Chicagogear's Journal

Why not

2008-07-23T07:39:07Z

Driving in stop and go traffic on the Ike? Why not read a book!

Things in general

2008-07-22T09:40:09Z

iPhone
I was proud of myself because I decided I would not need the 3G iPhone the moment it was released. My plan was to wait until the initial mayhem had subsided. The Sunday after it was released I went to an AT&T store to get "direct fulfillment". This means that they were out of the phones, but I could place an order and have one reserved. They were not sure when they would be in, but hopefully that week.

Meanwhile Jake decided that week to go and wait in line at the Apple Store. Three hours later he had his iPhone. It was awesome. I had to get one.

Now I'm proud of myself because I actually waited in a long line for something I really wanted ... and it wasn't so bad! I went 30 minutes before open, waited three hours, and got my phone. It was a beautiful morning to be out on Michigan Avenue. I took some reading material, and the time actually flew right by. I then canceled my direct fulfillment. Eventually when it comes to the AT&T store someone will be thrilled.

The iPhone is better than I thought it would be. Wow.

Gay Pride
I finally uploaded the pictures from Pride to my Flickr. I did not make Pridefest, but did see most of the pride parade.

I decided Sunday morning that I would get some excerise and bike up to the parade. That was a good idea until I got a flat tire. But lucky me! ... I got a flat right in front of the "bike rental and repair" at North Avenue Beach. I walked my bike over to the store and asked if they could replace a tube. The snotty kid says to me "we don't have a repair person here today".

What??? It was only a hot Sunday afternoon; what has to be one of the busiest days they are ever going to have. I asked if they usually have a repair person, he said sometimes they do, and sometimes they do not. Well if they aren't going to repair bikes, I think they should take the REPAIR off their banner.

Once I walked the bike the rest of the way to Boystown and got the parade it was stopped. Apparently there had been a mishap and someone got hurt. The parade was held up for 1 HOUR! Everyone was shocked that one person being injured could hold up a parade (and thus, 400,000 spectators) for a whole hour. Well I see it almost every day! Welcome to Chicago .... hope nothing serious ever happens, you know, like a terrorist attack or something.

Once the parade started again it was a lot of rain. Probably the cruddiest Pride Sunday I can remember in some time. We did, however, still have a blast with our friends!

Dark Knight
Just like the iPhone, I expected it to be awesome, and it was. The first time we went to see it the power at the movie theater failed and they canceled all the showings. Yikes.

Flickr Updates
I'm very happy to finally have IML and Chicago Rubbermen updates made to my Flickr. Must be friends or have a guest pass to see.

Chicago Rubbermen
We had our 2nd anniversary party last weekend, and it was a great time! I am very proud of our group that we were able to raise close to $400 for the Center on Halsted. Ruff, Craig, Tim, and Willi really stepped up and got some outstanding donations.

One thing I love about our group, and the people who come to our gatherings is how damn friendly everyone is. Newcomers are welcome, and its always so great to see familiar faces too. Just an all around great group of people.

Owww owww owww my back
Just this Thursday I did something to my back. I've never experienced anything like it before. I was bent over (yes, funny). I was bent over cleaning my camera bag which was on the couch. As I was doing that I got a terrible pain in my lower back. It took about 10 seconds to get to its worst, and I couldn't believe what was happening! I started to sweat and see stars. The pain was intense. Every time I would try to move it was terrible, I was basically stuck standing there for a while. Eventually I was able to sit down. Sounds like it was a muscle cramp. I was not lifting or twisting when it happened, only bent over. My Doctor said to take Ibprofen and keep heat on it and call him if it didn't get better. Luckily it has got better, every day is a noticeable improvement over the day before.

Most of the weekend every time I would move I sounded like the Grape Lady.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ApzPZgUwDaE - The Music Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UCcC4X9QMw - The raw news video

If you haven't seen the Grape Lady footage before I recommend watching the music video first for best comedic effect. And yes, I am well aware my back pain is a direct result of finding this so damn funny.

Family
And lastly, if you make it this far into my posting then you're who I want to know about this part of my update. My mom has been doing well but there have been bumps in the road. If you are unaware she was diagnosed with breast cancer on Memorial Day weekend. She had surgery, and is now going through chemotherapy. I am very proud of how she is handling everything, she is truly a strong woman. My dad, who has health issues of his own, has also really stepped up to take care of my mother.

