Week Two Update

Well, everyone's getting settled into the new house. We're pretty lucky to have a fully enclosed back yard so the kids can play outside with no fears of running into the street or anything. We bought one of those blow-up pools, so they're having a grand old time splashing around in that thing.

Problem is, when it drains.. hoo boy. We started putting it on top of one of the drains in the back yard (is that a California thing to have a drainage system in your yard?) so that once it runs out, it goes down the drain instead of creating a swamp in the yard.

I've had to mow that thing twice now, and probably should have done it more; but I've been out of town so much.

Leah's in school now.. first day pictures are up on flickr for all to see.

As of now we're planning to be back up in the Upper Midwest around Christmas time. More info to follow.....

What I've been drinking

it's only fair that if I ridicule Corey's Premium, I can post mine.

I can't let this go by.

This is a travesty. For someone who used to drink good beer with me, it's shameful.

Truly, a sad state of affairs.

What's next? Dogs and cats living together? Mass hysteria? Moving back to... (gasp) the SUBURBS? (oh, yeah, wait, that's already happened.)

An open invitation to the three readers I have out there on the Internets -- if I ever get caught drinking the San Francisco equivalent of Premo.. whatever that is.. please put me out of my misery. Or, at least, ridicule me online.

We're here!

We made it to California in one piece... wiped out, but here. There are a couple of airplane pictures up on flickr, so go check them out.

Nothing fun or interesting to say. We're all exhausted. Only three more nights in hotels until we get our stuff back.

The big move update, part 1

Well, it's started -- the big five-person move to San Francisco. The car shipper guy came this morning to pick up our cars.. after the big inland hurricane last night left trees down and roads flooded all over Chicago, I wasn't so sure they'd be here; but they were -- ninety minutes early! The phone rang at 6:30am.

It's fun when all the neighbors think your cars are being repossessed... I can only imagine what they were thinking -- "Why is he standing there, talking to that repo man as he puts the cars on the truck? Why isn't he mad?"

The company that we're using to move cars is eBay Motors' "preferred" car shipper, so the driver had lots of fun stories to tell about cars he delivered to people who'd never seen them, and the reactions that they give. He told about one guy who'd ordered a 70's-era Charger. This car looked mint in the pictures, but when it actually arrived, it apparently was a different story. It'd been in some kind of accident, the firewall was all jacked, axle kind of bent, etc. The sad thing is, once you get to that point, you've already purchased the car so you're kind of screwed. The guy who bought it didn't even want to sign for it, but he had to; he owned it so he was responsible for it. After delivery, you have to fight it out with the seller and eBay. Good luck with that!

Next on the hit parade -- packing, which starts Monday. We all will move into a hotel while this process is going on. Our place is way too small for five people and eight million half-packed boxes.

New pictures...

I've also added some new pictures on flickr. Go check them out...

The new gig.

I started at the new place in San Francisco last week... so far, so good. There's quite a lot of travel, especially at first; the family is all back in Chicago so I'm doing a fair amount of 1,800-mile commuting via American Airlines. Everyone's moving the last week in August, so it won't be for long.

Much electronic ink has been spilled over the bridge collapse in Minneapolis. Fortunately, to the best of my knowledge, no one I know was on the bridge or around it when it happened. It's kind of disconcerting to see the bridge in the river, knowing that I have been over that thing probably 500 times in my life. I was in San Francisco when it happened, driving out to our new house in Oakley, and they broke into the radio newscast to announce that it'd happened.

This week, I'm in New York City. We stay in downtown, not far from Ground Zero, because the bank's offices are on Wall Street. One of the ways to coming into Manhattan from LaGuardia Airport is via the FDR Drive.. of course, Manhattan is an island, and how do you get onto islands? Bridges. The FDR runs along the eastern shore of Manhattan and not only did we pass over a bridge to get to the FDR, it runs under every bridge between Manhattan and Brooklyn/Queens from 113th Street south. Check the google map -- there are probably 20 of them, all told.

