So I says to Da Mayor, I says, “Give ’em hell in Congress, sir.” He says “I’ll try.” He turns to exit as the plane door opens and we walk down the jet bridge to go our separate ways into D.C.

I wonder how he did?

1. “Your address is the same number as this cab. I’ve been lookin’ at it [the number] all day. Mind if I pull over and buy a Lotto ticket?”
2. “Corrupt? Like someone slipped pornography in?” Referring to the the error message about a corrupt file in an aborted boot sequence of Windows 2000 on the tourist info LCD panel.
3. “You see those people standing there staring at the wall under the highway? They are worshipping some image of the Virgin Mary in a water stain. Man, shit, she’s been poppin’ up a lot lately, hasn’t she? If you ask me, she ain’t a virgin no more. Maybe that’s why she keeps comin’ ’round. Why else would she keep appearing to all us sinners? We like to have sex. That’s it. I wouldn’t be surprised to see some guy humpin’ that wall, sayin’ ‘she ain’t a virgin no more!'”
4. “Can you believe these gas prices? I tell you what, how come you only ever see one gas tanker filling up the pumps but you can select three different octanes? I think it is all the same gas. They just charge you three different prices.”

Last night I was thinking how much the front page needed some color. I had to look no further than a few spring gardens on the walk to the L this morning.

Crain’s Chicago Business profiles my reading habits this week in their Info Junkie column at the back of the paper. It is an odd way to describe someone — the sum of what info one consumes — but in a way it is no stranger than the impression you might get of me from reading this blog. I considered just exporting my RSS feeds as a list and handing that to Crain’s, but they wanted a bit more detail.

The story is online but only available as an abstract to non-subscribers. Access is free for eight weeks and no credit card is required, but honestly, what I read is probably not interesting enough to warrant the time it will take you to register. You be the judge.

1. The radiant profusion of alabaster white skin blubbering out from beneath clothing more suited for the tropics temporarily blinds you as people joyously run, skate, and bike down the lakefront path for the first time in months.
2. You’re asked to buy a Streetwise every half-block instead of every few blocks.
3. People no longer lunge for the heat lamp “on” button on the L platform the moment the timer runs out.
4. It is easier to imagine a flower sprouting from dead brown grass than frozen white grass.
5. Beer tastes way better.

This just in from building management:

One of the noisiest components of the Wabash viaduct reconstruction – metal sheet pile driving as part of the caisson installation – is scheduled to begin on Thursday, March 17, 2005. This activity may also cause the building to vibrate.

They’ve never warned of vibration before and this place certainly shook when they were ripping apart Wabash. I wonder if this is an attempt to proactively warn or if they really mean the Richter scale is going to be involved here.

The test will be if the building shakes enough to park the hard drive head of my ThinkPad. Sorry, boss, gotta go home, my hard drive airbag just deployed.

UPDATE (3/18): No piles driven, no buildings shaken, no airbags deployed. So very anticlimactic!

Video stitcher extraordinaire Jack Blanchard delivers this last timelapse (WMV, 10MB) of our officecam Sun-Times deathwatch. Now with music!

Meanwhile, A Daily Dose of Architecture presents a photographic homage to my building, newly — and temporarily — presenting a stunning view from the Michigan Ave. bridge thanks to the demolition.

Is that straight out of 2001: A Space Odyssey or what?

A follow-up to my previous post about water drainage on Harlem Ave. It was, of course, a trick question. At least one of you suggested as much, though no one actually got the answer right. You see, Harlem Ave. is the rough location of a miniature continental divide. Water to the west of Harlem flows west; drainage east goes east. What took me a while to realize is that there still is only one Continental Divide. Drainage west of Harlem doesn’t keep flowing west. Eventually it dumps into the Mississippi and thence to the Gulf. Going the other way ends up in the Lake or the Atlantic. So the answer, assuming no sewer craziness, is that the hydrant run-off will end up in the Gulf.

The Chicago Public Library explains this a bit better. Among other things, this divide is what made the area so attractive to early explorers. A short portage and you could be headed to the Mississippi or the Great Lakes. (Before the Chicago River was reversed, that is.)

Oh, by the way, that little traffic incident didn’t really happen. Just a story in the service of the contest. But thanks for the concern!

Stopping your car under a viaduct at night could remind you of being in your own garage at home, right?

Friday night as my wife and I were heading to a restaurant with some friends we had to navigate around a car strangely stopped in the middle of the road (going under the tracks just west of the Cortland street bridge, for you Chicagoans). As we drove past we glanced over to see the driver of the stopped car slumped over the wheel and looking very unwell. We stopped. Our friends stopped. Traffic stopped. My friend, an M.D., did a quick check. The driver was alive, but doc thought he O.D.’ed. We gently roused him, stopped the car (which was — oddly — in park), and removed him and the keys.

The paramedics and cops eventually came and we went on our way. I’m not sure the guy was drunk, but he was clearly on something. I’m convinced he thought he had pulled into his garage, calmly put the car in park, and then blacked out. Not that he’s not an idiot, mind you. Just my theory.

Six-O-Six magazine. R.I.P.