As expected chemo hit mom hard. I was out in the burbs to see her just about every day last week while she was in the hospital. She had to be admitted because she got so sick after her first round of chemo. She is home now and doing great. She has her 2nd round on Wednesday. She will have a total of six over the next four months or so. Her doctor was very positive about how things are going and that she expects mom to do much better the 2nd time after they've made some adjustments.

From the sounds of things mom should make a complete recovery. She had stage III cancer, which is late, but not so late its un-treatable. Had she been doing self exams she would've found it much sooner. Please remind your mother to check herself.

No Bikes Allowed!

2008-07-15T05:11:50Z

For the third or forth time since we've lived at our current address our building management is trying to crack down on people taking their bicycles up to their units. The nasty memo is back in the elevators saying that it is "building policy" that you can't bring bikes upstairs, and that they must be registered and stored in the bike room off the garage.

This really pissed me off. Here's why.

First, it's not in my lease. I would not of renewed if it was in my lease.

Second, we moved into the building in Nov of 2003, when I went to get my bike in April of 2004 it was GONE. The lock and cable hanging there, no bike. When I went to the management office they told me tough shit they don't accept responsibility for the stuff being stolen.

Third, on several occasions I have come home from work and the bike room door is hanging wide open due to the people not bothering to lock it. This most recently happened last week, the day the memo went up.

Fourth, how is a bike any different than the huge luggage carts or the big SUV strollers many of the parents have? If dirt is an issue they recently allowed dogs in our building, and they are in and out with dirty paws all the time.

Fifth, it is a major inconvenience. You have to check out the key with the door person, unlock the garage door, unlock the bike room door, and then go up a long hall just to get to the room. Then, the room is DARK. Even with the lights on it's not enough to see well, especially on those sunny days when you've just come in from a ride. There are few spots available and I'm always tripping on bikes to get around to them.

I called an attorney who deals with bike injury cases. He told me he does not deal with these kind of issues, but he happens to be a landlord. As a landlord he believes that management can dictate any rules regarding bike storage they want, but they have to put it in my lease. I was referred to a tenants rights attorney for further advice. I have yet to call. I'm debating on waiting to get an personal reprimand from my management before going that route.

I have found absolutely zero information online about such issues. If you or someone you know has been through something similar and has some insight please let me know!

The friend

2008-05-28T03:29:10Z

It's been a while, but I have a pre-IML story involving the same friend of Greg's from my last posting.

We decided to take him for pizza last week at Giordano's on Randolph. The friend knows Greg and I are gay, but that's where the information ends.

Even though we had not been in that particular Giordano's since last year, the server immediately recognizes Greg and I and says to us "hey long time no see! In fact its been since last year, I always expect to see you guys when the leather convention is in town!"

Ooops we broke Macy's

2008-02-25T22:43:27Z

So a friend of Greg's was downtown at a show on Sunday and wanted to grab a bite to eat with us after the show. He wanted to do something simple so we decided we would go to this little sports bar we like inside Macy's called Infields. (Get it ... 'Infields' referring to Marshall Fields). It is nice that Macy's left the name of the place the same.

When we got to Macy's we discovered that Greg's friend had never been inside before. One of the things we like so much about living where we do is our close proximity to a landmark like Macy's, so we decided to give him a quick tour of the store.

First when we were showing him the atrium where we walked in a security guard came right up to us and started staring at us like we were going to steal something. We went up the express elevator and looked at the Walnut Room. There is now a wine bar inside the Walnut Room, which actually looks quite nice. We then went to go back to the 3rd floor using escalators, but over half the escalators were out of service or blocked off for some reason. From the 5th floor we looked at the Tiffany dome. We thought taking an elevator down to the lower level to go eat would be better than braving the broken escalators again. After a 3 minute wait we got an elevator. We stopped at the 1st floor where this guy got on. He looked like an employee who just got off shift. He pressed a button to go up apparently not realizing we were going down. The elevator didn't like that so we just sat there not moving and the doors refusing to open. The guy who got on with us got all mad and said "no surprise here, nothing in this fucking place works anymore!". Finally the door opened he left and so did we, heading to find a working escalator to the lower level.

There were some strange scenes on the lower level with this homeless guy in front of us roaming around, this younger girl clearly fending off her boyfriend from getting frisky on a merchandise display, and this woman sitting at a table at the little Starbucks who was crying about something.