Not to mention that every time I've been to NYC -- and this time is certainly not excluded -- all of the bridges seem to be under some kind of repair.

No one seems to know what happened in Minneapolis.. whether it was the repair, whether it was as stress cracks, the deicing system installed several years ago, whatever; but it makes you think. I'd always been a "no-fear" bridge guy -- I did the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Walk, even -- but I thought twice passing under all of the bridges on the FDR.

Of course, chances are the guy driving the black car was going to kill me long before any crappy NYC bridge fell on my head... but there it is.

The big news...

Well, the story can now be told.

Today was my last day at ABN AMRO Bank. I've been offered -- and have accepted -- a job in San Francisco. The new company is going to move the whole family out there. I start in San Francisco on July 30th, with everyone coming sometime in the first week of September (give or take.)

In true Inter-tubes style, here's a FAQ:

Q. Why San Francisco?
A. That's where the new bank wants me. It was either that, or New York. Those who know me know I have no love for the Center of the Universe.

Q. Won't you slide off the earth when the Big One hits?
A. We'll be living in East Bay, past the San Andreas Fault. If I'm at work, yes. If I'm at home, probably not; although our place may or may not become beachfront property.

Q. Just how far away from San Francisco do you need to live if you want to avoid paying $2 million for a 700 square foot studio condominium?
A. Sacramento. No, really. Well, almost; eastern Contra Costa County. It's about 50 miles from San Francisco by car.

Q. Hell of a commute, no?
A. Thanks to the wonders of CTA and Metra (Hi, Lunt Bus!) my place -- a whopping nine miles from my office now -- is 75 minutes to work. Out there, it's about 80. A rounding error!

Q. What are you doing for the next two weeks, since you're not going to work?
A. Thanks to the bank's policy of asking people to leave when they resign, if they're going to the competition, taking a two-week paid vacation!

Q. Do you have new phone numbers/new email/new addresses?
A. No. No. No. We will in September.

Q. Will you update your blog more frequently?
A. Probably. I've been on embargo for a while, what with the negotiations and such; it's pretty much all that's been going on in my life for quite some time. Now that I've resigned, and I don't need to keep that particular secret any more...

Q. You're not renting a U-Haul to drive to San Francisco, are you?
A. Nope. The bank has hired this guy to take care of it.

Image ganked from I Can Has Cheezburger?

Identify the city.

Aw, crap, what am I getting myself in to? They need signs for this?

There's a 95% chance of some big changes coming up here soon... I will post more about it once I get some arrangements made.

**chirp**

That sound you hear? Yes. Crickets.

Not cicadas, although those are supposed to be around here; the Great Cicada Invasion of 2007 never materialized (at least, not yet) here in Chicago. The burbs are reported to have a bunch, but I haven't seen one yet. I live in an older neighborhood, too; nothing's changed here since 1990 when the last bunch of these guys laid eggs and croaked. So, who knows where they went... but that's ok. I don't really want to hear three kids running around, screaming about the "icky bugs." Spiders are bad enough. Three-inch long flying cockroaches would cause heart attacks.

There's been some stuff going on around here which cannot be posted.. yet. Stay tuned. I promise to update more frequently than every month, starting with the resume-polishing that I've been doing. I sat in a small cubicle (smaller than my own!) in the burbs today taking a three and a half hour exam (which, yay for me, I passed!) that now allows me to put the letters "CTP" after my name on my resume. High excitement!

Policy change...

So is this farewell to Zimm's Blog (and others?)

Looks like the Army has decided to impose censorship on blog posts from members of the Army in Iraq and other places. According to the article, some leeway is supposed to be given to individual unit commanders.

Now I don't have any military experience, but I do have management experience. I can tell you, from experience, that when you leave things up to "manager's discretion," 90% of those managers immediately enter "cover your ass mode." That means that whatever the activity that's up to "discretion" is, is immediately disallowed. No manager wants to be called on the carpet and asked to justify why their employee did something that was allowed by "discretion," when the boss's boss doesn't have the same idea of what's ok and what's not.

