Historic Photos of Lincoln Park Zoo
Carrie sent me this link this morning, I thought I’d share it. Apparently, someone at the Field Museum Library found a bunch of old photos of the Lincoln Park Zoo and decided to post them to Flickr. There are some wonderful shots in this set.
South Pond at Lincoln Park Zoo
The other day I arrived early to pick up Carrie from work and had some time to kill. I decided to go for a walk and check out the newly rehabbed South Pond at Lincoln Park Zoo (the Pond is not actually part of the zoo, it’s part of the park, but LPZ is responsible for it now that the rehab is done).
If you’re unaware, the pond just went through a major rehabilitation project to turn it into a more natural habitat. You can read a little more about the project here: Nature Boardwalk at Lincoln Park Zoo.
At any rate, they did a magnificent job. Walking around the pond, the feeling is of being far away from the city, except you have the magnificent skyline as the backdrop. It’s a wonderful experience. Some of the indigenous plant-life that was added has not fully grown out yet, but when it does it will add to the allusion of being a million miles from nowhere.
If you’re in the city, or coming for a visit, it is definitely worth checking out.
I took some photos while I was there. You can head over to my Flickr page to check them out: South Pond at Lincoln Park Zoo.
It’s almost here…
This morning I noticed the scaffolding had been taken off the front of the building under construction at North and Halsted. The logo on the front of the building was covered with a black cloth/tarp, but it was easily discernible. I didn’t have enough time to get out my iPhone and grab a picture before the light changed (I’ll try tomorrow).
It won’t be long now. Does anyone know if there’s a scheduled opening date yet for the new Apple Store?
UPDATE:
Managed to snap a pic as I was driving by today:
New Pics Posted
Been a while since I’ve updated (over a month!), so I thought I’d at least post a quick note pointing out that there are some new pictures in my Flickr photostream. Go check ‘em out.
“Old Guy” Moment
This is one of those “You Know You’re Getting Older When…” posts.
So, I finally bought a new (well, used) car*. On Saturday, I went to the bank to get a loan. While I was going through the steps with the banker, at one point she asked for a second proof of ID, like my debit card. But, what she actually said was “bank card”, and for a moment I thought she meant my bank ID card. My first reaction was thinking “I haven’t had a bank ID card in, like, twenty years”.
Of course it only took a second to realize what she meant, and when I did I laughed a bit. So, I had to tell her why I laughed, and then had to explain that some banks used to issue ID cards so that you could identify yourself to the teller when you went to the bank to get money out of your account.
Suddenly, I realized I was the old guy explaining how things used to work in the olden days before ATMs.
*I’ll post about the car later this week (or next) after it gets delivered.
Steve Jobs at the D8 Conference
Some great video highlights of Steve’s talk at the All Things Digital D8 conference on a variety of subjects. Must watch/read for any Apple fan, or anyone even slightly interested in the state of technology today and where it’s headed.
Thoughts on Mobile Flash
So, the big story/controversy/hub-bub in the tech world right now is mobile Flash. Everyone knows Apple won’t allow Flash on the iPhone due to its poor performance. Now, Flash has been shown running on Android. It was buggy and slow, and turned the entire browsing experience in to a painful mess.
Now, many geeks have been clamoring for Flash, even though it’s a dying technology, and have been bashing Apple for their hard-line stance against Flash. “At least give us the choice,” seems to be the rallying cry. Apple is taking away their choice to run (and write) Flash. These same geeks are defending the horribly running Flash on Android saying that you can turn it off. At least you have the choice. You can run it when you want to access sites like Hulu, but turn it off for regular browsing.
Here’s the problem, and this is why this is bad for Android and Google. The average user (you know, the target demographic if you want these devices to actually be profitable) could care less about Flash. What’s more, and here’s the key, they won’t know how to turn it off. Only the geeks who think there’s a need for Flash in the future of the mobile web will know how to turn it on and off. The average user will be stuck with it (because it’ll be there by default). The average user won’t have the choice, so all they are going to see is how painful it is to surf the web on their Flash-running Android device.