When we finally got to Infields they were closed! This was despite us checking the hours on the Macy's website and the hours which were clearly displayed on their window that they should be open. We apologized to Greg's friend for this debacle of a trip. We made our way back upstairs and out the Wabash side. Oh, and on the way out, the middle handicapped/stroller door had a sign "out of order".

Thanks Macy's!!

HA!

2007-12-29T00:24:27Z

I thought maybe I ran into an old friend when I got behind this car on Christmas Day.

Flying Billboards

2007-12-27T11:14:48Z

So wow, things have really picked up with work, which is great. Lots of mayhem along with the usual assortment of things we cover every night.

On Saturday night/early Sunday morning we ended up getting an amazing wind storm. For you meteorology buffs I'll explain that the Chicago area was on top of a very strong low pressure system which was developing and deepening rapidly (cyclogenisis). This particular low pressure became so strong that it caused the lowest air pressure reading at O'Hare in 20 years according to Tom Skilling.

The result ... WIND. I was coming into the city on I-90 when this all started. I heard an ominous call on one of the scanners of a citizen reporting a tornado. Obviously there was no tornado, but the winds were freaking people out. As I approached the O'Hare Oasis on I-90 one of the large advertising billboards was ripping apart. The fabric canvas was flying but still attached. I pulled over to the shoulder to get some video, when I noticed about 1/2 mile up ahead everyone was hitting their brakes and swerving.

I got back in the car and went up the road to discover the entire metal framework from another advertising billboard completely blew down into the eastbound lanes. It was crazy! When it came down it also took out a light pole, and caused all the lighting to be knocked out on the tollway, which made it very hard to see the debris in the road. Traffic was barely able to get by on the far right shoulder.

I pulled off on the far left shoulder, radioed Jake to get police on the way, and put out a line of road flares to divert traffic over to the shoulder. Luckily I had them as people were flying up on this scene not realizing what was in the road. Finally after 15 minutes a maintenance guy from the tollway arrived. Too bad he had no phone (had to borrow mine), and no flares left. While he used my phone to call a snow plow to remove the debris I shot my video, which I have captures of below.

The wind storm went on for the whole night, but the 60+ MPH gusts were in the first couple hours. Roofs, trees, power lines were knocked out all over.

The light pole is laying across the expressway in the rear of the frame.

A snow plow shoves the debris off onto the shoulder.

chicagogear @ 2007-12-21T00:55:00

2007-12-21T06:59:23Z

Attempting to keep a drama free bubble around me I don't usually talk about the silly messages I get from people every so often, but this one actually made me laugh.

"Oh, I get it... you're a crass cretin with the mind of Paris Hilton (on a bad day) and the manners of Josef Stalin. Get some social skills, BOZO. You're not pretty enough to get by with YOUR rudeness. LOL!"

I have to say, that by far, that is the most amusing tell-off I've ever received. I would try to piss more people off for that kind of creativity.

Although I found the message amusing, it did make me wonder about etiquette. This particular gentlemen sent me a nice message initially. Not someone I was particularly into, but I generally always reply to nice messages. Being at work when I saw the message, I wasn't going to reply until I got home later on. When I checked my account the next day, there was a semi-nasty 'how dare you ignore me' message. After I read that I was completely uninterested in any correspondence, so he got put on my definitely ignore list. What I shared above is the third tell-off message.

It makes me ponder though; what is the acceptable time window to reply to a message from someone on a social site? How unacceptable is it to not reply to someone you clearly feel you have no interest in? As a rule I reply to anyone who sends me a nice or relatively normal message. However I don't always reply to messages right away. Typically I do within a day or two when I have time to sit down. And I admit, sometimes I just let messages go, especially ones that are simple one-liners or crude.

I am of the mind to treat others like you want to be treated in return. That said I have sent messages to many people who then never replied back to me in return. I can honestly say that it rarely, if ever, bothers me. I figure with something like this, if I send a note to someone I don't know and then I hear something back then that's great. But if I don't hear anything back I kind of forget about it. Am I weird in that manner?

Nice!

2007-12-19T02:47:34Z

http://www.chicagowolves.com/equipment/

See you all at Appleby's on Thursday night!

I haven't seen so many people fall since the Licenses For Bribes scandal

2007-12-10T05:41:23Z

My fellow Chicago friends, please walk carefully on this sidewalk ice! In the past 24 hours I've seen three people go down ... err fall down.

