Weekly Photo Challenge: Patterns

11 May 2013 10 Comments

by smkelly8 in architecture, art, Blogging Challenge, Chicago, China, photos Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Sublime

Sublime

Regal

Regal

Classic

Classic

Regular

Regular

DSC_0896

Here’s how it works:

1. Each week, we’ll provide a theme for creative inspiration. You take photographs based on your interpretation of the theme, and post them on your blog anytime before the following Friday when the next photo theme will be announced.

2. To make it easy for others to check out your photos, title your blog post “Weekly Photo Challenge: (theme of the week)” and be sure to use a “postaday2013″ or “postaweek2013″ tag.

3. Subscribe to The Daily Post so that you don’t miss out on weekly challenge announcements. Sign up via the email subscription link in the sidebar or RSS.

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Restaurant Week: Tesori

08 Feb 2013 Leave a Comment

by smkelly8 in restaurant review, Review Tags: , ,

In Chicago it’s Restaurant Week from Feb. 1 – 10. Participating restaurants, some of which are very pricey like Ruth Chris and the Peninsula Hotel, offer a three course lunch for $22 and a three course dinner for $44.

Yesterday I met some friends for lunch at Tesori at 65 E. Adams. We had a great lunch. I loved my butternut squash soup and dessert, a chocolate pannacotta. My artesian ham sandwich was fine. My friends enjoyed their lunches as well. The veal and lobster ravioli pleased. The orange cake looked good too. Our service was fine and the atmosphere has a casual elegance.

I was surprised that two of my friends didn’t know about Restaurant Week. Many cities do this in the winter and it’s a great way to kick the winter doldrums.

Getting a Taxi at O’Hare

05 Feb 2013 1 Comment

by smkelly8 in travel Tags: , , , ,

Orange Colour Taxis.

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I arrived at O’Hare late Thursday night and needed a taxi home. So did lots of other people, but I imagine that’s usual. I called 303 Cabs and was told they were busy so it would be a 15-20 minute wait. After 10 minutes I went outside, but it was frigid so I went in. There’s a huge wind so it’s possible to easily see the cabs and their numbers. Mine was the easy to remember #1.

Now some cabs were waiting and waiting for their riders. A couple cabs had to wait at least 15 minutes. How I wanted to hop in one of these eluring cabs.

I waited and waited for mine. After *gasp* over an hour, I called 303 Cabs again. They offered a weak apology and said that I missed the cab. Poppycock. My eyes were peeled. Also, I reckoned by others behavior that no one got a cab in 15-20 minutes. 30 or 40 was more like it.

I also I need to tell visitors to Chicago that we have a rather  confusing means of getting a taxi. There is no queue or booth with personnel assisting travelers as other countries have. Each time I’m at the airport in arrivals I see and help people who’re trying to wave a taxi down. They don’t understand why none stop. I don’t fault them as it isn’t obvious what the procedure is.

It’s because in Chicago you must go to one of the information phones and  use the touch screen to call a cab. Follow the operator’s directions and with luck you’ll get a cab.

Now I’ve learned that the estimated times need some translation. Fifteen – twenty minutes in taxi-ese means over an hour. They won’t tell you “over an hour” because you’ll call another company. I don’t think it’s a bad idea to call a back up cab if you’re told to wait for 15 minutes.

Chicago is a town where being shrewd is the name of the game. Don’t feel bad. I’m surprised our motto isn’t “There’s a sucker born every minute.” So call two cabs and cancel the one that doesn’t make it there first. It’s just capitalism,  which isn’t always pretty.

It took me two hours to get a cab and drive home, about the same amount of time it took to fly from Boston to Chicago. When I got in the second cab, I saw Cab #1 pull up.

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Sepia Saturday

22 Sep 2012 18 Comments

by smkelly8 in Blogging Challenge, History, news, Sepia Saturday Tags: , , , , ,

Convicts? Really?

I’m from Chicago.  It’ll be more of a database than a post. Well, let’s see who we can find.
Al Capone, mob king pin during the depression. Impossible to catch till Elliott Ness got assigned to the case.

Frank Calabrese, Sr.

Implicated in 18 murders, sports gambling, racketeering

Calabreze, from the Family Secrets Trial, which I attended often in the summer of 2008. Here’s a good article by The Chicago Tribune’s John Kass, who’s written extensively on the trial. Riveting days in court as his son and brother Nick testified against him. Calabrese forced his son at age 14 go around with his uncle intimidating people who hadn’t paid up. They’d set fire to a garage, blow up part of a building, that sort of thing. Calabreze would rake in $400,000 a year from football betting. He was a loan shark and murderer. He’s currently living in a Federal prison.
Bonnie & Clyde – not from Chicago, but I liked the movie so I’m including them.

Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow

Butch Cassidy & The Hole in the Wall Gang

Remember the start of the movie?

Weekly Photo Challenge: Free Spirit

01 Sep 2012 11 Comments

by smkelly8 in art, Blogging Challenge, Chicago Tags: , , , , , ,

Marilyn Monroe: at her freest

Given her life, from a troubled childhood to a tragic early death, I don’t think Marilyn always embodied a free spirit, but here she sure does. Sculpture by Seward Johnson.

New to The Daily Post? Whether you’re a beginner or a professional, you’re invited to get involved in our Weekly Photo Challenge to help you meet your blogging goals and give you another way to take part in Post a Day / Post a Week. Everyone is welcome to participate, even if your blog isn’t about photography.

