7.27.05

From the top of the Ferris Wheel at Navy Pier, facing north-west.

7.26.05

Detail of painting at the Art Institute.

7.25.05

Olive Beach.

7.24.05

Full moon fever. A cloudless night and the moon shone light a spot.

7.23.05

It finally rained! It's been the driest (and hottest) summer in some 70 years. But not today.

7.22.05

There's an old saying: the mirror never lies (neither does the camera), but it can distort. While not as well known (or as large) as Cloud Gate (the "bean"), this piece near pn Illinois just east of Michigan Avenue is an interesting (and lonely) piece of public art. Not everyone can be a rock star.

7.21.05

Millenium Park has quickly become one of my favorite places to take pictures. It's always so alive with lights and people and an energy that makes it feel like the world-class city Chicago should strive to be.

7.20.05
Looking east toward the city from near the Grand Avenue exit of LSD.

7.19.05

The view south from the Kendall College campus on Goose Island.

7.18.05 Air Dolphin

Among the many things Penny and I did for our birthdays was a trip to the Aquarium. And no visit to the Shedd is complete without the dolphin show.

7.17.05 Exhausted Bike

It's been so hot lately even the bicycles look tired. This grassy expanse in Lincoln Park is usually a lush, deep green. But the heat (and lack of) rain has turned most of the lawns in the city into something resembling straw.

7.16.05 Lighting the Candles.

7.15.05 The Rainbow Room

The view looking down from my back porch on the morning of my 38th birthday.

I'm going to take the occasion of my 38th birthday (as it's just passed midnight and is now officially the 15th) to write the following disclaimer:

Looking back over the last week or so I realized one of the problems with waiting a few days to post a series of backlogged photos - sometimes I post them out of order. The fact that I put July 1 after July 2 in no way indicates that the space/time continuum was altered for a week during the summer of 2005, but is, rather, indicative of the fact that I can be, on occasion, disorganized, scattered, lazy, and that I’m bad with numbers.

7.14.05 Mark Prior.

8 IP 2H 0ER 10K.

Mark Prior (Rick spells his last name P.I.M.P) gave me an early birthday present by beating the Pirates 5-1. He also had 2 hits and an RBI.

Great seats too.

7.13.05 Great-Great Grandparents

Ok, I didn’t actually take this picture. But this blog is a record of (mostly) digital photographs, and digital photography can be about more than just convenience.

These are my mother’s great-grandparents. The photo she gave me was decades old, filthy, and…oh yeah – torn in half. With my relatively cheap (and under-powered computer and inferior software versions) I was able to splice it back together, clean up the largest scars and return it to the B&W glory it was created in.

And I printed it all on my $99.00 Canon Mp360. (4 by 6 and 8 by 10.)
A picture that would have soon been lost (it’s literally crumbling) is now stored on my hard-drive and in cyberspace, ready to be printed at anytime, for generations to come.

7.12.05 Egg Drop Soup with Howard Zinn

Taken at Y2K Chinese and Sushi on Diversey.

I've been reading a lot of non-fiction lately and I'm working on Howard Zinn's Declarations of Independence. I didn't care much for politics (and all that it entails) until the election of 2000 (shortly after turning 33.)

I still read a lot of fiction, but now I feel can't read enough about everything from history to policy to ideology...and I have a lot of catching up to do. I recently finished David Brock's Blinded by the Right.

My currently waiting list includes Chomsky's Power and Terror and 9-11, the Clinton biography First in His Class and his memoir My Life, Stephanopoulos’ All Too Human, and Atlas Shrugged.

7.11.05 Stolen From Eng. 55

I'd noticed recently that firehouses had been opening their hydrants and letting water pour into buckets and eventually over into the nearest gutter. I was thinking, "What a waste of water." Then I was told it was for passing dogs, and I thought, "What a great use of water." It’s been a warm summer and dogs need drinking fountains too. It's like a doggy powder room...they can sniff for other dogs, take a piss, get some water and wash their paws all at the same one-stop location.

7.10.05 Sunday in the Park

This summer has been hot and humid (the driest since the 1930's), and in Chicago that means hazy. Chicagoans are used to extremes in weather, and there's no way we're staying indoors in July (we'll be inside plenty from October through May).

This is a more "traditional" shot: skyline, leafy green trees, the aesthetically pleasing zigzag of boaters, reflection on the lagoon and ducks in neat, symmetrical rows. And it fits the 20-year rule.

7.09.05 Dessert