I can only assume that this holds true for military commanders as well.

From a political standpoint, it's pretty obvious that one of the few remaining strong PR voices in favor of our presence in Iraq is that of the folks on the ground themselves. The political leadership in the US lacks credibility (that's being polite, I think) and many of us look to the opinions of the people actually in the country to find out what they really think.

While I understand the need to make sure that people aren't leaking anything important -- what's that WWII saying, "Loose lips sink ships?" -- this broad brush is limiting everything. Are any of these bloggers really saying "hey, Iraqis, we're attacking HERE tomorrow?"

I certainly haven't seen it on Zimm's Blog...

aw, crap.

I know, it's been a long time since I've posted. I've been busy, my travel schedule has been hectic, three children have been vomiting (although not at the same time, good thing,) yada yada.

I visited Clark Devon Hardware (see this picture) and it was as expected - completely old school. I'm going back tonight to have three screens made.

But, what brings me from my hiatus? This little tidbit. For those keeping track, this makes my fifth corporate merger in twelve years.

I promise, I'll be posting more frequently...

Got Any Jacks?

Miami Airport
Originally uploaded by bryenz.

The American Airlines terminal in Miami is undergoing "modernization" right now. Rumor has it this will be done in 2015 -- apparently in Miami, like most other places, public works projects take eons to actually complete. Going through Terminal D, it looks like you're in the middle of a giant construction war zone.. then you get to the "smoking room" - they still have one! - where all the smokers are in a hermetically-sealed glass room surrounded by clouds. It kind of looks like a "cancer under glass" exhibit. Further on, you get to the completed part..

There's some pretty cool public art in the completed spaces, too. This one, titled "Got Any Jacks?", are replicas of actual fish found off the coast of Florida.

Busy-ness

I seem to be on a posting schedule of about once a week here, so in the best tradition of infrequently updated blogs, let's do the Week In Review:

This week, I..

• ..went to Miami on Sunday evening, didn't get there until 11:30pm, and got to see absolutely none of the city except for that part of it between the airport and Coral Gables. Which, just sayin', isn't much.
• ..went to Troy, MI on Tuesday. Flying into Detroit was interesting. Now that I'm an American Airlines flyer, we get to fly into the "old" terminal at Detroit (also known as the Aviation Ghetto, apparently.) Wow. Someone described it as "retro." They were being generous.
• ..drove from Troy to Grand Rapids on Wednesday. Dear Western Michiganers: Why do you insist on putting "Gd Rapids" on all of the expressway signs? Is it really that difficult to spell "Grand?" I mean, really; budgets are tight and all that, but three letters per sign can't be that much.
• ..flew back from Gd Grand Rapids to Chicago on Thursday. The airport there is pretty nice, comfortable and certainly not busy. The flight was interesting because of chaos caused when one of the luggage conveyor trucks at O'Hare ran into the E-145 that American Eagle was flying into GRR, thus causing one full flight to be canceled. Not many rebooking options exist from GRR-ORD, unfortunately. I feel sorry for the gate agents at GRR that had to work that flight!

Next week brings Houston and Dallas. Then, believe it or not, I'm back here for about a week and a half, so I might actually be able to get used to sleeping in my own bed again!

Separated at birth?

Separated at birth?
Originally uploaded by bryenz.

Elmer Fudd, cartoon superhero and nemesis of "Wascally Wabbit" Bugs Bunny..

and..

Bernie Stone, Chicago 50th Ward Alderman-For-Life

Whoever advised Alderman Stone to put his picture in the 'o' in his name apparently has no recollection of Looney Tunes cartoons. There's another version of this campaign poster floating around which has his picture actually larger than the 'o' - his head kind of sticks out the top - making it much more like the Looney Tunes thing. Alas, these campaign signs have disappeared.

