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kofc
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| | I do intend to start the bike blog up again when I can bike again. I got help with my stolen front wheel, and I'll get help with my flat back tire when I get a new tube. I can pretty much walk again, but I won't be trying to bike until after my week-plus-long trip. But I'll be back and hope any readers will be too! | comments: 1 comment or Leave a comment   |
| | I haven't had bike access in Chicago in a while...but I'll be riding one around St. Louis today. I'll try to bring back extra copies of their bike maps for anyone who might be interested! Now, to get away from the computer and out into the beautiful 90 degree weather...uh... | | comments: Leave a comment |
| | My bike was around the city, mostly the far south side for wow, 3 weeks, can that be right? I finally rode it home today after leaving it overnight in front of the Borders and North & Halsted, after leaving it overnight across the street from that Borders. Now it's parked on a sidewalk near me, out of commission till Friday at the earliest, because in a half-hour I've got to leave for a one-day trip I couldn't be more excited about...I've needed a trip farther away than NW Indiana for a long time, and this was quite impulsive, and both the destination and the timing are extremely important to my mental health right now...so I'm thrilled! Anyone reading this sees me on Flickr, so hopefully I'll have some amazing shots there Friday. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| | Subject: | hi again | | Time: | 10:27 pm | | Current Mood: | ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/classic/shock.gif) anxious |
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| | Thanks to anyone who reads/comments; I'll try to keep the bad moods off here if possible. I shouldn't just disappear with a depressing post like that last one. Anyway...been lots of places since the last post, still keeping notes on bike trips, still too distracted by other creative projects and good/bad stuff in real life. I probably shouldn't be drinking coffee at 10 pm, which I'm doing now, if I've been getting 4 hours sleep tops most nights recently. I felt better not long after that last post, then much worse within a day or so, then an hourlong phone conversation with someone helped, and I haven't felt too bad since, despite some things that could be freaking me out now if I let them. I've biked more on the south side, then brought the bike into downtown, then yesterday brought it to the north side for the first time in nearly 3 weeks. (I obviously don't rely on it for regular transportation, if I leave it locked around the city for weeks at a time.) It's still at North & Clybourn. I feel pulled away by other tasks now...but I'll just add Bike the Drive is this Sunday; I should finally check that out. Although much of whatever money I have should go to all these exciting trips I want to take soon (Detroit, Milwaukee, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, St. Louis--nothing but the most glamorous cities for me!). | | comments: 1 comment or Leave a comment |
| If I can't say anything that isn't totally depressing and self-loathing, I won't say anything at all.
My bike's still locked up in Hegewisch, three days now without any bicycling. Some other adventures but no energy to write about them. | | comments: 1 comment or Leave a comment |
| Heh, why do new people find me after I've posted the most pathetic personal entries? Well, anyway...yesterday was my first White Sox game in 16 or 17 years, since I visited Chicago on a school trip from Iowa eons ago. (That game meant I couldn't say I'd NEVER seen a sporting event in Chicago. But it was true that I hadn't seen one since MOVING here until I saw the Cubs last month.) It seems they haven't had that many home games, and not that many day games, and a lot of games have been rained out or delayed. So I didn't want to pass this up, even if it was colder than I'd like for May.
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| The Internet is depressing me right now. Because I'm barely hearing from friends, and I'm barely making an effort to reach out to other friends and potential friends, and a situation that I've promised myself I'll barely write about is still grating at me (let's just say looking at some people's "favorites" on Flickr is not good for my self-esteem). And beyond me, because there's so much more going on, if I look at more political sites I'll find a million things to be depressed about, and if I look at the reader comments on a mainstream site to a depressing story it'll be that much more depressing (Sun-Times comments on the White Sox locker room debacle...one nasty comment after another, then I see one's been deleted for being "abusive"--my god, someone said something WORSE?). And I'm not doing much better interacting in real life...
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| So much for writing every day. Right now I'm sleepy (but I'll be up a while) and possibly sunburned and don't have the energy to write about my past 4 bike trips to Indiana (Th., Sat., Sun., Mon.). Biking tomorrow until/unless it rains, planning to do south/southeast side, maybe into the south suburbs (Dolton, Harvey?) and one more jaunt into Indiana because it seems mildly interesting to actually be there on election day, after seeing a zillion campaign signs on every visit (I didn't even know there were elections for coroner!), and usually listening to NPR as I biked around, during which every 5th story or so was about the Indiana/North Carolina primaries.
