A Day in the Park

Sunday, 8/24/2008, was a beautiful day. Not too hot and not humid at all. Since I purchased a new Nikon D60 and my friend, Ben, purchased the Cannon Xts, we decide to put our photogrpahy chops to the measure. We spent a lovely day with a few other friends walking around Lincoln Park, the Conservatory and the Zoo and took some pictures. You be the judge.





It was really hot in the Conservatory/Green House but I think it was well worth the effort.

Part 3 to the Journey of 2 Parts

So, the famous rant about the journeys of 2 parts now has a part 3. Because of their delays and equipment failures, all passengers on that fateful flight to Narita, Japan was offered a discount voucher. So, I was thinking that I would use that discount voucher to purchase a ticket to New York City to visit my cousin who just had a baby girl (Yeay!!!!). So, I booked my flight on United.com and when it came time to pay for the ticket, I could not find a place to enter the voucher code. Ok, time to read the fine prints. Therein lies my rant -- the fine prints indicate that in order to validate the "authenticity" of the voucher, it must be turned in at a ticketing counter or mailed to the office in Detroit. I guess there must be tons of these vouchers floating around or something. And, to compensate you for the inconvenience of a delayed flight or equipment problem, they give you more inconvenience -- having you drive to the airport to get a ticket issued. I should charge them for gas. And because the flight is less than 14 days away, I couldn't mail it to Detroit. Sigh! I guess I really felt like being cheap (hey, New York is expensive) so I drove to the airport -- it was a $150 voucher so it was nothing to sneeze at! Finally, after an hour and a half drive round trip, I finally have my ticket. NYC here I come!

Crazy Summer Weather in Chicago

Wow -- so, Monday evening was perhaps one of the scariest weather I have ever experienced. It started to get really dark with all the cloud coverage and then it got really windy. I wasn't even sure how windy it got until I surveyed the damages the next day. Continuous lighting bolts with thunder claps following immediately after. The news was plastered all over the paper and news report on Tuesday. According to the Chicago Tribune, at the peak of the storm, more than 800 bolts was fired per minute. For the duration of the storm, nearly 90,000 thunderbolts hit Northern Illinois. There were reports of three tornado touch down in Northern Illinois and Northwest Indiana. Roofs were ripped off homes in Bolingbrook, IL and Griffiths, IN. Trees fell on cars, and street lamps were strewn around like toys. I did a survey of the nearby parks along the lakefront -- another devastation. A lot of the beautiful, gigantic trees had branches torn off, garbage bins were blown over, debris everywhere. Again, Mother Nature is retaliating. My deck was a mess, plants blown over, dirt everywhere, broken pots. Sigh . . . time for cleanup.