff does not recommend walking in the region (I think Jim Croce told them all about Bad Leroy Brown on the south side of Chicago), and with colleagues being confronted on their walk to Chinatown for dinner, I decided my gallivanting really needed to be limited the morning hours. After all, what hooligan gets up at 6 am to rough people up? I've never heard of one.

Here are a few of the things I saw:
With Chicago to the east of Lake Michigan, there is a sunrise over the water. That was pretty nice, given that I walked out on Northerly Island. It was quite beautiful. It's a part of the Museum campus, where they have the Field Museum, Adler Planetarium, and Shedd Aquarium.
I guess that ages ago, the land was set aside for public use, and they couldn't put buildings on it... then they changed the legislation so that museums could be built. All along the lake shore there is a hiking and biking trail, which is quite nice. For that matter, Northerly Island is under a vegetation project to return the landscape to prairie grasses. I like it when cities try to include greenspace in their city plan.


Along with the parks come the typical strange art on display... I don't recall what the motivation was behind these feet, but I bet you could look it up without too much hassle. I thought I needed to join in the art, if indeed it was meant to be inclusive of all city walkers.

I saw all sorts of buidings and folks on the sidewalks in the morning. For example, this little building here was The Cable House, built for the president of the Rock Island and Pacific Railway company. The building to the right was... I dont know, but I thought it was cool at 6:15 seeing all the folks going to their construction jobs with the traditional Igloo coolers. There must have been hundreds of workers walking to work.
I saw all these other buildings, too. The American Book Company print shop. The Monadnock Block downtown. This big columnar street view. It was alot to take in, and consider that the whole place burnt down in 1871. Fire seems to have taken a pretty big role in town, as there are now firehouses converted to high end restaurants. There are buildings built upon rubble of old foundations, historic fire towers probably built after paranoid residents lost their whole estates due to that bad accident. Do you think Old Lady O'Leary really had something to do with it? I guess traditions will live on.

Let's see. What else? I went to the end of Route 66. Or the start. I guess it depends on which direction you are going. Closer to the hotel was this Calumet Plant, where Time and Life publications were printed. I thought it was cool to see the window washers scaling the building. Modern spider-men, if you ask me.

One of the nights we went to dinner at the Signature on the 95th floor of the John Hancock tower. That was pretty nice. The service was poor, the portions were small, and the bill was large. I suppose those are the things that come with the territory. Who ever thought that you'd have to pay extra for side dishes anyway? Call me uncultured. Call me cheap. Call me afraid-to-submit- an-exorbitant-receipt-to-my- -company's-accountant. I had an entree and drank water. My supervisor was there, too, so I don't think we'll get too much grief about it when we submit receipts. So it was a fun trip. Along with taking these pictures, my cell phone counted my steps. I did most of my walking in the wee hours of the morning on Tuesday and Wednesday, and I hit the 30 mile mark over those two days. Seriously. I had super sore feet, since I wasn't wearing the best walking shoes. But that's what you are supposed to do, right? Go to a new city. Hit the streets. Take pictures. Avoid getting mugged. Get to know your colleagues better and feel rejuvenated with your job knowing what the state of the art is for your field. The only clue to seeing what I thought was mob-related activity was their local oozie and cement shoes store. Have a look.

You must try this:

Lasagna Soup.
Courtesy of Family Fun Magazine
mmmm.

It was delicious.

Lessons Learned

1. Never, ever leave a batch of rinsed cherries sitting on the kitchen table unattended.
2. Don't assume that because you used a bowl in which to spit seeds that others will do the same.
3. Teach children to spit out seeds....and to love the process.
4. If you have neglected-in-ignorance numbers 1-3, learn to accept the "but I ate the good part, mama" answer. Cause it's the best he has. Also, he will tell you that he did spit out the seeds and drag you by the hand to show you. He will. And he will be right.

Why I love my mother

Ian and I spent the week in Maine with my family while Joe was off wowing the engineering-community-at-large at a conference in Chicago. (With that great big brain comes great big responsibility). =)

One of the best parts of being at my parents' house is stepping onto the back porch and seeing (and smelling) this:

As of late....

{I was cooking in the kitchen when Ian yelled from the living room, "I'm doing a craft project!" Here's what I came in to find.}

{After helping mop the kitchen floor, Ian was asked to "line up the shoes by the door." Normally, that would mean to line them up against the wall in front of the heater...but Ian took us literally.}



{Ian and I went to the temple today with some friends...I had to take a picture in our usual spot. Below are pictures from the past.}


{2006}


{2008}

I could get used to this.

Wow.

Was there a bit of withdrawal after retiring my blog? Oh yeah.
Did I get over it really, really quickly? Most definitely.
Am I sad after I was made aware of plagiarized bits of my blog on various parts of the internets? Meh...yeah....but at least they thought I was brilliant. =)

We had a great week...it's been warm (really warm)...so we spent some time at the local community pool.

Trying out the "floaty suit"

realizing it's colder than he thought.


half-hearted wave to mama


ready to ditch this joint.


succeeding


preferring to sit on the side


comparing feet.