I think I've averaged 20-30 miles per day on these trips. (I've written down streets traveled as well as I could and I'll have to figure out the mileage.) It wasn't until my third day that I found the Indiana bicycling map, and I've got an extra copy for my faithful reader if he doesn't have one already! (I know it was discussed on blogs long ago, and I found it purely by accident, and it's been a great help on these trips, along with all the Google maps I printed out.)
My photos from today are literally flashing before my eyes now, so I've got to go work on those. I was finally ready to check on Facebook again, but it crashed on both browsers. I may have to reserve sessions at the library just to look at all these sites that are making browsers crash--as well as Flickr video, I've never seen a single one. | | comments: 1 comment or Leave a comment |
| Still haven't written Thursday's terrific Indiana day...trying to go back there today. But Friday, no biking. There was a thunderstorm with window-rattling wind in the morning and I figured my carefully scheduled day 3 in IN wouldn't happen. I got out of the house way too late...and then the weather vastly improved. Still windier than I'd have liked, but I theoretically could have done much of that trip. Instead, I was going to do SOME biking, maybe get my bike into downtown. I wanted to check on a factory demolition I'd been watching from the South Chicago bus this week, at 83rd, S. Chicago and Jeffery. The #30 S. Chicago bus from 69th is SO slow I decided to take the Jeffery bus from 47th instead. That turned out to be the most interminably slow bus I've EVER had in Chicago that didn't involve a parade or accident traffic snarl. Fri. afternoon when all the schools were getting out wasn't the best time.
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| My first trip there is blurring with my second...I'll try to write two separate and coherent posts. Wednesday I took the CTA downtown and to Chinatown. Very similar to before, and I went to St. Alps yet again; this time I got a mocha coffee agar thingy. Very good. I took the extremely long bus ride to Hegewisch, noting things to come back and photograph along South Chicago--a factory teardown at 83rd, for example. I stopped in the branch library for a few minutes then got my bike and headed to Brainerd, a diagonal street that goes into Indiana. It's technically bikeable...but I spent most of it on a pebbly shoulder, very slow going. It's not entirely clear where the state line is, but just past train tracks you're welcomed to Hammond--and fireworks! I biked a little at random, noting the South Shore station, which doesn't seem too close to anything that interesting.
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| | Tags: | abandoned, bicycling, bubble tea, chinatown, cta, diners, hegewisch, industry, libraries, loop, old town, south deering | | Subject: | second chance at Acme | | Time: | 10:52 am | | Current Mood: | distressed |
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| I got a late start yesterday and wasn't sure about the weather, but I just HAD to get out after missing Monday. My bike was still at Sedgwick so I took the bus there, then took it downtown. I realized with mild panic that I couldn't recall seeing elevators or wheelchair entrances at the Loop L stations, so I figured any one would be as bad as any other one, and got out at Randolph/Wabash. I stopped at the Walgreens across from no-longer-Block-37 and then biked south to Chinatown. I'd thought of taking the Red Line but figured it wasn't too far to bike, though this was the cloudiest and chilliest part of the afternoon. There's a stretch of Clark, south of Roosevelt, that I've never even been clear if bikes are allowed on or not, so I went ahead and did it. Seemed safe.
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| | I had a moderately eventful and successful day there. Which I'll get around to writing about, but I need to work on some Flickr chores now. And I'm wiped out from how it took 3 hours for me to get home tonight on the CTA. And how nearly every time I turn on the computer I see something that makes me burst out in tears. (And I don't mean news.) Oh well. Back later. I'm impressed that I'm managing to write every day here... | | comments: Leave a comment |
| | Tags: | abandoned, bicycling, cta, diners, factories, gary, humboldt park, industry, jeffery manor, old town, south deering | | Subject: | the fabulous southeast side! | | Time: | 09:46 pm | | Current Mood: | ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/classic/blah.gif) blah |
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| Sunday morning I got out of the house too slowly. Stayed up too late Fri. and Sat. even though I didn't go out either night. I needed to get to Millennium Station to catch the 10 am South Shore to Gary to meet some people at 11. I just missed my bus, so I walked 4 blocks to get a different bus that would go to the Blue Line. When it got to the Blue Line, I just missed the L. When I got to Millennium Station I'd missed the train by 9 minutes. I was supposed to be picked up by R. at the train station, a Flickr contact I haven't met yet, who actually lives in Gary but hasn't felt like exploring places there (like City Methodist) on her own. I got a large coffee at the nearby Intelligentsia and went to Borders and got R. on the phone and told her I probably wasn't going--the whole point was meeting people at 11, and I wouldn't be able to get there till 1. I gave her the names of some people I thought would be there and said she could say she knew me.