What’s worse is they’re not even going to know that Flash is the problem. All they’re going to see is how slow and buggy their web browser is. Then, they’re going to look over at their iPhone (and iPad) using friends, and see them browsing the web with no problems, and still getting Hulu through the iPhone/iPad app that will certainly come out in the near future. Then, they’re going to wonder why they didn’t just get an iPhone in the first place.
This is the part the geeks, and by extension the tech websites, don’t seem to get. Apple could care less if the geeks flock to Android, with feelings of false superiority just because they can run Flash, as long as the average user (the majority of their customers) have a flawless, “it just works”, experience with their iPhones. They’re not going to let the vocal minority’s hollering stand in the way of that.
Let Google and Android market to the geeks, we’ll see how well that works out for them and mobile Flash.
You Say You Want a Revolution
I finally made it to Revolution Brewing last night, so I thought I’d share my opinions. Short version: it did not live up to the hype.
Before I get into the food and (more importantly) the beer, let’s talk about the ambiance. The space is nicely designed from a visual standpoint – wide open with a large bar in the middle – but the first thing you notice is the noise level. The wide open design, with large, flat brick walls, causes table conversation to be amplified to an annoying level. So much so that it’s difficult to actually carry on a conversation in the place. Something needs to be done about that – it’s the single worst aspect of the place.
I was impressed, however, by the fact that there weren’t TVs showing sports everywhere you looked. There was a single TV over the bar, which wasn’t even turned on. That makes it clear Revolution is trying to be more of a restaurant than a bar.
Apart from that, the service was a little slow. While I was waiting for a table (I was the first of my party to arrive and had put my name on the waiting list) it took a while to find a free space at the bar to sit down and order a drink. Once I did however, I sat there waiting for one of the bartenders to acknowledge my presence, even though they had each walked past where I was sitting several times. One even filled a growler for someone who came up to the bar right next to me (apparently a “regular” who, obviously, deserved more attention than me) before asking me for my order.
Also, I thought it was odd that they held my credit card to run a tab. For a place that’s striving to feel more like a restaurant than a bar, I thought that was odd. It’s something dive bars, college bars and obnoxious trendy “clubs” do. Restaurants keep track of your drink orders then transfer your tab to your table when you’re finally seated, or until you’re ready to pay at the bar. It’s been a long time since I’ve been to a place that held your credit card to run a tab.
On to the beer. Overall, I was not impressed. The beers I had were good, but not great. I started with the Workingman Mild. I wanted to start with a lower alcohol brew, and I was curious if theirs suffered from the lack of flavor that affects many lower alcohol beers. I have to say that it had more flavor than expected, but still it was pretty average.
The next beer was the Working Woman Brown. I was very disappointed in this one. It didn’t taste much like a brown at all. Browns should be malty, with maybe a little bit of a biscuit flavor, and maybe a little bit of sweetness. This one was hoppy. The hoppiness masked any malt/biscuit/sweet that you would expect in a brown.
After dinner I had the Eugene porter. This was easily the best of the three beers that I tried. Where the Workingman had more flavor than you would expect from a 3.5% ABV brew, the Eugene didn’t taste like a 7% ABV brew (which I think is a good thing in this instance). It just tasted like a full, robust porter. Though, I would have liked a little more of that roasted flavor that some porters have.
The food was probably the best part. I had the Forest Burger (with Gorgonzola cheese, cremini mushrooms, and crispy shallots) and it was delicious. My dining companions each had a different burger, one the Workingman Burger (aged cheddar, beer onion and bacon) and the other a mushroom-swiss (which wasn’t on the menu, but they made for him anyway). They both agreed that the burgers were excellent.