Not to mention Joe's Birthday.

Joe really loves geocaching. Joe loves cake. So Joe got a geocaching cake.

The First Green Bean

Back in the spring, we (jointly with our neighbors) started growing seeds in our basement. Tomato seeds, leek seeds, onion seeds, broccoli seeds, green bean seeds....all manner of "partial sun" seeds. (Exception: the tomatoes, which we keep having to move around our front yard.) In the basement, the seeds grew. And grew. And grew. So we decided to bring them outdoors, put them in the sunniest (use that word loosely, please) spot in the yard, and cross our fingers.

And then it started to rain. And rain. And rain. It rained for the better part of Two Full Months, and we thought all was lost with our poor plants. Until today.

When we picked two (2) green beans. As it stands right now, those two beans are each worth about $40. But Ian tells me his was delicious....and worth every penny.

{Note: The answer was April 7}

It's that time again!

So start calibrating your snow-estimating abilities, because we're going to enjoy this snow, and {clenching teeth} we're going to enjoy it right now. Got that?

The Rules:
1. In the comments section of this post, tell me the date when you think that every last bit of snow in our pile has melted.
2. You may not choose a duplicate date as someone else.
3. You have until Saturday, February 7, 2009 to enter.
4. One entry per person.
5. I'll keep you updated....

The Booty:

I made myself some o' these* and I LOVE them. Love love love them. And because I love them, I want you to love them, too. I'll make you a set! Also. I will include a personalized because-I-know-you-I-think-you'll-enjoy-this-surprise-prize. And if I don't know you, I'll just throw in something that I like, and cross my fingers, k?

Things To Keep In Mind:
1. In December 2008 alone, we were 20" of snow ahead of local averages.
2. Last year, the last bits of the pile melted away on April 18th, and another big congratulations to Molly for being only one day off. She's 2-for-2 in my blog-tests, so you'll have to get up pretty early in the morning to have an edge. I'd suggest you prepare accordingly.
3. Here are some pictures (taken today) to help you out

An aerial view (If "aerial" means "from our guest room window")

From the northwest

From the front porch, which also happens to be from the northwest...what a coincidence!

From the street

*These are not mine. These are purely the result of someone else's hard work and talent and grit and nose-to-the-grindstone...and a google search on my part. But I still think they're cute.

I thought I'd let you know how my weekend went.

{A reprise from the retired jackjen blog.}

Cause it was awesome.

We went and watched 'em make maple syrup.

You heard me right--I'm now officially initiated into the New England culture. (I'm pretty sure watching the sugaring process is required for N.E. Newbies like us. And holy cow...AMAZING).

A branch president in our stake has a sugar house and makes syrup every winter...we heard from a mutual friend that "the sap was running" this weekend, and we could go and check it out...So we called some friends and piled into the car and drove the 1 hour and 40 minutes to Jaffrey, New Hampshire....Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand....saw several candidates for my dream house on the way. But none more dreamy than the branch president's house... I'd like to be first in line for this one, please.


We were channeling Robert Frost as we drove up the driveway....excited as can be. Though, let it be known: Boston as begun its two-month thaw....obviously, Jaffrey, NH didn't get the memo.



So, you'd THINK that this was how people collect maple sap....You'd be wrong. Oh, my friends, maple sugaring has come a LONG way. This isn't your grandfather's maple syruping, kids. Welcome to the 21st Centry of Syrup.

Instead of collecting it like this (above)


They collect it like this.




And here we have Ian explaining all of this to Landon...Then they hugged. The syrup really brings out the best in all of us.

And then.....THEN it gets even better. THEN they take everything into the sugar house. Not only is it warm (a luxury in Jaffrey, evidently), but have you ever smelled SWEET steam? AMAZING. I believe that all Mideast peace talks should be held in American sugar houses. Because surely everyone would feel the warm fuzzies in THERE. (And also possibly realize how lucky they are that the Middle East doesn't have a climate like Jaffrey, New Hampshire).

Here's about a zillion gallons of syrup-in-embryo.


And here's the master syrupologist stoking the fire of the evaporator. See it? See it? THAT, under all the steaminess, is ALMOST syrup. SO close.


This is, too.


And this is a happy New Englander. This is proof that we're not all rude and stuck up and full of ourselves. Cause if I hear about that one more time, I'm not gonna be very happy. At least not as happy as him.


Then they put the finished syrup through this thing-a-ma-doo and put it into the bottles. Mmmmm. (And hand out little sample cups all the while.) Mmmmmm. Samples.


Syrup is graded based on color and sugar content...They were working on 'US Grade A Medium Amber' while we were there....

Here's Ian by the grading scale. He can TELL it's the yumminess.


Then they hired Ian to be their spokesmodel. They paid him in syrup.

It was a beautiful day and we couldn't stop gushing about it on the way home over our Wendy's chili with our quart of syrup safely in the back seat.



P.S. The snowpile is still going strong....lots of you are out already. This is one fierce pile of snow, folks.