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| | Tags: | art, austin, berwyn, bicycling, bubble tea, chinatown, cicero, cta, diners, forest park, humboldt park, loop, oak park | | Subject: | the biking part of today wasn't bad | | Time: | 12:18 am | | Current Mood: | ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/classic/sad.gif) lonely |
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| I was afraid I'd get rained on--but it was sunny. Neither wind nor cold were as bad as I feared. I did a bunch of things via CTA--going downtown then getting the Archer bus to Chinatown because I thought the Chinatown station was still closed due to the accident yesterday, but when I got off the bus I saw people on the platform. Used the last $3 cash I had on me then to buy a small bubble tea, my first in ages, at St. Alps. They asked if I wanted tapioca, but I didn't get any in my drink, and I was too hungry NOT to get them, sigh. It was black tea with wheat germ (better than it sounds!). I got photos of the accident aftermath and boarded at the alternate entrance, then switched downtown to go to the Merchandise Mart for Artropolis. I had a printout free pass to get in, but at no point did anyone try to charge me anyway--I guess just wandering around blending into crowds worked, not that I needed to "sneak" in, of course.
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| It rained a little, but was sunny, if a little windy, for the few hours I went out today. I checked on a building I'd noticed from the bus on my trips to Westinghouse, and some places around Augusta & Cicero and Chicago & Laramie. Mystery building, plastics factory, awesome building with tower, abandoned? retail building, abandoned police station, amazing old bank, funny signs...Today was also an excuse to make my third visit this month to The Depot, who happened to be on Steve Dolinsky's "Hungry Hound" segment on Ch. 7 this morning, as I knew they'd be from my last visit. I went specifically for the freshly made donuts (with chocolate sauce & whipped cream for dipping) and coffee, but that didn't seem substantial enough so I had a soup of the day, shrimp bisque. An odd meal I suppose... [I was missing the formatting stuff, but I went back and fixed it later. Here's the cut!]
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| I'm not actually putting pressure on myself to ride my bike every day--it'd be great if I could, but I wuss out easily in bad weather. I'll try to get out before the weather turns today, but I have my doubts about making it to Critical Mass tonight. Too bad, because that was why I was in a hurry to get the bike fixed.
I do have a goal to average 5 miles a day of bicycling. Or maybe 10 miles. Or perhaps 100 miles per week for the six months or so of decent biking weather. And to write here every day I'm not out of town.
One friend here so far, someone who doesn't write here but has an account to read other people's stuff, I guess, which is fine. Of course I'll tell myself I'm writing this mostly for myself, but then I'll be annoyed when other people aren't reading it... | | comments: Leave a comment |
| | Tags: | abandoned, austin, berwyn, bicycling, cicero, diners, garfield park, humboldt park, libraries, oak park, riverside | | Subject: | I got a little carried away | | Time: | 09:12 pm | | Current Mood: | sore |
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| Okay, so I'm not the only one who's ever sat through an entire dinner at a restaurant without noticing there was bird crap on my shirt collar until I went into the restroom after, am I? I am? Sigh, I guess that was an unexpected hazard of bicycling today. That, and getting caught in the rain over and over--never really got soaked, though. I had a wonderful West Side/west suburbs excursion, photographing many cool things along the way, including an abandoned: hospital, church building, bank, mid-century modern church, huge apartment building, and Public Safety Station. Not sure if any are explorable...I also noticed that two buildings I liked are gone: the coolest building at Chicago Casting (in Cicero) and a cute little bank that became the Majorette Restaurant, then New Majorette, in Berwyn (great neon signs, and I ate there once).
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| In a fit of caffeine-induced mania last night I finally walked my bike--its back wheel was stolen in November when I had it parked in front of my building--the 10 blocks to the closest bike shop. It was kind of like carrying the bike, so it took close to a half-hour to get there, and of course a few people along the way stared at me and my sad bike. The store was technically closed but I could have called to the employees I could see inside. I was prepared to lock my bike up outside overnight, and did.
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| | Just wanted a place to log my bike trips and possibly other daily activities. More later... | | comments: Leave a comment |
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kofc
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