Victim #1 was at Belmont & Sheffield. Two women walking towards the crosswalk, the taller one fell like a sack of crap. I thought we'd be calling a ambulance but her friend helped her up and they had a few laughs while she limped along.

Victim #2 was a cute drunk boy walking down Halsted. I had just picked up Greg from Sidetrack and we were walking towards Hydrate for one drink before going home. We were kind of walking along with a cute boy who was walking by himself. After a minute Greg (who by the way ... was waaay gone) commented that it was too bad the cute boy left. Thinking to myself, 'i wonder if he fell on the ice back there' i turned around and sure enough he was planted on his back and not moving. As we walked back towards him he sat up and began to rub the back of his head. We sat him up and I looked at his head, There was no bleeding thankfully , and he didn't pass out. He got up and hailed a taxi.

And now, Victim #3, guy walking with two other male friends right here in front of 'the spot'. He falls flat on his ass. Friends turned around, laughed, and kept walking.

Oh, by the way, crappy Hydrate can keep their $10 cover. It was already 2:30, we just went home.

Holiday party drunkards

2007-12-08T11:26:37Z

I worked tonight at my part time photography job working a holiday party for a rather large marketing firm downtown. They rented out one of the larger downtown nightclubs for the early part of the evening. Besides the usual challenges of finding a workable set-up space for our portrait area, lights, computer, and printers so we could do instant prints, the early part of the event was great. Our client was nice as could be.

But wow, when you hear stories about people getting drunk at holiday parties, this is what they were talking about. These people got smashed. One guy was stumbling into our light, and when I tried to grab him to keep him from falling over he made a fist and threatened to punch me. I'm starting to think we need to work a clause in our contracts about shutting down early at these type of events when people start to get belligerent.

What's she thinking?

2007-12-04T02:12:22Z

Just like Judy Barr Topinka, one has to ask ... what is Hillary THINKING??

Some things just really bother me, and this is one of them. It is disappointing since the thought of a woman president almost excited me as much as Obama being president. Until about 20 minutes ago, I was going to be happy either way.

http://weblogs.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/blog/2007/12/the_clinton_pot_calls_the_obam.html

Red Line train fire

2007-11-28T03:20:40Z

Just got back from checking out a train on fire on the Red Line at Clark/Division. The operator of a northbound train discovered there was a fire underneath the train. He calmly evacuated the train and put out the fire with a chemical extinguisher after CTA control cut the power to the rails.

No injuries, passengers removed to wait for the next train, and power restored all within 10 minutes. First calm CTA emergency I've covered in a long time.

Funniest Moment From MIR

2007-11-19T04:16:29Z

Water Polo

ruffsstuff organized a last minute brunch with a group of MIR attendees on the Sunday morning of MIR weekend at Ann Sather in Andersonville. The place was packed of course, but we got in with reservations. I think the final count was about 16 guys. We were in the upstairs portion at a long table. Across the room from us was a table of four or five older ladies enjoying their afternoon together.

While we were eating one of the ladies approached our table, and asked to speak to me. I was conveniently seated closest to her at the corner of the table.

"Excuse me" she says, "My friends and I couldn't help notice you all together here, and we were wondering, actually we have bets, as to what brings you all together today."

Well of course I went into a mini-freak out. Everyone at our end of the table went completely silent wondering what *I* was going to tell this nice lady. I looked around the table at everyone, and did not notice too much out of the ordinary. Nobody had come dressed outrageously, although quite a bit of latex was showing underneath several of our shirts. To anybody paying attention it was clear that we were a little out of the ordinary as far as brunch crowds go.

I responded, "Well actually we are all friends, some of us are from out of town, but most of us are from Chicago"

This, clearly, was not going to be enough for this woman. She had money on this.

"But what brings you together today" she asks.

"Well our friends are actually in town for a convention" I respond, trying to spare this woman.

"Oh, well what kind of convention?" she asks me, "I am guessing you are all on a water polo team!"

I had no idea what to do. I looked at bigbaddeisel, and at my friends across the table, and they were clearly not going to help with this situation.

So I threw it out there for her, "Well actually we are all here for a gay rubber fetish event."

Her reply was quick, "Oh, ok then". Then she took off from the table as fast as could be!

