Killing Ernest

Saw this while skating across the bridge to work yesterday. Its...

Sat, 18 May 2013 14:49:45 -0400

Saw this while skating across the bridge to work yesterday. Its poetry speaks for itself. #chicago (at Navy Pier)

I once witnessed a team of American psychiatrists trying to undo...

Sat, 18 May 2013 14:06:15 -0400

I once witnessed a team of American psychiatrists trying to undo the effects of war in a refugee camp on the outskirts of a war zone. For ethnic Albanian children fleeing Kosovo, art served as therapy, as people tried to break the endless cycle of oppression and revenge.

wbez: Mayor Emanuel wants to spend $110 million on renovating...

Fri, 17 May 2013 17:29:00 -0400

Bass, violin and juggling- a classic combination.

What did this guy order from McDonalds to be so disappointed?

What are they looking at?

Is that kid carrying a giant popsicle?

Who is this guy playing guitar?

Is feeding seagulls Cheetos going to be OK on the renovated Navy Pier?

Why is there a ghost kid inside this guy?

wbez:

Mayor Emanuel wants to spend $110 million on renovating Navy Pier. We just want to know what’s up with these people from the renderings.

Found some fun/strange things in these pictures today.

Our teenager told us that kids at school drive him crazy with...

Wed, 15 May 2013 21:01:55 -0400

Our teenager told us that kids at school drive him crazy with their high-pitched ringtones at school all day. After a little investigation, we found out that kids use these ringtones, because teachers can’t hear them.

So at dinner tonight, we decided to test this whole theory out. I downloaded five ringtones in different kHz levels from www.teenbuzz.org. I downloaded an 8, 12, 16, 17 and 22. Cheryl and I could hear the 8 and the 12, but we could not hear 16 and above. The kids could hear everything up to 22, which they could not hear for some reason.

The video shows their reactions to different ringtones.

Mother’s Day culinary adventure: Baked avocado with egg,...

Sun, 12 May 2013 20:32:19 -0400

Mother’s Day culinary adventure: Baked avocado with egg, cave-aged cheddar and bacon. Maryland blue crab cakes with Sriracha aioli. Pan-seared scallops with sea salt. Wood-fire grilled artichokes. Bay-scallop scampi. Grilled pineapple with brown sugar, orange-liquor butter sauce and coconut. (at Akimoff East)

This week’s podcast features the longest taxi ride I have...

Sat, 11 May 2013 15:14:03 -0400

This week’s podcast features the longest taxi ride I have ever taken. I inadvertently took drugs and spent the night in the biggest traffic jam I have ever seen among other adventures.

Do you see the stories around you? -

Fri, 10 May 2013 10:01:47 -0400

Do you ever wonder about those you walk past every day? I’m fascinated by people. I’m intrigued by the possibilities in their individual stories.

When I get on the train in Blue Island, Illinois, I’m inundated with story, and I listen hard for the details. It helps me understand people I might otherwise judge based on irrelevant things.

There is a guy on my train, one of the only other white guys who rides in from Blue Island. He’s clean cut with bulging biceps, and by looking at his tattoos and the patches on his gym bag, I would say he’s Navy. He always sits with a group of black ladies in a four seat near the back of the train.

He doesn’t say much, usually just reads his phone or the newspaper.

Once in a while he’ll joke around with them.

But they are all always happy to see each other. Almost co dependent in a way that sets their day in motion or drives it off the tracks if one of them is not there.

There are lots of stories here, and I can feel them starting to take shape. I’m always anxious to know more, but the best stories always reveal things slowly over time.

There is a homeless man who sits on the corner of Wabash and Michigan Ave. He has a nice spot in a small doorway in the concrete pillar of the bridge that crosses the Chicago River there.

Every morning I watch him put his things in order. There is a box, and he organizes the details of it carefully in the quiet moments before the tourists start walking the Magnificent Mile.

He doesn’t pay much attention to the business suits that hurry past him. He just carefully arranges his cardboard sign.

And I think he must have some clout among people who make their living on the street, because sometimes he just leaves his sign there along with his belongings, and no one seems to bother it.

I wonder about his stories. I wonder where he learned to be so detailed and precise. I can’t hear him, I can only watch him bless people as they walk by.

Along Illinois Ave, there is a new building going up across from the AMC movie theater. There is a big sliding gate where the trucks go in and out.

