Weekend videos

Still in testing-out-blogging-after-a-long-absence phase, and now I'll test how it works to upload my own videos. Two short ones from the weekend, that represent this weekend well without having to go through the 400-some photos I took and tell those stories right now.

Sat. 11/3, the sign at Dell Rhea's Chicken Basket in Willowbrook, IL, a Route 66 classic (first visit for all four of us driving around Chicagoland/south suburbs that day):

Sun.11/4, some kind of tubes I don't think I've ever watched go by on a freight train before, on a train past the abandoned Brach's factory on Chicago's West Side:

Logan Square Farmers Market 2012

I try to get to the wildly popular Logan Square Farmers Market as many times as possible every season, if for little else than people-watching and taking a few photos of shoppers, kids, dogs, and of course the beautiful merchandise. I made it at least once a month or so in 2012, though it was several visits before I bought anything (I never seem to have cash Sunday morning--although I should point out some vendors take cards), and I don't think I bought actual produce all year, just goodies like hand pies and pastries, and hot cider on this last visit. (At the much smaller Garfield Park Conservatory farmers market the same day--also its last day this year, and I'd never been--I bought two small decorative gourds and they threw in free tomatoes, which I carried in my bag through many hours of bicycling. They were very appreciated in the breakfast sandwiches I made during the week.)

Fallen leaves, squash, cider, and plenty of Chicago Bears gear around (the game had already started by the time a friend and I were there after noon, and due to a busy day I didn't learn Bears won till 5:30 pm)...here's a few terribly autumny photos from October 28:

That sign appears to have 2011's dates on it, but I assume people knew the market was ending that day, not Tuesday...

And since it was the morning after the biggest party night of this extended Halloween season (see my lament posted Nov. 1), it wasn't too strange to see a "bloody" prom dress in the trash on the nearby corner as we got our bikes:

Changes!

I've vowed to not do anything that consists of blogging about blogging or about not blogging, but I'll allow a brief post if I change anything here. Unfortunately, I haven't yet updated the long-out-of-date blogroll (on this or my sports blog either), so I apologize if your cool project isn't on there, or your dormant site is.

BUT I did change my Blogger profile picture (and of course description), from this 2009 self-portrait to this 2012 photo (taken by Jared Kachelmeyer). It was from my first visit to an abandoned Chicago factory filled with parade floats, seen in this Flickr set. I like everything about the 2009 photo but I knew it was outdated (I do still have the shirt). That photo consistently gets views somehow and has a lot of text with it as it was a "20 facts about me"-type thing floating around at the time. (And someone I didn't know very well tried to make date-oriented conversation, in person, by bringing up one of the obscure facts I'd posted on it, over two years after I'd posted it. I'm flattered my older material online gets attention, but, um, that came across as really creepy. Just saying.)

I've changed the City of Destiny image for now to a favorite 2010 photo of The Lure abandoned restaurant in Gary, Indiana. It replaces a lovely postcard of a building from the 1933-34 World's Fair in Chicago. Long after I'd started using that image here, I visited a friend's home in another city (now a great friend I've gotten to visit many times), and he had that card in his living room next to a vintage lamp...and he hadn't seen my blog. Whoa! Anyway, I made a few other minor changes, pending a redesign.

Bah humbug, Halloween edition

I am meh about Halloween and I feel guilty about it. Here's a holiday that (for secular adults without kids at least) doesn't have religious connotions or family obligations, doesn't have an expectation of gift-giving, is just about candy and revelry. It's easy to complain about Christmas/winter holiday commercialism or to complain about Valentine's Day; it feels too cranky to not like Halloween.

I like candy. I like pumpkins (real ones, and pumpkin-flavored-things, which a friend points out are really pumpkin pie spice flavored). I don't like most spooky things, but cemeteries and the occasional ghost story are cool. And oh I like dressing up. Every year I think my impressive collection of vintage clothes and uniforms and such should go to good use--I should wear something I can't get away with at other times, I should lend or rent items as costumes for others. Or sell a lot of it.

But...eh. I just don't get invited to Halloween parties, or go to the ones I know about, or want to do bar events (since Halloween has become nearly as bad for massive public drunkenness as St. Patrick's or New Year's Eve). I don't want to feel I have to wear a sexy costume. Or actually I'd like to wear one, but it's generally near-winter weather in Chicago at Halloween, even if other days in October have been warm. I live on a floor where I don't have to worry about trick-or-treaters coming to my door. (And don't miss it, as I grew up in a house set back from the street enough that we didn't get many trick-or-treaters. Or we got a few. It's Girl Scout cookie salesgirls we never got...) The Halloween costume pop-up stores in empty big-box and mall stores (especially empty Borders, RIP) depress me. And so this year, where a Wednesday Halloween somehow turned the season into two full Halloween weekends and the day itself...nothing.