My only complaint with the food was that the fries were those skinny “shoe-string” style fries (the menu calls them “hand-cut frites”), which I absolutely hate (besides the fact that these were over-cooked). I honestly don’t know anyone who prefers shoe-string fries. I think some restaurants use them because they mistakenly think they are somehow “classier” than regular fries or steak-house style fries. They’re not, and you’re a brewpub, so get over yourself. Goose Island (Clybourn) served the shoe-string fries for a while right after they changed their menu, but thankfully they switched back (we actually complained about it). I think Revolution is trying to project the image of a being more of a classy restaurant than a brewpub, which is ironic given the their name, and the names of their beers and some menu items – not to mention their location.
All in all, I wouldn’t go out of my way to go there again. Maybe if I happened to be in the area, and I happened to be hungry, I would stop in. If I do go back, I’ll definitely explore the menu beyond the burgers (but I certainly won’t try the fish and chips, knowing that it’ll come with those abysmal, over cooked shoe-string fries).
To sum up:
Over-hyped, by far.
Pros: Good (but not great) beer. Really good food. Not being bombarded by sports on the TV.
Cons: Noisy acoustics. Slow service. Shoe-string fries. Disappointing beer (the biggest flaw for a place with “Brewing” in their name).
I’m an Idiot
So in my last post, I wrote about how I had to decide whether to jump the gun on getting a new car, or sink money into repairs on my old car.
Turns out, neither. If you recall, the problem was with the cooling system. I called my friend Jim (who knows way more about cars than I do) and described the problem, and he said it might be the thermostat, which is not very expensive and isn’t too difficult to replace. So, I started looking into options to get it replaced or do it myself.
However, yesterday morning it occurred to me that I never checked the coolant! Seriously, the first thing anyone, even the least auto repair-savvy person on the planet, would think of to check if their car was in danger of over-heating, I completely over-looked. Of course, that’s all it turned out to be. (Although, why the low-coolant light never came on to begin with is another question altogether.)
I guess the problem is, with as many miles as my car has, my mind automatically jumped to the worst possible scenario, especially considering that I’m already in the mind-set that I need to replace the car before anything major goes wrong, and I never even thought of the obvious.
Either that, or I’m just an idiot.
Decisions
Lately I’ve been thinking about buying a new car. I’ve had my car since 2002 and it has over 130,000 miles on it. I think it’s time to find a replacement. It still runs well (it’s been well maintained), but I think it’s getting old enough that I’ll soon be sinking money into it for repairs as things break down.
So, I’ve been looking. In the past, I’ve been slightly impulsive when it came to buying new cars. This time, I’ve been taking my time and checking different cars out online. Also, I’ve decided to get a used car, in order to avoid the financial mistake of taking the initial hit in value that comes with a new car.
The other thing, besides taking the time to make the right decision on the car itself, is waiting to purchase while I put money aside from my normal budget to make sure I have a decent down payment (and therefore lower monthly payments). Again, this isn’t something I would have done when I was younger when buying a car.
So, no impulsive decision making and spending. This time, I have a plan.
Unfortunately, sometimes life gets in the way of the plan.
Yesterday, when leaving work I turned on the heat in my car. It made a noise. It was a noise it never made before. The heat still worked, and the noise subsided after a bit, so I didn’t think too much of it. Until this morning.
This morning, on the way to work, I again turned the heat on. No noise, but no heat either. The fan was blowing, but it was cold air. Thinking, at first, that maybe the engine wasn’t warm enough yet, even though I’d been driving for a while, I looked at the temperature gauge. Not only was the engine warm enough that I should have heat, but it was hotter than usual. Not overheating, but much higher than normal, especially for a chilly morning.
So, life gets in the way of the plan. Now I have a decision to make. Do I start sinking money into repairs for a car that I’m planning on getting rid of in a few months (which would end up pushing back my time frame for replacing it)? Or, do I go ahead and replace it now, before I’ve got the whole amount I had planned for the down payment set aside?
It’s frustrating because it’s really only a couple of months earlier than I had planned on replacing it, but I don’t have the money set aside specifically for that purchase, and it would take a little time to move money around from elsewhere to make up the difference (for the first time in my life I actually have money in savings and investments, which is good, but it makes that money a little less accessible).
Decisions.
