Chicago's architecture

I've been to Chicago a number of times on business, but never paid a lot of attention to the architecture there. I got a little more interested when I read The Devil in the White City. If you haven't read it, you should. An excellent story about the 1893 World's Fair with a murder story mixed in. Extremely well written. But I diverge.

Several people attending Seth's wedding had gone on a "architecture tour boat ride" and recommended it. We had some time to kill on Sunday so Jim and Kathy Covaleski, Julie and I went for the ride. If nothing else, it makes you look up and pay attention to what you are seeing. Chicago has an amazing variety of interesting buildings.

I don't remember all the details about each building, but you can see that a plain, square building just wouldn't do.





This is looking straight up at the new Trump building.













Next time you are in Chicago, spend lots of time looking up and pay attention to the detail. An amazing amount of it just gets lost in the huge scale of the skyscrapers.

Seth Benson's wedding in Chicago

Julie and I went up to Chicago on Friday. We were there to see Bill and Loris Benson's son Seth get married. Bill and Loris are two of our best friends from Park City. As we landed in O'Hare airport and started for baggage claim, I saw something new: a place giving flu shots right there in the terminal. I guess that's something to do while waiting for your plane.



Our first stop was a dinner with Stuart and Laurie Jones. Julie met Stuart early in her IBM career and we have been close ever since. They have come to visit us in Beaufort and Park City. The picture I took at dinner was in poor light and looked terrible, so here they are at the coast a few years ago.



Below are Bill and Loris. They were kind enough to take some out of town guests out for some fun. We went to Second City, where so many of the famous SNL comedians got their start. It was great and almost too easy for the comics with an election in two weeks.

Here's Bill and Loris at the wedding.



The wedding and reception were held at the Palmer House. It's a gorgeous hotel and it was great being able to stay at the same place where the events were held.



I can't begin to capture all the architectural details, but they were everywhere.



Here are Seth and Jillian, shortly after becoming husband and wife. Jillian is one of the best female pole vaulters in the US. She just missed the summer Olympics by one qualifying spot.



This group is not one to stop a party early. After closing the reception, we wandered up to Bill and Loris's sweet suite. Here are our gorgeous dates hanging out on the couch. From lefft to right: Loris (Park City), Kathy (Park City), Julie (wife), Penny (California) and Kelly (California). The Benson's set of California friends were from the area where they lived and owned an orange grove.



Penny's husband Mark and Kathy's husband Jim. In Jim's defense, this was taken around 3:00 in the morning.



And now for something completely different. On Saturday morning, Jim Covaleski, Julie and I went out for breakfast. Jim found a place called Orange. They had a wonderfully different menu, so I took a picture of my dish: green eggs and ham. The green was from pesto and it was tasty!



On our last day in town we joined Jim and Kathy Covaleski for a wander around Chicago, doing some shopping, eating and a boat ride. The weather was perfect, as was the company.

Super breakfast

For the past year or so, Julie and I have been eating a healthy, tasty breakfast every morning. I give it credit for dropping my cholesterol by 60 points. The super breakfast is oatmeal, but not just any oatmeal.

• 1/4 cup McCann's Quick Cooking Irish Oatmeal
• 2 teaspoons chopped walnuts
• 2 teaspoons ground flax seed
• 1 teaspoon Splenda brown sugar
• Lots of cinnamon (I give it a good 5-10 shakes)
• 1/2 cup milk (we have been using Silk, a soy milk)

Nuke all this in the microwave for 4 minutes at power 6. Then throw in some fruit. We prefer raspberries. When they aren't in season, we buy bags of frozen ones and just keep some in the fridge. If you use dried fruit like raisins or cranberries, put them in before cooking.

The oatmeal and cinnamon are both great for cholesterol. The walnuts and flax seed have Omega 3s. The flax seed lowers the glycemic index, so you don't get a carb sugar spike. Fruit is always good for you. On top of all this, it tastes great. We thought it was a winter only thing, but we eat it year round. Yeah oatmeal!