Overall Updates

2007-11-18T04:30:57Z

It's been a while since there was an update. I've still been struggling with how I want to handle this whole blog thing. So many interesting things happen, especially with work, but certain things I am obligated to keep to myself pertaining to work, both contractually and common-sense'ally. Ok that's not a word, I know it.

First major update, the west coast trip with the parents was awesome. Despite the regular 'oh my god its a week with my parents' fears, things were fantastic. Photos can be seen on my Flick page.

Second update, work is good, slow. Jake and I have made the decision to sturdy up our work schedules and put in even more hours. We're going to treat work like a REAL job LOL!. 8 hours/5 days a week, time due if we work overtime, the whole thing. When you set your own hours, it is SO EASY to not be motivated to start work, or to stay at work.

Third update, MIR weekend last weekend was fun fun fun as usual!

And the forth update, we are in our condo for another two years. Despite the condo conversion occurring in our building, we were offered a two year lease with very favorable terms. Still damn excited about that! So did not want to move!

Batman Movie

2007-07-20T07:09:24Z

As many people know, the next Batman movie has been filming in downtown Chicago. I think major movie production in Chicago is an awesome thing. I really hope that Chicago becomes home to a major movie studio at some point. I certainly think the possibility is there.

Last week, and again this week, Batman has been doing major filming on Lower Wacker Drive. From 6pm-5am they have been closing all of Lower Wacker. With all the massive lighting rigs they have set up, I decided to take the opportunity to grab some nice city shots on my night off.

The buildings on the north side of the river are lit. Whatever shots they have been doing on Lower Wacker will have some of these buildings in the background. I think its a major chase scene going on. We have been hearing gunfire and explosions from our building just about every night they have been filming down there. Luckily we have been sleeping with the A/C on and windows closed.

I ended up on the Clark Street bridge with a crowd of 20 or so people watching them film on Lower Wacker. Here's a photo.

So of course I was quickly spotted with my camera. I was approached by a security guy from the movie set. He told me I was going to have to show him my camera so he could look and see if I took any pictures of the set. ... YEAH RIGHT!!!!!

Not that I should have to do this, but I explained I was on a public street and can shoot any damn thing I want. And of course he said that it was a closed set. So again I pointed out that *I* was on a public street and across the river from their set.

So he gets on his security radio and tells his supervisor that he has "another guy with a camera who says he's on a public street and can do what he wants to". This other guy comes up, tells me that I have not been granted permission from the people on the set to be taking their pictures.

It really sucks that they feel like they can come into our city and trample all over people with bullshit. It is harassment and they should not be allowed to do it. Anybody can take a picture of anything or any person they want to as long as they aren't trespassing. The only time you need a subjects permission is if you use their likeness for commercial purposes. If they want a private set where nobody can see what's going on, than in the middle of Chicago is not the place to shoot. As much as I support the movie being in the city I don't think its realistic for them to think people aren't going to come out and see what's going on and take pictures for themselves or to blog with. For months now streets have been closed all over downtown, lighting has been blinding people in high-rise buildings, and explosions have been going off all night. Is that not inconvenience enough?

In order to avoid a further fight I told them I wouldn't take any more set pictures. I was actually more interested in taking other city pictures, but there was no way in hell they were looking at my camera. We got to talking a little bit about the movie and all, really nice guys besides illegally harassing people.

Little did I know at the time my boss with the news job was having the exact same problem over by Wells Street. He was trying to shoot video of the filming for the morning news. He had a security guy from the movie tell him to stop shooting and to leave (the public street). He refused so the guy stood in front of his camera and told him if he recorded him he would 'knock his block off'. WTF!!!

Our boss, like me, was across the river, 1 block down, and on a public sidewalk. Obviously he refused to stop recording and actually called police news affairs. They sent a sergeant and the movie people sent a supervisor and it was decided that he could keep shooting. I guess they decided freedom of the press and all is important. He should've pressed assault charges too in my opinion.

General updates

2007-07-17T07:02:45Z

It's been a while. It has been hard for me to get into this regular blogging thing. But there are interesting things going on.

First off, work has been very up and down. Things have been crazy slow, followed by crazy busy. This is not good for us because when big stories all happen at once, then good stories get no attention. We have had some serious frustration with that recently. bigbaddiesel and I covered a major transit incident where 16 people were taken to the hospital, and it was barely mentioned. On another day this would've been a network story.

Despite working in the business for close to 8 years I am still amazed at times with how much timing can affect the how much coverage a story gets.