This ward, like most in Chicago, has a history of aldermanic election dirty tricks, including campaign poster/sign theft. I can't imagine why, but I think all of Stone's signs with his mug in the 'o' have disappeared except for this one, located way up the side of a dry cleaners on California and Rosemont.

Why steal it when you can take a picture and make fun on the Internets?

Stone's platform for re-election this year seems to be basically "I'm around, I've done some stuff, who the hell are these guys running against me?" His campaign lit brags up achievements from 1978 (!) I think he's actually running scared this time.. he's in a runoff, and he's sending his precinct captains (read "hired goons") around to bully voters into coming out for the runoff election in April. Usually no one gives a crap about the runoff elections, so the more people his hired goons captains can drag up, the better off he is.

part two in a series..

Urban Planning
Originally uploaded by bryenz.

..of pre-teen snickering..

This is in Troy, Michigan. My company's main office in Michigan is located on this road.

Yes, you perverts. There is also a Hooters on this road.

I suppose if there's one thing in my travels I'm finding, it's the ability to take these kind of pictures. Sad, isn't it?

the graffiti of love...

Walter Payton?
Originally uploaded by bryenz.

see on the bus stop bench at the corner of California and Lunt, Chicago. I wonder if "Jayne" knows that she's Sweetness? ..or that she shares a nickname with Walter Payton?

Down, down, down...

What's this world coming to?

In the Cleveland airport, the "muzak" is currently playing Rock Lobster by the B52's. And not some crappy "instrumental" mix, either; it's the real thing, Fred Schneider and all.

Hooray for the 80s (actually, 70s? wasn't this from then?) being considered elevator music.

Sweet merciful crap, I'm old.

*snicker*

boobys
Originally uploaded by bryenz.

I don't know what's better:

a) this dog stand is called 'Booby's'
b) Hank Hill apparently is holding up the sign

Discuss.

PS - for anyone in the area, this is in Niles on Milwaukee, a little southeast of Golf Mill Mall. I've never eaten there, so I don't know if it's any good. If anyone's checked it out, leave a comment.

It's much warmer than this now.

Remove before flight
Originally uploaded by bryenz.

Nothing interesting has gone on this week.. it's sort of been the "calm before the storm."

My travel schedule picks up in earnest Tuesday night. In the next week and a half, I'll be in Cleveland, Livonia and Grand Rapids, MI, and Houston (and perhaps Dallas.)

I'm beginning to feel like my grandfather. He traveled around the country fixing large industrial saws and other machines. For what it's worth, I'm glad I don't have to tote around his enormous case of tools. The laptop weighs much less. However, he didn't have to go through the ridiculousness that is the TSA screening... I suspect if he was told that he couldn't take his regular-size can of shaving cream through -- you know, more than three ounces! -- it would have been an interesting sight to say the least.

Hopefully more will come soon. If nothing else, I'll have some more pictures of the inside of airports. Try not to hold your breath in anticipation.

Part Two of an ongoing series...

metra
Originally uploaded by bryenz.

...titled "Goofballs On The Metra"

This evening's commute featured this fine specimen, who you can see loudly gabbing on his cell phone. This conversation was about his (hopefully ex-) wife. He regaled the entire half of the train car with stories of this woman, how childish she is, and how much he can't stand her because he's a "saint" and puts up with all her "shit." And so on, and so on. For at least twenty minutes.

Sir. Do you not realize that we can ALL HEAR YOU? Do you think we all WANT TO HEAR YOU?

No.

See that empty seat to your left? That person got up and went into the vestibule because he didn't want to hear you talking smack about this woman any more. He got sick of it. We ALL got sick of it.

Oh, and by the way. A piece of fashion and comfort advice might be in order. It's 25 degrees outside and there's still snow and ice around. No matter how nice that sun looks, it's still cold. Socks may be an appropriate attire choice. Consider it.

First commenter wins the prize!

Congrats, Corey.. sorry, no prize.