Here’s how it works:

1. Each week, we’ll provide a theme for creative inspiration. You take photographs based on your interpretation of the theme, and post them on your blog anytime before the following Friday when the next photo theme will be announced.

2. To make it easy for others to check out your photos, title your blog post “Weekly Photo Challenge: (theme of the week)” and be sure to use a “postaday2012″ or “postaweek2012″ tag.

3. Subscribe to The Daily Post so that you don’t miss out on weekly challenge announcements. Sign up via the email subscription link in the sidebar or RSS.

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Vivian Maier – A Great News Story

02 Aug 2012 3 Comments

by smkelly8 in Chicago, news Tags: , , , , ,

Maier in one of several self-portraits she too...

Maier in one of several self-portraits she took on the streets of Chicago (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Chicago Tonight has run a terrific story on Vivian Maier this week. Maier was a nanny all her life and lived a quiet life. It wasn’t till a man bought a large box of her photo negatives at a garage sale did anyone realize that Maier was probably the best street photographer of her era in Chicago.

Her black and white photos show drama, emotion, and beauty. I love that she lived her life in anonymity. Most of the 100,000 photos she took were never printed.

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Photo Workshop

21 Jul 2012 2 Comments

by smkelly8 in architecture, art, Chicago, culture, photos Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Reflection and Distortion

Under Cloud Gate

Exerciser

Prairie & City

Spitting Fountain?

I used a Groupon from Digital Photo Academy. Our instructor, a Chicago Tribune street photographer, was pretty good offering simple tips like suggesting we shoot from the hip, shoot from very low or very high, forget the rule of three, overexpose now and then for cool effect. Composition was the focus (excuse the pun) though we got some technical tips too.

The photos I took where I broke the usual rules weren’t that good. I will try them more though. The beauty of digital is that it costs nothing to goof around.

We started at The Cloud Gate, a.k.a “The Bean” and then went to the law by the Pritzger Pavilion where the city offers free yoga, pilates and zoomba lessons on Saturdays in the summer from 9 to noon.

We explored parts of the park I don’t frequent like the zig zagging bridge and the Lurie Garden with its wild prairie flora. We took some photos by the bridge by the Art Institute and continued to the very cool Crown Fountain.

The instructor did lose some of us three times so I’d say that part of his teaching needs work. It did get rather hot towards the end. If they offer this class in the fall, that’s the time to take it.

Millenium Park is fabulous in the summer though. It’s everything a modern park should be – a place to play, eat, drink, unwind, cool off, relax, renew and of course, people watch.

Coverage of Chicago’s Violence

10 Jul 2012 3 Comments

by smkelly8 in Chicago, news, opinion Tags: , , , , ,

After a top notch look at the hospitals caring for the shooting victims in Chicago, CBS Evening News interviewed Rahm Emanuel about the increased murder rate this summer. I found the piece disappointing. Since I live near Chicago, I know the statistics and the stories, such as seven year old Heaven Sutton’s murder. She was caught in the crossfire while she was selling snow cones and candy on the street with her grandma.

One shortcoming of the interview was its brevity. It seemed to last 2 minutes so by the time the problem was identified and Emanuel clarified Scott Pelley‘s depiction to his own liking as politicians do, there was little time to discuss how to address this problem. The other big problem was that Pelley just played softball with the mayor, whose chief of police is cutting the budget so that while in the past, when the murder rate went down, Chicago had 5 detective units, it now has 3. Also while after a shooting police strike force would move in, now they don’t.

Emanuel didn’t say much specific. He defended his new chief in spite of the poor results. He also went on a tangent about how it’s all about values and called for gang bangers to step away from children so that they don’t get hurt. His call seems unrealistic. Why would you assume a criminal is going to make it easier for someone shooting him to get shot? It’s incredibly naïve to appeal to a sense of valor. While the problem, like all crime, is a matter of morality, Emanuel had no plan on how to inculcate values. Pelley didn’t bother to question him on that. Pure softball.

Perhaps it’s not a national issue so Pelley went easy on Emanuel. Yet if it’s not a national story it doesn’t belong on CBS Evening News.  I wish Pelley would watch the BBC’s Hard Talk to sharpen his interviewing skills.

Marin conducting a different interview

Later Chicago Tonight did a splendid job on the same issue. Elizabeth Bracken recapped the issue and Carol Marin interviewed two aldermen, who’ve come forward questioning the new police strategy. Marin asked all the right questions and the interview never felt like a T-ball game. Pelley can attain this level and should.

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Sepia Saturday

24 Jun 2012 8 Comments

by smkelly8 in History, meme Tags: , , , , , ,

Source: Flickr: Field Museum Library

Here’s my first post for the Sepia Saturday collection. I do love history and if you’ve been to my blog much this spring, you know that I’ve gotten hooked on the 1893 World’s Fair so it makes sense that I’ve chosen the first Ferris Wheel as my contribution. If you’ve read Erik Larson‘s The Devil in the White City, you know all about the creation of the Ferris wheel.

Ferris wheel’s and enjoying heights through a variety of means have become commonplace. Imagine what such a ride was like the first time ever.

I just discovered this meme today. Next time I’ll post my take on Saturday.

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Timeless

12 May 2012 1 Comment

by smkelly8 in architecture, art, Chicago Tags: , , ,

Wooded Island

Plaisance

I really need to get these images and frame them.

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