Flowerzilla

We saw giant weeds, which I have been working hard to kill. We saw the end of fall color with a snow in Park City. By contrast, here are some wonderful flowers that bloom each fall when little else is going on. They are called Winter Daisies and I got them as a handout from our neighbor in Beaufort.



I figured the dog wasn't going to be as useful a size reference. I am six feet tall, so you can figure the flowers are somewhere in the 10-12 foot range. The amazing thing is that they die back to the ground each year, and then grow this tall again the next. Oh, and they spread, so you actually have to work to stop them.

Not nearly the size, but quite pretty are the asters. Some years they only bloom once. This year they decided to give it another go. There must be 1000 blooms on each plant.



The asters don't repopulate very easily, but if anyone wants a wheelbarrow load of winter daisies, just let me know.

And so winter begins....

Some low quality images nabbed from Park City's mountain cameras, but you can get the idea. The first real snow of the year. It was sunny and 76 here in Raleigh today.

The best dining in Raleigh

Julie and I went out for dinner last night to celebrate our 17th anniversary. Our restaurant choice was Saint Jacques, off of Falls of Neuse Rd. in North Raleigh. After much pondering, we have decided that this is the best restaurant we have found in the Triangle area. It is French cuisine and all the food is wonderful. The onion soup is better than either of us found in about a dozen trips to France. The ambience is nice and quiet, so it is easy to have a conversation. The wait staff is great: polite, attentive and knowledgable. We've been several times and each visit was outstanding.

So, if you are in Raleigh or the surrounding areas and haven't eaten here, you should give it a visit!

http://www.saintjacquesfrenchcuisine.com/

Is you educated?

Barack Obama:
Columbia University - B.A. Political Science with a Specialization in
International Relations.
Harvard - Juris Doctor (J.D.) Magna Cum Laude

Joseph Biden:
University of Delaware - B.A. in History and B.A. in Political Science.
Syracuse University College of Law - Juris Doctor (J.D.)

John McCain:
United States Naval Academy - Class rank: 894 of 899

Sarah Palin:
Hawaii Pacific University - 1 semester
North Idaho College - 2 semesters - general study
University of Idaho - 2 semesters - journalism
Matanuska-Susitna College - 1 semester
University of Idaho - 3 semesters - B.A. in Journalism

Mining coal

Out in Utah, there is a lot of push to do more mining and drilling. One hot topic is shale oil, which requires a HUGE amount of raw materials and processing. The industry swears they will do it "nicely". I ran across an article today that talks about coal mining in West Virginia. Instead of digging those holes (hard, expensive, dangerous), they are just blowing the tops off of mountains (cheap, fast). Not one or two mountains, 470 so far.

To those who support the mining industry, do you really believe anything they say about protecting the environment?

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/10/07/coal.river/index.html

More football

This weekend we had a noon home game with Boston College. As always, we were supposed to lose. We went with two neighbors, Jim and Carmela Saunders.

This guy had the right attitude. He came dressed to win.



This guy had a bad (drunken) attitude. He managed to fall asleep (pass out) right in the middle of the game. Fortunately, the crowd exploded after a 61 yard touchdown pass and woke him from nap time.



Being down by 14 in the fourth quarter, NC State managed to bring it back to a tie with about two minutes to go. We were looking good, but we just couldn't stop Boston College from scoring one more time to win the game. The weather was gorgeous. The game was exciting. Only the outcome was disappointing.

An endless loop

Our dog Jasper is built like a runner. Here is a picture of him back in the winter.



So, part of our job is to make sure the dog gets enough exercise so that he doesn't get bored and get into trouble. Mischief comes easy for a part Lab, part Border Collie.

This morning, Julie took Jasper on her early morning walk with some of the women in our neighborhood. Two laps around the 'hood is good for a bit less than 4 miles. Then I took him for a run, two more loops with an extra walking loop. Now he's done about 9 miles and we have just hit 10:00. On the way home, he stops to play chase for 5-10 minutes with a 1 year-old yellow lab.

We are thinking "Great, we wore him out". He seems to be thinking "This is awesome. I am getting more endurance every week!" By the end of November, we may have to have him chase the car to Durham each morning. Not sure how this ends....