The car in the terminal is a 1949 Buick Roadmaster Riviera.

Random Chicago Holiday: Casimir Pulaski Day

Happy Casimir Pulaski Day to all six of my readers!

Happy what, you might say? In Chicago, the first Monday in March is Casimir Pulaski Day. Read all about it from our friends at Wikipedia: link.

I didn't even know this holiday existed until I moved here. Despite all the crap I take about "bankers' hours" and excessive holidays, I am actually at work today as are 80% of the rest of the people in town. City workers are, of course, off. Chicago schools are closed -- surprise! -- in their effort to move towards a blissful goal of zero actual instructional days in a year. And there's no garbage pickup today.. leaving piles of crap in our alley for the squirrels to rustle through. (a side note: these alley squirrels are vicious. They chew through thick plastic garbage cans. They're almost as bad as the rabbit in Monty Python's Flying Circus.)

I can't find in any of the CP Day lit (well, the two websites I saw this morning doing my diligent research for this post) why Chicago in particular would celebrate this holiday and other areas would not.. other than the fact that Chicago is the second largest Polish city in the world (actual statistic, not made up.)

for those old car buffs..

The most interesting thing in the Flint airport.
Originally uploaded by bryenz.

identify the car and win a prize! *


* no actual prize will be awarded

This looked cooler in person.

Delayed due to this?
Originally uploaded by bryenz.

Taken from Gate 6 at Flint airport. Yes, there are actually something like ten gates in this airport.

The snow looked a lot better in person. It was those fun fat snowflakes that feel like you're being hit by snowballs as they fall from the sky.

Something to see...

Frost
Originally uploaded by bryenz.

so I'm sitting at Rogers Park Metra a couple of cold weeks ago... but it was sunny, so here's what happens to Dish Network dishes when the sun shines on roofs.

The frost shadows are even in the same shape of the little arm thingy that holds the receiver out. This can't possibly have lasted very long...

My favorite Chicago picture.

Washington and Wells
Originally uploaded by bryenz.

I took this picture when I first moved to Chicago, in the fall of 2003. It's from the Washington and Wells El stop in the Loop.

Believe it or not, I took it with a crappy point and shoot two-megapixel camera....

Ugh, I'm tired.

Sorry, readers.. all four of you (or five, or something.. how many of you are there anyway?)

It's been a very long and exhausting week and I just don't have it in me to be witty, interesting or even post any of the pictures I took. I have some cool snowstorm pictures from my three hour tour delay in Bishop International Airport, Flint, Michigan.

Note to Flint airport authorities: Put the coffeeshop on the airside, not the landside. The War on Liquids means that the delicious coffee (is it delicious? who knows?) can't be taken through security and is thus useless to those of us on the airside sitting around waiting for nuclear snowflakes to end.

Work informed me of three new trips today that I get to book through our wonderfully easy to use travel website. So, here are the upcoming trips on which (hopefully) I might take an interesting picture or two:

Troy, MI
Grand Rapids, MI
Cincinnati, OH
Cleveland, OH
New York, NY
Wilmington, DE
Houston, TX

Hope all is going well with everyone, especially those of you in Minnesota, also known as Land o' Snow, apparently. I don't want to hear any more bitching from the winter sports people. You have enough snow now. Go play in it.

Not just snow... it's POWER SNOW

Greetings from Bishop International Airport, Flint, MI. No, there are no public tubes to the internets here, so I'm posting from my BlackBerry. This is probably the last time I'll do this since the posting interface sucks on a two-inch screen, but I digress.

There is apparently some kind of apocalypse at O'Hare because my flight is over two hours late and rising. This storm has wreaked havoc with air travel. O'Hare was scrod all weekend and apparently isn't much better right now, even though the weather is just moderate IFR (2mi visibility, 900 broken/2000 overcast).

When you cram every possible takeoff/landing op into a place, and things slow down even a smidge, any delay ripples through the system like a tsunami. Hence, sitting in the Flint internet-less business center giving myself BlackBerry Thumb.

