Since we moved to the West Loop, the long-boarded-up Phil’s Tavern has been a reminder of this neighborhood’s past as Chicago’s Skid Row. While other buildings have been re-habbed or torn down to be replaced by brand-new residences and retail, the one-story building with its shuttered bar and the still-open Herzog Store Fixture stood at …
Activate!
Welcome to mid-2021. A lot of water has passed under the bridge, to coin a phrase. I finally got around to updating the engine of this site as one of my final COVID-era projects. I was hesitant to push the button out of fear that the rusty WordPress installation would fall apart as soon as …
Presto-Change-o
We bought a new canopy for our gazebo, and take a look at the effect it has on the color of everything on our patio. These photos were taken within 30 minutes of each other, and I didn’t do any Photoshop wizardry on them. Nice effect, I think. (For those of you who came here …
Morning Greenery
Since it’s been so dry here in the Chicago area, I’ve been up every morning around 5:00 am watering all the plants around the house. We put in a bunch of new stuff out front and it would be a shame if it all dried up. This is what the ornamental grass along our driveway …
Revere Eight
This is the Revere Eight 8mm movie camera my dad used since the 1950s to capture our family events. It’s because of this that all my childhood memories look like The Wonder Years. He gave me this camera a few years ago, and I hope to one day get it working again.
Chicago Board of Trade
There are only a couple of weeks during the year when the sun shines on the façade of the Chicago Board of Trade Building at the angle you see here. I happened to have my camera with me the other morning, so I captured it. With the morning sun shining at this angle, you can …
Cloud Gate (and Bike the Drive)
This past Sunday the 11th annual Bike the Drive event was held on Chicago’s Lake Shore Drive. After riding the 30-mile route, I took the time to ride around downtown Chicago a bit, and wound up at Millennium Park, where I shot this photo of the Cloud Gate (aka “The Bean”) sculpture. There were over …
After the Storm
We had a storm blow through earlier tonight, and at the very end we saw this in the Eastern sky. Becca grabbed my camera and captured the rainbow.
Springtime
Spring arrived early in Chicago– as in a couple weeks ago– and last week brought us weather more suitable for July than March. We had the week off, so we did a lot of stuff around the house and celebrated our Anniversary with dinner at Retro Bistro. We also dove into our first anniversary wine, …
Springtime Visitor
I was checking to see what was budding in the yard and I found this guy hanging out behind the garage.