Jumping the Shark

It's 80. It's 40. It's 80. It's 40. Welcome to Spring in the Midwest. Look at all these unemployed/underemployed people enjoying the nice weather on a weekday...


View of downtown from Lincoln Park


As much as I talk about hating public art in America, every so often I find a gem that I kind of like. This is near the zoo in Lincoln Park and Lake Shore Drive






Ol' St. Mike's. I have to practice taking architecture pictures before the honeymoon


The fella I'm named after (The guy standing, not the one being stood on).




How close to a Robin can I get before he flies away. About 2 1/2 feet...




What a weird thing to do to a home. This is a facade-ectomy. They preserved the original home on the site (good). Reused it with new construction (understandable). But, there's a huge gap between the original front and the new house which appears to be a patio or something (strange).


City horses






Aqua building


These signs are getting more and more elaborate and militant.


If I ever have a home, you can expect to be welcomed by something like this when you visit...


Oh accountant humor. Marylin's last day is tomorrow and she's making everyone jealous...

Snuggie, Pleather, and Lace

Cubicle Cat Cupcake at work


On one of the random 80 degree days between the 30 degree days, I happened to see bigfoot also taking a walk and enjoying the weather.


Megan and I happened to pass by the Snuggie Pub Crawl. What's a Snuggie, you may ask? Why, it's a blanket with sleeves of course!




This girl isn't really one of them, but my favorite was the girls who tried to make these things look sexy.


Who wouldn't want a monkey cake from Dinkle's Bakery at the Paulina stop on the brown line?


A creepy welcome home!


A ba-zillion kids at one of thousands of Chicago parks


Cliff celebrating at Amanda's (P)Leather and Lace Party


Amanda and I at her party. You can't tell from this picture, but I have a leather vest on underneath and the tightest leather chaps you've ever seen...


Everyone's favorite Thriller, Nate.


Katie, SME, and Tennessee's birthday cake and plates


SME as Stevie Nicks. Unfortunately, this is the only photo I have of Rosie. She's the glob of hair and gold to the right. She had awesome gold (legwarmers?).


Everyone's favorite Medieval Mafia Biker.


"That picture's ugly." So what? I like it anyway!

The Land of Lincoln, Birthdays, and Deer

It was Christyn's b-day and we had a HUGE celebration at work!






Rockin' out!


This is "Dirt Cake" made of ground up Oreos by my anonymous boss lady


The birthday girl.


Yep, this will end up on Twitterbook...


The public pool at the forest preserve calling out to us saying "Come on kids! I know it's not that warm yet, but I can still be fun!"


Old washed out bridge in the preserve


In this picture, there are six deer. See if you can find them!




Bambi being scared off by me VERY quietly breaking every stick in the woods sneaking up on it.


My "wife of the future."


Unfortunate for her, I'm her "husband of the future" and I just broke the tree swing...


Megan pondering if there are trolls under the bridge...

PS - The cancelation of the Southside Irish Parade gets a big thumbs down from me. Chicago needs it's own little Mardi Gras to celebrate the end of the bitter winter.

These Summer Days In Chicago...

I guess I forgot to put this one up last week. Megan was very upset. It's us at Johnny and Ruth's wedding at Michilinda Lodge along Lake Michigan


Megan and I went for a walk in Wicker Park and discovered this bizarre public school sculpture...


At my favorite grocery store, I found "Super Atomic Cake." If it wasn't $30, I'd buy it and see if it lived up to its name. It must have "yellow cake" uranium in it. You know, some of the weapons of mass destruction that the Bush Admin. lied about in Iraq? Oh political humor...


Some of the skateboards given out at the event by the Chicago Youth Skateboard Project. I guess it went well. Unfortunately, I couldn't go...


BBQ


Nick, Andrew, and Frances


SME and Cliff


Frances


Noah, Nick, and Nate. The three N's...


Why do you look so sad Amanda?


Brent and Angela


This is the Old Town School of Music's Roots and Folk Music Festival. It's a good festival. The weather held out and kept people away, but it was enjoyable this year.


The music area with the Seltzer Library in the background


I believe this band's name was "Unibrow."


This was a Columbian group and they sang about gas prices. They must really hate the cost of gas since Columbia highly subsidizes gas since they nationalized their oil resources and own the Citgo Oil Company.


Dance!


The weird thing is I've seen a lot of clown balloon animal people things lately...


Playing with rope!


This is why Starbuck's Coffee costs $10 a cup. That's approximately $120 per gallon. If you buy their coffee, you lose your right to complain about gas prices. Anyway, look at this crazy display at the Lincoln Music Festival (name?). Megan and I refer to this at the "Cover Bar Band Festival." There's a lot of Dudebros and Hussies with hit or miss music...


Just an interesting shot


Some bad band


Some slightly better band


Here's a dinosaur cake from Dinkle's Bakery on Lincoln.


There's nothing like a creepy baby cake


Here's El Tinajon Restaurant in Roscoe Village at 2054 W. Roscoe. It's a really good place. They specialize in Guatemalan food


Here's my pork chop, which came with a billion plantains.


Here's Megan's Chicken dinner


HAPPY BIRTHDAY KATHERINE!!! Katherine celebrated her b-day at Goldie's in North Center at 3839 N. Lincoln. They're known for $3 wells, $1 PBRs, and $3 PBR pitchers. Coincidentally, it was Goldie's b-day the same night and they had balloons and a DJ.


I didn't really get this girl's name. Doreen? Torine? Her boyfriend's name was Noah and they were both nice from what I could tell over the obnoxiously loud DJ. Katherine's happy and Nick was around somewhere. Anyway, HAPPY BIRTHDAY AGAIN KATHERINE!


So, I'm at Toys 'R Us and Governor Blagovich (sp?) is shopping there too. This is his security van. I couldn't get a picture of him unfortunately. But, when I bike to Megan's apartment, I pass his house with guards around it all the time. After he got elected, he put a little plastic Playskool playground thing in his front yard to remind voters that he's a "family" man.


A pretty city shot...

That's it from Chi-town.

xoxo,

Mike