New link.

Someone sent me a link to this blog written by someone staying over the winter in Antarctica. This is the kind of interesting stuff that makes it worth sorting through all the spam, HERBAL V!@GRA, porn and other crap that clogs the tubes to the Internets.

Go check it out. As most of the Upper Midwest braces for the STORM OF THE CENTURY!!11!11111!!!!!!, read about how it's 90 degrees below zero with 100-mph winds. Then go outside and be grateful for sleet and freezing rain because it means it's close to 32 degrees above zero.

Route 96. Lunt. To Bryn Mawr. Red line.

New bus!
Originally uploaded by bryenz.

Now that we live in the (relative) wilderness of West Rogers Park, my commute to downtown is a bit more complex than before. Any decent way for me to get between here and there generally involves at least one, and usually two, transfers between buses and trains.

I've been taking the Lunt bus for a while now because it's usually the quickest way to work and doesn't involve a long slog on the California bus into Evanston (go three miles north to go south? Only on CTA)

Well, Lunt is the red-headed stepchild of CTA. It runs only during the week, ends at 7pm or something similarly early, and usually gets equipment that looks as if it was salvaged from the Glorious Socialist People's Transit System Of Moscow, circa 1986. Needless to say, these buses break down a lot and don't run on time.. so there have been countless mornings standing at California and Lunt waiting on a transfer that's not going to arrive.. blackberry messages to the office saying "guess what? bus is late again!" - that sort of thing. It's like The Little Bus Line That Could, but actually can't.

This is one of those cases where CTA is deferring maintenance on their equipment, because the state doesn't fund them.. and this is the kind of crap that happens, which makes riders want to use cars instead, meaning ridership goes down, fare collections go down, etc etc, vicious cycle, and so on.

Well, look at this. CTA put a new bus on the Lunt line the past couple of mornings! It even has straps for people that have to stand! It runs! On time! And doesn't break down!

Too bad I'm not going back downtown until next Wednesday again (travel) so by then they'll get the Moscow buses back, no doubt.

Roadblogging: Pittsburgh

Pittsburgh
Originally uploaded by bryenz.

Not the greatest picture ever.. but these days the airport people aren't real keen on people taking pictures inside the airport. They think you might be a terrorist or something.

As of last fall, I have switched careers.. sort of. I used to have a back-office operations gig, where they sit you in front of a computer and make you actually produce things. In my case, I had people working for me that actually had to produce things.. but the same concept applies. Management generally doesn't let the back-office monkeys out of the back-office to do anything of interest.

Now I have one of those jobs where I don't actually "produce" anything, but I'm exponentially busier than I was before.. how does that work, again? A big part of the job involves travel to visit clients, conduct training seminars, that kind of thing. This travel takes me to glamorous places such as:

• Stamford, CT (I did not visit the Dunder-Mifflin office, as it had closed by then)
• Jersey City, NJ (please don't be jealous)
• Pittsburgh, PA

..and others. As I travel this wonderful country -- mostly one city in one day, out and back on the same day -- I'll try to take a picture or two of something interesting and share it with everyone. Sadly, all I saw of Pittsburgh was the inside of the airport, the expressway from the airport to downtown (nice traffic, gang; what urban planning genius said that you can only have one two-lane expressway into downtown from the west side of town? ..and hey, what a great idea, let's run it through the side of a mountain?) and an office building/operations center.

Plus it rained. So we had that going for us, which was not really nice.

Next week brings Flint, MI. When I signed up for this, they said, "Hey, you'll go to New York sometimes, California, Seattle, that kind of place." Instead, I get Flint and Troy, MI.

No disrespect intended to Flint or Troy, but c'mon.. it's not New York.

Best graffiti ever.

Best graffiti ever.
Originally uploaded by bryenz.

Found at Metropolis Coffee Company.