And last week, from Wed-Sun Jake and I worked a big photo event, 38 hours in total, which is probably the longest single event we have worked together. It was an instant print autograph signing of the twins who play the Weasley Twins in the Harry Potter movies.

I will blog more about that one later cause it was rather interesting. One thing I can say is those kids were SO NICE! 1,310 pictures we printed, and they smiled as much in the end as in the beginning, and they did not blink or look away from the camera one time!

Condo saga continued

2007-04-06T06:22:08Z

Found out today that a resident in our building has filed a class action lawsuit. Not sure about the details, sounds like it is in response to disruptive work going on in the building. This lawyer who filed the suit lives on the floor below where American Invesco is renovating old apartments into "model" condo units to show off the new upgrades they will be offering.

He said he got notice on Friday of upcoming construction above him, and on Saturday morning it sounded like bombs were going off above his bed. His ceiling is apparently cracked too.

This of course, makes me very nervous as I work at night and sleep in the day! I wonder what, if any, recourse I may have if this happens to me. And of course this is yet ANOTHER thing to consider with this whole situation.

American Invesco strikes

2007-04-05T02:48:11Z

Well after over a year of rumors flying around our building, it has been officially announced that American Invesco has bought the apartment building that I live in. There was a 'representative' in the lobby during rushhour today telling people about the change over and that the building is going condo. This of course strikes fear in most people, but they were clearly there trying to figure out who the potential buyers are and to reassure people their leases are still good. Beside that they were answering no questions what-so-ever.

Since these rumors started last year I have been doing my homework about American Invesco and condo conversions. The top two priorities for American Invesco will be to find potential buyers in the building and to keep current renters from moving out. This explains why the current leasing company, which is related to American Invesco, has been trying to get people to sign 2-year leases.

The problem is if everyone moves out during a condo conversion the company which bought the building loses a great deal of money. They want to keep as many renters in units before they are sold as possible. Most people move out because they understand that the rent is going to go up, assuming whoever buys the unit they are living in even wants to rent it.

Our lease is up in November, and I was told by leasing that we will be offered a new lease, preferably two years. In May we will be told by American Invesco what our unit would cost should we decide to buy it. Obviously I am dying to know what it would cost to buy our place, and I assume at this point its more than Greg and I can afford. It is kind of nice to know that we'll be able to keep renting for a couple years in the case we can't afford to buy.

In anticipation of all this fun I have been taking a good look into my credit, and as that turns out I have some crap that doesn't belong there which is going to be a huge battle to clear up.

Relaxing

2007-04-02T11:15:45Z

For the first night, in a very long time, I took the evening to just RELAX. Greg is out of town visiting his brother in Washington DC. I kind of wish I could of gone as I have always had a lot of fun going to DC for visits to his brother, but I had work commitments this weekend.

Speaking of that work commitment, if you don't like feet, then photographing a podiatrists conference is probably not the place you want to be :P

Tonight's relaxing is a far cry from last nights news. I left the house around 8:30pm, which is a little earlier than usual for me on a Saturday night. I decided to head to work early because a big storm was coming. A large squall line with what is called a 'bow echo' radar signature was coming through Kendall County and heading towards the west and northwest suburbs. With the meteorology training I have I know that there is a high possibility to have severe damage with that type of event.

It turned out that Carol Stream got hit with what is called a microburst. I was on scene within 20 minutes of the event and the damage was significant. Police were very excited about the possibility of people being trapped inside an apartment building that had it's entire roof collapse. Fortunately nobody was seriously injured and there was nobody needing further rescue. My video and interviews with people made most of the local news as well as CNN. An exciting night overall.

But back to the current relaxing. Yes that's right, relaxing. Most of the radios were turned to the off position, as well as all the TV's except for the one showing the movie Jake and I rented were also turned off. We watched The Da Vince Code, which I thought was a pretty good movie. With all the talk of the movie I remember going on when it was released I was expecting a little more than what was revealed, but still I think it was very cool.

Why bother

2007-02-27T11:32:41Z

Another somewhat frustrating night dealing with the CPD. Covering a crime scene inside a house, unfortunately a double shooting. I arrive, stay well back across the street grabbing b-roll of cops walking in and out, etc. Then I see one of the detectives notices me. So the tactical team comes and kicks me back down the street telling me I cannot be across the street despite the fact its well beyond the established scene. Thanks to vacant lots and my zoom lens I'm fine, but I'm no longer bothering to not shoot the cops smoking and laughing. Why should I be courteous now?