And every morning, I hear tiny bits and pieces of dozens of stories as I walk past it.

A dozen men and a few women stand around the gate and in boots and jeans with neon vests and hard hats adorned with union stickers.

They are waiting to see who doesn’t show up for work today to see if they can get day hired. If they get day hired, they might catch the eye of a foreman if they work hard enough. If they catch the foreman’s eye, they might get picked out of the lineup the next day and the day after, because the permanent guys are always missing work.

They stand around talking and smoking and making fun of the suits as they walk by, and it makes me glad I don’t wear a suite.

But they stare at me as I go by, and I wonder if they wonder what my story is.

There is a high-rise condominium at the end of Illinois where it runs into Lakeshore Drive. And I see a dozen people pour out of it every day as I walk by..

A man whose wife can barely walk helps her into the backseat of a car, and then he holds her for a few minutes, whispering assuring words to her. And I love their story.

A young woman walks out with an angry frown on her face. And I notice a car following her slowly down the road. There is a man inside, and he’s yelling at her through the rolled down window.

He tells her to get in the car, that this is ridiculous. I’ve seen this twice now. And if Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, then I think this fellow has a story too.

Tim

I’ve been walking to work for several months now. I...

Wed, 08 May 2013 16:41:00 -0400

I’ve been walking to work for several months now. I recently started longboarding to work, which shaved about 12 minutes off my commute time.

Now I see the city’s underbelly as I skate under the massive tri-level Randolph Street, and I get to surf through the crowds of runners and bikers on the Lakefront Trail.

Longboarding down Navy Pier at 7:30 a.m. when there is not a tourist in sight is one of the most rewarding parts of my ride.

This fella decided to bore a rather large hole on our back...

Wed, 08 May 2013 16:05:28 -0400

This fella decided to bore a rather large hole on our back porch. Any idea what he is? He’s about the size of my thumb. No small buzzing creature, this one. I’m guessing Xylocopa virginica? (at Akimoff East)

Losing a teacher -

Tue, 07 May 2013 23:08:00 -0400

I got a text message from my friend Ted around lunch time today. It said that a teacher at Independence Junior High had passed away.

It didn’t really register right away. Then he typed the name in: Maureen Oleskiewicz.

I wrote back that I thought she might be one of Carson’s teachers. Ted told me she had choked on something at a Cub’s game on the weekend and that she had been hospitalized since then.

I texted my wife, who immediately called me back, breathless from her run. She had been informed earlier that morning that Oleskiewicz was on life-support, and that they were bringing counselors into the school to talk to the children. She died Tuesday morning.

Palos Heights is a small area, 4.6 square miles to be exact. Oleskiewicz not only grew up in the town, she attended all the schools my kids went to, graduating a year ahead of my friend Ted.

She was Carson’s language arts teacher, and though she and Carson did not have the greatest relationship, she was beloved by many in the school and in the community. My daughter Gabrielle, who attends a different school, told us that her teacher cried today in class.

My oldest son, who is in high school, said that news of Oleskiewicz’s death reverberated through his school too. Like I said, Palos Heights is a small place.

I lost friends in school. I remember the strange days walking around campus talking in hushed tones and wondering if I should go talk to the grief counselors the school brought in.

But I never lost a teacher.

When I got home, Carson had already gone to a memorial service for Oleskiewicz, which started at Incarnation Catholic Church and ended with the students placing candles at the school.

When he came home, he was sad and kept repeating that she was only 28. Carson is 11, and death can be a difficult thing to process even when you’re nearing 40.

I’m not a grief counselor, so I just hugged him and asked him how he was doing.

“I’m sad, I just saw her on Friday,” he told me.

Today is National Teacher Appreciation Day. Which makes this that much tougher.

I’m grateful for all the teachers in my life and especially for those who spend their time with my children every day.

I only met Oleskiewicz once, during parent-teacher conferences. She was pretty honest about Carson’s lack of diligence in language arts, which is a hard little pill to swallow for someone like me.

If I could have, I would have told her thanks for being hard on the kid. He needs it, and if you know him well, you know that’s how you love him.

I think she understood that.

I feel like I could go back and tell my 13-year-old self that he...

Mon, 06 May 2013 18:21:15 -0400

I feel like I could go back and tell my 13-year-old self that he has nothing to worry about in life. The fact that he’s taking a train and #longboarding to work for his #commute should put his restless mind at ease. (at Cloud Gate)

A story about the things we do to please others, even if it...