The only two things I do are buy discounted candy, and watch morning TV news/talk shows for the hosts' costumes. This year the national shows didn't do their Halloween festivities because of Sandy storm aftermath, so I was left with just the Chicago shows. (Edited to add: oh, and always like the bit on Letterman's show, too--weird costumes for kids--which did happen. The image is of a girl as a restaurant cup of coleslaw.) They did all right dressing up on set or in bits at the big costume store. (Both WGN and ABC7 had LMFAO outfits, and I realized I'm so out of it I wouldn't recognize an LMFAO costume. I know the songs--I do attend a lot of minor league sporting events, after all--but haven't seen the videos enough.)

I am happy to have gotten the photo at the top of the post while walking in Bridgeport during a Forgotten Chicago tour. A nice mix of friendly and unfriendly. AMERICA.

Travel!

Sorry I missed blogging in April. And now I'm heading out for my first plane trip in over two years, first trip out of O'Hare in I don't know how long, first time out of the country since summer 2001, and first time overseas since my one trip to Paris in...1999? I have to interrupt my finally going through my archives of photos and getting serious about posting, to go take many thousands more photos...See you soon! (Internet access is questionable while I'm away, but we'll see if I can blog from another country.)

more from 2008

At the risk of being in the past like my February post, here's more from 2008, two shots from March with bits of Chicago skyline, in the midst of my project to shoot every CTA station. I've spent a good chunk of March organizing my stuff, both digital and 3-D, and get ever closer to the reboot of this blog I've long promised. I looked again at my 2008 photos, but turned up digital photos from 2003 I'd forgotten I even took. The potential once I start sorting my pre-Flickr photos of Chicago and elsewhere--Chicago from 1995 on, with a few earlier photos--is quite exciting. Except for the fact that I wasn't nearly as competent at lighting, composition, etc., then.  Not that the above shots are that stunning, but they're an improvement.

a look back at Leap Day 2008

I'm committed to posting at least once a month in 2012 (unfortunately that's all it's been so far) and to posting on every February 29 because it's Leap Day (and because it's my half-birthday; yes, I know that's not nearly as exciting as a Leap Day birthday). Early 2008 was when my Flickr and blog were starting to go somewhere, so I checked to see what I'd posted on 2/29/2008 and was surprised it was only two photos on the KofC account. One is one of my most popular, a photo of the now-demolished Cabrini-Green highrise...but I knew I had more, and finally after searching my badly labeled 2008 archives on an external drive, I found the following. I present with minimal editing and almost in chronological order, what I did in Chicago on our last February 29:

  

 

 

The above includes a construction shot from somewhere (Halsted between North and Division?); the now-completely-gone Cabrini-Green public housing, scenes from Wicker Park on Division, including a visit to the short-lived coffeeshop Blend, a recipe on a Treasure Island window, the vacant-but-now-rehabbed Cedar Hotel, construction next to the Chicago Theatre, and the aftermath of the late 2007 car crash into ABC 7 studios on State Street. So, a mix of long gone, recently gone, and still there. Unfortunately I didn't find these till late in the evening, or I'd have reshot them today (I took a few photos closer to home, while the weather was still an amazing 55-60F, before it plummeted 25-30 degrees and kept me in for the night).

January in Chicago

 

Anything I could say about the year past or the (rest of) the year ahead is as dated now as the scene in this photo (dying Christmas decorations), but at least the photo is recent...January 29. And this is Roosevelt Collection, a fairly new development. Late-January holiday decor tends to be confined to shabbier locales, so this was a bit strange. (Also...it's been close to 60 degrees out at the end of January.) Taken on a short, fruitful trip to a few spots along Roosevelt Road in Chicago the other day. Anyway, I haven't managed to blog at least every week of the year but at least I'm off to posting every month. It's a start! Big things ahead!

happy holidays

It's still the holiday season. It's still the 12 days of Christmas, for that matter, and thus okay to post my Christmas photo a little late. (It's on Flickr, too, with my incredulity that my transparent attempt to post a specific photo that everyone would say "Merry Christmas!" or whatever on, didn't work.)

A photo store in downtown Belleville, IL (which still has small businesses: an office supply store, a sporting goods store, a hardware store, a craft supply store--as well as chains), seen on Black Friday 2011. (There's a photoessay waiting about the gingerbread display contest there! And on the CTA Holiday Train, and on shopping mall decorations...)

Just a fond message to the many great photographers I've met through the Internet and in person (especially the one who made it possible for me to take photos in Belleville) and to anyone who supports any of the work I do.

(And now to see if I feel like writing a 2011 wrap-up piece.)

waiting for the train

Waiting to catch my first CTA Holiday Train of 2011 on the Cicero Green Line, abandoned Brach's factory in the background, multiple rush hour Metra trains going by between the platform and the factory, I got a couple quick and fuzzy videos. Really just posting this to see if I remember how to include video properly, and because I'm still in the habit of blogging daily (if not promising to do a NaBloPoMo for December, too):