Author Archives: Richard

Chicago – 5

Every big city is going to have something in the way of a “natural history” museum. Chicago is no exception; the Field Museum is located smack in the middle of a park on the lake shore, on the wrong side of the Lake Shore Drive. Which makes it a bit inconvenient to get to, if you can’t figure out the bus routes and forget that you have a transit pass….and approach it from the side where the entrance happens to be closed that day….

But if you can pass – or at least bulldoze your way through – that intelligence test, the museum is well worth it. Continue reading →

Chicago – 4

Given how many tour boats are on the Chicago River at any one time, it must be some sort of legal requirement that all visitors take a tour when they are in the city. There are several choices for type, length, and time of tour, but the most common ones are those that take you around the waterways to see the collection of interesting buildings in the downtown area. A primer, as it were – with examples – of 20th century American architecture.

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Chicago – 3

Remembering the walking food tour I took on my visit to Denver, I looked for similar tours in Chicago. A company called “Bobby’s Bike Tours” offered a couple. They looked good, so I booked a tour that combined a little bit of history with some of the city’s “iconic” foods.

Well, I did want to try deep dish pizza in the place that invented it, so….

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Chicago – 2

As I mentioned, Chicago is home to two major league baseball teams – the Cubs and the White Sox. The city is home to a few more professional sportsball teams, but I don’t care about them. So it was just a matter of finding a week when both teams would have some home games, and then scheduling my visit then.

While neither of their home stadia are in the downtown area, they are both convenient to mass transit. Wrigley Field was first on the schedule.

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Chicago – 1

So, I’m back. Like my last post didn’t give you a hint that I was going somewhere. And the title of this post ought to tell you where I went.

Why Chicago?

Well, I’d never been there before (changing planes at O’Hare doesn’t count). They’ve got a great science museum, a great art museum, and they’re home to two baseball teams. So why not? I’ll have plenty of things to see and do. Continue reading →

Vacation Anxiety

For the first time in over three years, I will be actually going someplace for a real vacation. Not a day trip, not a weekend getaway, but an actual “Book a flight and hotel and activities” vacation.

And I’m nervous as all heck about it.

It’s not that I’m uncomfortable about flying or going to a place I’ve never been before; I can handle that. And I can read a map and use mass transit. It’s that I’m still an “old school” guy, and I want paper tickets for everything. I can cope with getting a QR or bar code to be scanned in, but did I remember to get them all? Where did I store them on my smartphone? Why do I have to get them separately from my reservation? Can’t you send them to me automatically – like you do with my purchase confirmation?

Then there’s packing. I always bring an extra pair of socks and underwear – but how many shoes will I need? What special personal care products should I bring? I’ll make a list, of course, but will I leave something off it? Does my bank have any ATMs in the area around my hotel? How much cash should I bring? How much cash should I reserve for the trip back? All those little things…..

Speaking of coming back, what do I need to take care of at home before I leave? Grocery shopping? Take out the garbage? Clean the bathroom? I should point out that I share an apartment with a guy who cannot be trusted to do any basic cleaning…. I’m not worried about mail or even e-mail; I’m not involved in anything important where I can’t be away from it for a week. Though there are a few things I need to do almost as soon as I get back.

Then there’s work. I’m not sure I can trust my co-workers to NOT leave me piles of crap on my desk. I have a lot of little responsibilities that they can easily ignore for a few days. Some of them, though, involve the maintenance of office equipment like the postage meter. Whenever there’s even a tiny hiccup, they come to me to deal with it rather than figure it out themselves. So, since I’m a nice guy, I want to make sure that everything is in good shape before I go…..

All these little, nagging things. I almost need a vacation from my vacation.

Movies I’d Like to See – The Sci-Fi Series

From James Bond to Game of Thrones, successful book series are huge sources of ideas for moviemakers. You get a reasonably guaranteed audience for several films. Done right, they can be cash cows for a studio.

There’s one series that I think could make for decent movies: Harry Harrison’s “Stainless Steel Rat” science fiction novels.

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On the 2022 All Star Game

Well, that was BORING. All the excitement happened in the first few innings.

I know you can’t expect much from an exhibition game, or even a regular game in an era when pitching is so dominant. But seeing so little going on had me flipping the channel to the Cartoon Network quite often.

FOX did itself no favors. Nor Baseball, for that matter. It can be fun to have players wearing microphones so you can chat with them during the game, but it should never take precedence over the game itself – especially when you’re going to ask the same stupid question (“What’s it like being here?”) every time. The absolute worst instance was when they had David Ortiz goofing around in the AL dugout while ALL TIME GREAT Miguel Cabrera was at bat for his only appearance in the game. If the purpose of the game is to promote the game’s best players, then PROMOTE THE PLAYERS. Tell us when a new player comes into the game; tell us something about them and what they did to earn the spot on the roster….

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Movie Review: Sugar Hill (1974)

Langston (Larry B. Johnson). and his fiancee Diane “Sugar” Hill (Marki Bey) are running a decent little nightclub somewhere down in bajou country. The club’s been doing well enough to attract the attention of local mob boss Morgan (Robert Quarry), who has been pressuring Langston to sell. “Peaceful” negotiations haven’t worked, so Morgan sends his goons to rough up Langston one night after closing time. Well, they rough him up a bit too much, and he dies of his injuries. There were no witnesses, and nothing in the way of evidence, so even though it’s pretty certain Morgan was behind it, there’s nothing the local police can do.

Being a smart businessman, Langston had a will – and left the club to Sugar. Morgan thinks it will be easier to get her to sell the club, what with her being a woman and all – but she’s got plans for revenge. Plans that involve getting some help from beyond the grave…. Continue reading →

A Better Medicine?

A new word that’s coming into widespread use is “doomscrolling”. It’s the bad habit of constantly checking the news to see what depressing thing has taken over the headlines this time. The reasons behind this, quite naturally, are seeing a lot of people becoming depressed or at least “down in the dumps”.

Now I’m not a professional – and if you seriously are depressed, you should seek out some professional help after you’re done reading this essay – but it seems to me that humans have been devising ways to chase away gloom for thousands of years…..

This famous musical, for example, is based largely on the plays of Plautus (c. 254 – 184 BCE), and it really does capture the look of daily life in Republican Rome:

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