Despite this I have to say 80 percent of my interactions are really good with CPD, which is why I don't really get too upset about this crap anymore.

Technical Difficulties

2007-02-19T07:53:02Z

Last weekend was the car, this weekend the cell phone. It really seems like things all start to break at one time. Luckily last weekend I had Jake to help me with the car. We did a shitload of work on that thing. But given its at 130,000 miles not unexpected.

What was unexpected was my cell phone crapping out. I just bought the thing in June, a VX-9800. Last week it kept dying on me, and was not receiving phone calls. I went to the Verizon store at 500 N Michigan Avenue and they looked at the phone. I heard the words that I was hoping to not hear ... 'water damage'. I had plugged the phone in the car and didn't realize the plug had been on the floor in water. However the phone showed more than that. I have no recollection of dropping the phone in any water.

The red dot on the back of the phone supposedly shows water damage. Because of this Verizon refused to replace the phone or offer anything to me. After a lot of negotiation I was only able to get a 25 percent discount on a new phone, the enV, (VX-9900), the upgrade of the 9800 with the red dot.

The new phone is thinner which is nice, and the camera is 2 megapixels, so I might actually use it. For you text messaging folk, the phone opens into a full keyboard like the 9800 is da bomb!

THIS TIME i made sure to get the insurance!

Oh and once its nice out I want to clean up my car and take some pictures of it, I do like my mobile office :)

Busy weekend

2007-02-12T08:23:13Z

This weekend was, and has been, a work weekend. Lots going on, in fact so much going on at once that you can't get to it all. We had our usual complement of fatal accidents. bigbaddiesel took some pictures from a crazy accident in the South Loop at Michigan & Congress from early Saturday morning. Single car crashed high speed into one of the concrete median planters. Those really tear cars apart!

And last night was probably the most interesting. Jake shot a police shooting down in the 8th District. Turns out three guys have been making a habit of robbing pizza delivery guys in the neighborhood for the last couple weeks. Last night a pizza place got a suspicious delivery call, and the cops decided to make the delivery. Three guys approached and one pulled a gun on the cops, cops end up shooting and killing him.

Tonight bigbaddiesel is being nice enough to work on my car, and probably tomorrow as well. We have quite the laundry list of things to do. The major problem is the car is hesitating when accelerating. Something is definitely off and it's a puzzle to put together. There's nobody better than Jake to do it. We also replaced fuel, air, oil filters, backup light, windshield wipers, cleaned the EGR valve, and remounted my side rear-view mirror (thanks to a certain clumsy boss). Tomorrow we continue to figure out the hesitation issues and fix a knocking by my left wheel, sounds like a caliper clapping according to Jake, whatever the hell that is!

Ever heard the sound on one caliper clapping?

A night out for once

2007-02-10T12:04:22Z

Finally took a night off work, with Greg and Jake, to meet friends out for dinner and then to Sidetrack for comedy clip night. It has been a while since I was at Sidetrack on Thursday, and let me just say it was a lot of fun. The clips are much funnier overall than I remember from before. Plus the place was packed with hotties, the people we were with included!

We left around 1030pm, which is a little early for my sleep schedule, but other people have real schedules unlike mine!

I've been feeling a bit stressed out at work lately, and I think it is my work schedule finally creeping up on me. I've also noticed I've been neglecting some friendships as well, which is really a bad thing. Time to maybe reconsider my how I want to balance my work and personal time.

Looks like top news story here this morning is Obama announcing he is running for president ..... didn't he do that already???

Busy night for once

2007-02-01T10:27:05Z

Finally a busy night. The Mayor of Country Club Hills (far south suburb) helped catch two offenders who had shot a 15 year old boy in the parking lot of a high school after a basketball game. An uncommon event for that suburb, they have seemingly turned a bad story into a good one with the Mayor (who is also a police officer) catching the armed offenders.

And Jake managed to top last weeks major drug bust (14 million) with an even bigger drug bust story. Early estimates are $23,000,000 in drugs and cash found in a U-Haul truck on the southwest side. What's weird about it is he interviewed the same people from the police department.

I'm a little nervous about this weekend, with temperatures lower than seen here for 11 years. Between that and the Bears news the upcoming days are going to be extremely interesting.