Up until last week, I didn’t have one from my cubicle. Now, thanks to the strange progress of the dismantling of the Sun-Times building I have been granted a little portal to the east. (Note: if you look closely through the building you can see the bridge from which the enterprising gentleman from yesterday’s post was evicted.) Granted, I’d prefer a cataclysmic immolation of the building like you see on TV (mostly because the building is an architectural abomination), but that’s really not possible with the river right there. Still, that’s got to be safer than what they are doing now. I’m no OSHA supervisor, but should you really be using a frontloader to destroy the roof that is the only thing keeping you (and the frontloader) from plummetting to the next floor down? Oh, and Mr. Worker-Guy who randomly destroys things on the roof with a giant axe: I want your job.

Some people outrun drawbridges, others live in them. For three years Richard Dorsay has been living in a makeshift home amidst the girders under the upper roadway of the Lake Shore Drive bridge that spans the Chicago River. The media is calling him homeless but he apparently had rigged electricity from the bridge allowing him to have a TV, microwave, and Playstation in there! He even washed in the normally-empty control-house that operates the bridge’s ups and downs. Best of all, Mr. Dorsay would ride the bridge as it went vertical to let the sailboats through. The cops evicted him Sunday after a former roommate — bridgemate, girderpal? — ratted him out. This guy deserves some sort of ingenuity award from the city — and a warm place to live.

It may not be a Miracle on 34th St., but the annual CTA Holiday Train is fairly amazing. I happen to love this little tradition. The L adds a flatbed car and lets Santa and his reindeer and elves ride it. Each of the passenger cars is extensively decorated and staffed by CTA volunteers dressed as elves. Holiday tunes are piped in. The best part of it all is watching kids on the street look up and spot Santa and his crew flying past on the elevated tracks — as close as they will ever come to actually seeing the sleigh airborne, I’d wager. Note that this is wintertime Chicago. The wind on that flatbed car has to slice through the volunteers like so many daggers. Yet, they are all cheer.

This year the effort was unusually heroic because of the financial straits the CTA finds itself in. First they cancelled the special train over guilt at the operational costs and in light of upcoming layoffs. Then they reinstated it after the public made it clear that this was unacceptable. I believe the CTA came to realize that their efforts at winning the hearts and minds of its riding public in the PR war for better funding was ultimately more important than the costs involved.

For me, the once-yearly sight of a car full of passengers actually smiling and speaking to one another — rather than diligently avoiding eye contact as is normal behavior on the L — in itself is a great thing, a gift of sorts.

We were getting a complex with New York and LA and Paris getting wiped out so often. Luckily Chicago is back amongst the cities that matter enough to be annihilated by natural forces. CBS has given us Category Six: Day of Destruction.

Quick quiz. Which of these statements is the least believeable?

• A category six hurricane develops over Lake Michigan
• The streets of Winnipeg, Manitoba standing in for Chicago, IL
• Nancy McKeon acting in anything but “The Facts of Life”
• On-the-cheap CGI tornadoes pixellating in high-definition

Tough to answer. Perhaps the finale on Wednesday will settle the matter.

Speaking of destruction, check out this photoshoppery of the east edge of downtown Chicago destroyed and submerged. Nice job with Navy Pier. (Not from the CBS series; I found it on the web, but I can’t remember where. Anyone know?)

So here’s a new challenge for runners who live in urban areas bisected by waterways. Outrunning drawbridges. In Chicago you know that fall is here (meaning winter will be here tomorrow) when the drawbridges on the Chicago River are raised to let the sailboats back in from Lake Michigan for dry docking. So, the other day I went for a run at lunch. I had forgotten about the drawbridges — I think they raise them twice a week during the fall — and I found myself unable to cross the river to get to the path that takes me to the lake. OK, no big deal. If you know Chicago you know that you do not have to go very far to the next bridge. Except that my pace was just behind that of the boats and I could tell I was going to be repeatedly thwarted if I did not pick it up. Worst of all, the north side of the river east of Wabash (where Trump’s new paean to himself is going up) has these high stone railings which only permit the very tops of the sail masts to poke out as they slide by on the river. Looks exactly like shark fins. Just when I thought I’d make it to the next bridge one of the fins would slide into view and I knew I’d lost the next bridge. Eventually I did make it past the last bridge (Lake Shore Drive) and got onto the lake. But I rather enjoyed seeing if I could outrun Gilligan and company as they took their last rides of the season back into the city.