Jimmy

a few weeks ago we came back from Cadillac with Jimmy, a young red maple that tried to make it in the forest in ben's parents' back yard. We had low expectations, we've never heard of anyone growing a maple tree in an apartment, but thought it could be a nice project. Some day, we'll have a house of our own, and when Jimmy grows out of his pot (and possibly hit the ceiling... :S) we can plant him in our back yard and enjoy its changing leaves in the fall, and its bloom in the spring.
Jimmy didn't do much for a long time. Most of his leaves were damaged because it was hammered by hail (like this?) at some point this winter (in his old home), and were ripped and had holes in them. we kept waiting for new leaves to grow at the end of the existing branches, but it didn't seem like he wanted to do that.

One day, about two weeks ago, we noticed that it's sprouting two new branches!
We follow him closely, and notice how much his new branches grow each day.

The following images show how well he's grown. the ones on the left are from Sep. 19th, and the ones on the right are from today -- less than 10 days later! i'm sorry the images are not from the same angle, the branches have grown so much that they can't fit in the image if i take it from the same angle.
it may be hard for you guys to spot the new branches 'cause they grew so much... the new leaves look a little pink (they slowly turn green though), that will give you a hint to where to look.

marmite

seems like ben has become a true Sharon member. his latest midnight snack: slice of bread with... Hummus and marmite. top that.

Redbull didn't give wings to chicago

a few weekends ago we went out of our way to get to the "Redbull Flugtag" event. in short, it's a wacky contest in which people come with their home-made flying machines, and try to make them fly. The only rule is that the 'machines' should only use human energy for fuel (with or without redbul).

I had very high expectations, since i've been to one of these events a few years ago, in Park Hayarkon in Tel Aviv. (here are some examples from the TA event.)

we were deeply disappointed.

First, let me say that Chicago has A LOT to learn from Tel Aviv, when it comes to crowd control, and the overall planning of a multi-participant event.
There were lots of people, as could be expected -- the weather was nice, and Chicagoans are just looking for things like that to do towards the end of summer, when cold-stay-at-home winter is around the corner. However, whoever designed this event set the stage so that only a couple hundred people can see it well. the other thousands had to figure it out somehow. the entire site was fenced with barricades, forcing you to enter and leave through 'gates'. you can imagine the stream of people trying to squeeze in and out, and the bottlenecks it caused. when we got there they were so packed, that they closed one gate to entry (people were flowing out of it, trying to escape the mess and disorder inside), so we had to walk all the way around till we found a way in.
the people trying to escape should have been a sign for us to stay away, but we came all the way by train -- so we didn't want to give up so soon.
we found a way in (between the toilets and the ambulance parking) and tried to squeeze in between the people and find a point from which we can see something. anything.
now would be a good time to explain the area:
this is a satellite image of the part of the beach.

this is the organizer's map (to which i added some stuff):
the 'L' shaped black thing is the 'stage' on which the flying machine were pushed and from the end of which they jumped into the water.only people standing in the red-marked area could really see anything. the rest had to satisfy their curiosity with looking at the screen, which was pretty good quality, but only faced north.

anyone standing to the south of the stage could not see ANYTHING, because the large screen, that was facing away from them, obscured the entire show.


so, in order to actually see any of what's going on, you HAD to be in the compound. you can easily see from the air picture above that there's lots of room for people just to the south, and it would have been great, if the design of the site had allowed them to see anything.
the stage is plenty visible even from far away down the beach:


The TA comparison, the stage was visible from almost anywhere in the park. crowd was easily managed regardless of the number of bikes, rollerblades, strollers and what not that people came with. there were huge screens and sound system that allowed you to lay down on the grass and enjoy the show, even if you decide to find yourself a more secluded corner far from dense areas.

back to Chicago, the view is obstructed for 75% of the beach. Our guess is that this layout was partially engineered by the city, who wanted to minimize traffic and onlookers between Oak Street Beach and North Beach. or, maybe Red Bull wanted to trap people in a confined area where they can hammer them with advertisements and make them buy their (overpriced) products.

Regardless of who made the event suck, don't waste your time going to the Chicago Flugtag next year!

(on a brighter note, we did enjoy the walk down the beach and the burrito we got on the way :))

ba li Knafeh

here's a picture

to go with this story!

Chicago Crime

A couple of nights ago, we came home and found police buzzing up and down Bryn Mawr. The normal entrance to our parking lot was blocked off by police, so we went around the block to the back entrance. On the way, we were cut off and almost splattered by carloads of undercover cops. The way they were driving, I was sure Osama Bin Laden had been spotted at the Red Line stop.

We parked and walked down the alley. There was a black Chevy Malibu, and a single bicycle cop standing guard over it. We asked him what was up.
"The car is hot [as in stolen], and the occupant took off running when they pulled him over," he said.
"Wow. Welp. Good luck!"

We rode the lone working elevator upstairs, and looked down in the alley again from our apartment:
Several police cars (not shown) and cops were tearing the car apart. The ATV cops from the park later showed up too. If you look closely, you can see the childrens' red wagon that was in the trunk. They later pulled out a golf bag, and whole bunch of other crap. There were no less than 20 cops on the scene.

Now comes the part I want to get to the bottom of. I check in the paper the next day, and found this story.
They shot the guy! It happened about 3 miles due west of here -- the 12th police-related fatality this year. Apparently, a weapon was found in the car, but as with many of these police-related stories, I have a hard time learning about the details on the internet.

My usual standby is Chicago Crime. They usually run about a week behind, so there's no info on this shooting yet. But while I wait for this to be updated, I usually waste time looking at all kinds of other crimes in the city. For instance, dice games in parks can be found primarily in 3 regions of the city,and homicides cluster on the South and West sides. There's also still a market for crack in Chicago.

More to come...

day at the beach

Megan and Kevin are here for the weekend, and after debating for a while last night (over a forty of black kobra for the boys and classy baylies for the girls) we decided to go down to north beach and watch the Chicago's 50th Air and Water Show.

The beach was full of people, but we found a nice spot by the water, where we met our friend Sarah, and leaned back to watch the show.
It started with some small planes doing acrobatic maneuvers, flips and twists (these must have some professional names which the commentator said but i don't remember), buzzing really low above the water.
Soon after came fighter jets (of the type you see in top gun) - and i was speechless. they fly fast, they fly slow, they fly straight up - turn around and fall down, crazy stuff. i kept thinking how Assaf should have been there. i'll do my best to make him come next year!

here are a couple of pictures i took with my phone camera... should have brought cami. on the other hand, it's kinda hard to grasp the effect with a still camera. the sound doesn't come out just right ;)


Stealth Bomber


Super Hornet

later on, we moved to the beach across the street from us, and, for the first time here, did what everybody else seem to do there: grill!
we got a tiny little Weber grill the other day (it looks like a baby Weber), and Ben grilled some burgers, potatoes, onions and sweet corn that we imported from Michigan.

all in all, an awesome day, even without counting the late night margaritas and flan at the little mexican cafe :)