This picture is for Corey and Eric

Hardware clock
Originally uploaded by bryenz.

I bet you wish you had this in front of your place...

The 'numbers' between 12, 3, 6 and 9 are hex nut heads.

Not a very fancy website, but it fits a place with wrenches for clock hands.

Well, that didn't take long.

So you know that promise I made to not be political? ..the one I made yesterday? Well, it's gone.

A friend pointed me in the direction of this article in the Washington Post.

Please take about ten minutes and go read it. Read the whole thing. Do not skim. Do not skip sections. The ten minutes it'll take you to read it will be minutes well-spent.

Regardless of your:

-- political leaning
-- opinion about George Bush
-- opinion about the war
-- opinion about the military

this is a must-read article.

Frankly, the fact that our soldiers, hurt in combat, are coming back to conditions such as this is deplorable. Everyone, this is not ok.

The current leadership spouts, "Support the troops!" and makes it sound as if any kind of dissent whatsoever is seditious and gives the terrorists more ammunition to use against us. Well, guess what? How can this be considered "supporting the troops?"

When soldiers who lose their arms are forced to come back and live in roach-infested hospital rooms... when soldiers who lose their legs are forced to wear shorts because they don't have any pants to wear, and are then kept away from a ceremony for a comrade... when soldiers get Purple Hearts but no underwear... how can this be considered supporting the troops?

I support the troops.

I am related to one of the troops.

A former employee of mine has resigned her position to become one of the troops.

I want the troops to come home in one piece. (side note: and now you know why!)

But I cannot, in good conscience, support an administration that uses money to build bridges to nowhere in Alaska ($423 million! at least!) yet allows wounded combat vets to hang out with la cucaracha.

Watch your back, Eric!

So one of the big reasons for this blog is to keep people updated on what's going on.. because I'm busier than (insert analogy here) most of the time.

My cousin Eric ships out to the Middle East today (via training classes somewhere a little less sandy.) He's Navy Reserve.. he served his time in the early nineties and is still in. When this whole fracas broke out in 2002, I lived a few miles from him and remember asking, "Do you think there's any chance your unit will end up going over there?"

Famous last words: "No, it's an Army and Marines thing. They don't need an F14 crew chief."

Without getting into any kind of political discussion -- if there's one thing the blogosphere doesn't need, it's another bloviating political blog -- watch yourself over there. There are people here waiting for you to come back in one piece, with all pieces attached.

For updates on what's going on in (as he calls it) "the crappy sandbox," visit his blog.

Lower your car insurance premiums?

...with this wonderful contraption.

What is there to do other than sail in Perth, Australia? I guess this guy answers the question for us.

Who the hell is this guy?

relaxed on Metra?
Originally uploaded by bryenz.

So you might know that we've had a bit of snow here in Chicago this week..

• Tuesday, we got about a foot or so, depending on where you are.. southsiders got more
• Wednesday, the closer you were to the lake, the more you got; lake effect!
• Saturday morning, we got another three inches or so

As you can imagine, it's slushy, dirty, salty, sandy, all of the above. Trains and buses are a mess, everyone's car is covered in grime, people are tracking salt and crud everywhere, and so on.

So what do you do if you're a Metra commuter coming in from Evanston? Well, apparently, you get on the train, snag two seats upstairs, kick off your shoes and stretch out! Meanwhile, people are standing in the stairwells, scrunched in the vestibules and packed in the aisles so the conductors can't get by. I suppose I should at least be happy he didn't leave his shoes on.. at least there isn't snow and salt on the seat, just foot funk.

Honestly, I'm surprised someone didn't bring him his pipe and slippers.

Asshat.

Is this thing on?

I am officially the last person to set up a weblog. All of these companies can now shut down because if I'm going to do this, then everyone who's interested in blogging has already started their blog.

Welcome to my Internet home for useless information. I figured that since everyone else in the family was doing it, and since I'm now officially the second-farthest away member of the family, I could join in as well.