Sun, 05 May 2013 12:54:39 -0400

A story about the things we do to please others, even if it costs us the ability to ever enjoy another massage.

Running to Stand Still -

Sat, 04 May 2013 13:00:00 -0400

I ran today.

I’m a warm-weather runner.

I hate running.

But society make me feel like I have to run.

I used to run for pleasure, back when I was in my late 20s, and I was at the University of Oregon doing wind sprints in the gym on rainy days and jogging around the perimeter of Hayward Field when it just drizzled.

I ran two marathons with my wife. We ran the Portland Marathon in October 2003, and the Honolulu Marathon a year later to celebrate our 10th Anniversary.

After that last marathon, I mostly gave up running.

It’s a solitary sport, and unlike Johnny Cash, I am not a solitary man.

I ran a mile a couple times this week before doing my normal kettle-bell weight routines. It’s good to get your heart-rate up before you start swinging the heavy Russian metal balls.

I decided to up my mileage today, incrementally.

The magnolia blossoms are already starting to fall, even as the oaks are starting to get their buds.

And the sounds of lawnmowers could be heard over the pumping sound of Alkaline Trio in my ear buds.

The first mile was not bad, I tried to remember my form and the things I was taught by running coaches at the university many years ago.

I stopped and stretched a bit before proceeding on to mile two.

The men riding lawnmowers watched me run by and either nodded or saluted. I couldn’t tell if they were cheering me on, wishing me well or feeling sorry for me.

The soccer moms pulled their minivans out of driveways and headed off to the soccer pitches for day-long tournaments.

The wood crafters had their garage doors open and their routers whining, and the gardeners hoed the rain-softened dirt as I jogged by.

The old folks waved at me from their windows, which seem like televisions where they watch the world go by a little more slowly than it does through the Cable.

A woman searched for a small dog that got out the night before, but judging from the sound of the coyotes last night around 2 a.m., the little pug might not be coming home.

Somewhere in the maze-like infrastructure of the big 4 bedroom houses, a teenager sleeps off a heroin high from a couple of $10 hits he or she took the night before.

The suburbs may move at a slower pace than the rest of the world on a Saturday morning, but it’s all an illusion. Time is shifted out here beyond the blended city.

You blink, and it skips a beat. Blink again, and you miss two beats.

Blink again, and your kids are in high school, and you’re fighting the downward trajectory of age and gravity.

And as I ran around the blocks with the smell of fresh-cut grass in my nose, I didn’t hate running for a few minutes.

Come Monday morning, when the neighborhood is buttoned up tight, and all the allusions to actual community are swept back under the manicured lawns, I will hate running again.

Tim

This is what throwing a pork roast in the slow cooker at 5 a.m....

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 20:57:47 -0400

This is what throwing a pork roast in the slow cooker at 5 a.m. will reap you at dinner time. #slowdown #slowfood (at Akimoff East)

Mikkell from Copenhagen’s Mikkeller, one of my favorite...

Sat, 27 Apr 2013 15:36:32 -0400

Mikkell from Copenhagen’s Mikkeller, one of my favorite breweries in the world. #craftbeer #darklordday (at Three Floyds Brewery & Pub)

Marvel Comic superstars geeking out about #craftbeer at...

Sat, 27 Apr 2013 14:35:28 -0400

Marvel Comic superstars geeking out about #craftbeer at #darklordday

Friday is the silver lining in every week. #chicago (at Gateway...

Fri, 26 Apr 2013 19:35:51 -0400

Friday is the silver lining in every week. #chicago (at Gateway Park)

The set for the upcoming movie “Divergent,” has...

Fri, 26 Apr 2013 16:02:09 -0400

The set for the upcoming movie “Divergent,” has transformed Navy Pier into dystopic carnival perched on the edge of #chicago (at Set of the movie “Divergent”)

I often see this silhouette in my window. Today I looked closely...

Fri, 26 Apr 2013 10:50:23 -0400

I often see this silhouette in my window. Today I looked closely and noticed buds on the branches. Sometimes beauty, like spring, creeps up on you if you stop and look for it. (at Akimoff East)

Empty places intrigue me. They scare me, but they intrigue me....

Thu, 25 Apr 2013 09:01:28 -0400

Empty places intrigue me. They scare me, but they intrigue me. #chicago (at Gateway Park)