Finally Going Outside On a Regular Basis

Looking downtown from Lincoln Park

Ivana Majic Longest? That's your real name? Really?

My bathroom is anything by "serene."

I don't know why this fascinates me so much. But, this is the Blue Cross/Blue Shield building. It was 20 stories tall and designed to be taller. So, they are adding another 24 stories or something on top.

Illegally photographed painting from Chinese exhibit at Chicago Cultural Center

The bean

Megan in a Aha video

T-Rex in Millennium Park

Pig faced tow truck thing. Fine art indeed!

Talking about fine art, my old classrooms at the School of the Art Institute are under this new giant condo building. A huge condo building probably seemed like a lot better investment about 6 months ago...

The new Modern Wing at the Art Institute of Chicago is about to open!

The Aqua Building. It's suppose to look like this.

Bikes!

They Ain’t No Lawmen In This Town; Only Cattlemen!

Chicago's had a lot of snow this year. It's beautiful too. It's been a long time since I've seen a decent amount of snow. In fact, Megan's car is stuck there until it thaws a bit. She's stuck in 6 inches of ice and snow plowed from the road...


What a postcard


Nothing is prettier than trees after a snowstorm. It looks like Narnia out here.


Bushes under the weight of snow


Roberto and his art show! Everyone should check it out. It's up until the end of February at Subterranean located at 2011 W North Ave. If you go on Tuesday or Thursday, Kate from Darkroom is the bartender (for those of you from Monday Night Klub - Chicago Chapter days)


Checked out the Museum of Modern Ice Exhibit at Millennium Park. Pretty lame. The description and drawings made it look like the most awesome thing in the world. It's mostly just ice and food coloring. This was the best part, which is chopped ice used as chalk I found behind the bushes away from the show.


Here's the exhibit. Frances, there were no more powertools. I don't think it would look that much cooler at night either...


Canadian art. Not surprised. All its missing is a Maple Leaf. If this were Michigan art, it'd have a beer logo or something.


Yep


Here's the drawing they did on the ice rink.


Ice exhibit seen through the bean (cloud gate).


So, I went over to the Chicago Cultural Center afterwards and found this sculpture. I don't know who made this or why, but why is my face on this? Bizarro-world!


Entrance of the CCC. I've taken this picture a million times and still think it's great


A cold Chicago night on the 'el. Even the pigeons know enough to huddle under the heat lamps at the station. Huddled like fried chicken at KFC...

Ronan’s Party - Round 2 + 1 Pizza Party

Thanks to Ronan for the invite to his x-mas party. It was a lot of fun.

Thanks to everyone for coming to Ronan's x-mas party. You made it lots of fun.


Megan having some of the juice mixture. Also, everyone should tell her "congratulations on your promotion!" She's now a Program Manager (? - Manager of some kind) at AIAChicago.


Frances on the same juice mixture.


Noah's shirt really isn't as crazy as my camera makes it appear...


Lush...


SME - Queen of the Coat Pile


Nothing is more embarrassing than showing up to a party and someone is wearing the same outfit...


Okay, here's the real picture of Ronan (party host), Nick (roommate), Megan (girlfriend), and Cliff (friend).


Karli and SME. Karli really made the party by bringing one of the 30 bottles of Apple Pie from the fridge.


Typical. I think Frances and I have taken about 1,000 variations of this picture since I got my digital camera a couple years ago.


Part of Karli, SME, Mike, John(?), Matt, & Matt.


This picture about sums it up. Ronan had a work party that moved to his house and he stole about 80 lbs. of chicken. Sorry Mike...


Party remains


Megan, Tyler, and Mike. Notice Megan's ninja moves as she leans out of the way of Tyler thrusting his beer.


Chicago Cultural Center dome restoration. All the Tiffany Glass has been removed for fixin' up. So, it will be another 100 years before you'll see it like this again.


If I sent out x-mas cards, this would be the image. So, Happy x-mas! I took this on Eastwood just west of Kedzie. I was over there because I found some girls purse on the train and returned it to her. It was a X-mas miracle (for her) and a good deed of the day (for me).

PIZZA PARTY!!!!

Karli showing Nick, SME, and the rest of us how to bowl on the Wii. 236 points, Karli! Are you serious?


Andrew, Katie (behind Andrew), Karli, and Nick.


This is what pizza parties are all about.


A couple of the many pizzas killed that night in 2007. It was a dark day for slices...


Andrew's new MySpace photo. I like to think in 300 years art critics will look back to the early days of the internet revolution and say "he was a great artist for the medium of his time." Most likely, they'll say, "this jerk wasted too much time on the computer..."


More Wii action after Jackass 2.5 and YouTube on the big screen TV.


Noah (hand w/ beer), Andrew, Katie, Tennessee, Angela, Brent, and Gracie!

That's about it. I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas or whatever you celebrate. I'm going to New York for the holidays. If you happen to be watching the Bills/Giant game on Sunday, look for me in the crowd.

xoxo,
Mike

The Psychodelic Hot Dog

Hey All,

It's been a while... My iMac from 1999 is having some difficulty understanding the internet these days. So much has changed. Unfortunately, that makes it difficult to check email and all. I don't really care to spend $1000 to screw around on the internet. So, if anyone has any bright ideas, I'm all ears...

A part of an exhibit at the Cultural Center.


My lady brought me out to see "high culture." Here's the Chicago Dance Festival at Millennium Park. This is some local company that was very good.


More dancing!


Abbi (sp?) at Annie Zipper's going away party. Goodbye Annie Zipper. Keep in touch.


Megan moved into her new apartment last weekend with the help of Lil Sammy Mover.


This is Megan's new apartment; "The Hobbit House." Why is this the Hobbit House, you ask? First, notice the rounded off edges on the doors and all. Nice touch. Also, the ceilings are only 6' 2". So, no basketball players allowed. It's a great place though. Especially for a 2 bedroom for $600!


This chaise is crazy. It is so well-built and solid, we had to destoy it. It was so big, heavy, and awkward that we could not get it down the stairs. How it got up the stairs baffles me too. It's a shame that such a nice piece of furniture was ruined...


Talking about nice furniture, here's Lynn Nummerdor's latest creation! The psychodelic hot dog is really becoming her trademark!


Who doesn't love a hot dog who knows he's delicious?


It's not everyday that Lamborghinis (sp?) are spotted in Humboldt Park. So, I was going to talk about how these might be to replace the one Lance Briggs, Linebacker for the Chicago Bears recently crashed with only 400 miles on it. But, on my way to the office, I saw these and a couple other Lamborghinis just north of the Merchandise Mart with cop cars marked GPD for Gothem Police Department. So, you'll probably see Christine Bale driving these around downtown Chicago when Batman: The Dark Knight comes out in the next year or so...

That's it. Hope all is well with everyone!

xoxo,

Mike