Domino Interface

Well if looks like the season for biking is coming to an end. Thanks to mother nature I am squeezing a few more days of good biking weather. Today was one of those days. I go a chance this morning to spent some time taking some great pictures since I brought my camera with me. Here in Chicago, it starts turning really bad around Halloween. We have been very fortunate this year with good weather overall. There was a few times of incredible weeks of rain and cold. But I am closer and closer to my distance goal this year. Unfortunately, they are predicting colder than normal temperatures and snow for winter.

The last time I tried getting a picture of the Tower Rd power plant, my phone camera went bad. I tried again a few days ago and it was the same problem. But after a few engineering techniques ( hit the phone a few times ) my camera was working again. The Tower Road power plant is interesting in that is on the shores of Lake Michigan in a very expense neighborhood in the North Shore of Illinois. The electricity is cheaper than ComEd, since the city controls the power plant.

Today is commencement day for Northwestern University. Alumni, Steven Colbert is giving the commencement speech. Every year Northwestern puts up these tent for graduation parties.

Went for a bike ride this morning at 6:00 AM. This is Tower Beach in Winnetka, IL. Next to it is the Winnetka power plant that serves the town. No ComEd for them. I had a nice picture showing the plant along with the North Shore beaches, but the Blackberry camera screwed up. The beach is down about 100 feet from the street level. The road is about 30% grade so it was a tough climb back up with no running start. Each year it is getting harder and harder to climb it, must be a hardware problem.

Today is a beautiful day in Evanston. Here is a picture from my morning ride to work. Northwestern University Lagoon

On November 29, 2010, Geoffrey Baer will be presenting his latest in his series of shows covering the history and culture of Chicago. The new video will air on WTTW Channel 11 and is called "Biking the Boulevards." If you are in the Chicagoland area don't forget to watch it and donate money to WTTW.

The weather so nice in Chicago especially with all the recent humid and rainy days that we have had. I rode my bike to the Northwestern University lagoon. Northwestern University has their Thursday music festival so it was nice to have my lunch while listening to 80's rock. Afterwards, I rode for 10 miles along the Lake Michigan. However, it was back to reality with four scheduled conference calls and customer discussions.

MWLUG 2010 is three months away so I have set a goal of losing 5 lbs a month to get myself back into shape. I will be at about how I was when I graduated college which does not seem to be that long ago. I might be close to the same weight, but there will be a little bit of gray hair, wrinkles, and aches. I have a goal of riding about 1500 miles on my bike this year to help the weight loss. So far I am at 50 miles so I have a ways to go. When I was younger, I could have easily done this in a week or two.

It was a messy morning where I saw a woman backed her car right into my car as I was coming out of a store. It going to be a few thousand dollars of damage. It will not cost me anything since it was her fault but it is a pain having to get my car fixed. It was a nice and cool day so to get out my frustrations I took a long bike ride up to Fort Sheridan. It very nice biking around over there. They have done a very nice job transforming the former military base into residential housing and a forest preserve. The Army Reserve still have part of the base. Most of the old barracks and housing have been converted to condos and very expense homes. They have some nice nature trails that including one that takes you down to the lake where there is still one gun emplacement that was used for training during World War II. Something that most people do not know is that there use to be a airfield at Fort Sheridan. When I use to live in Highland Park, we would go to Fort Sheridan for the Ju...

I don't mean the St. Louis Cardinals, I am from the north side of Chicago, so I am a Cubs fan regardless of whether they win or lose. There is always next year. Maybe in 2100 they will win. Of course, I will have to watch that from heaven. For many years now I have not seen cardinals, the state bird of Illinois, in our area. However, over the past year it seems that I have been seeing more and more cardinals which are beautifully red. Today is gorgeous so I rode for 25 miles from my home to Highland Park, IL and then to Evanston, IL and back on the Green Bay bike trail. On the trail I saw cardinals five different times. The Green Bay bike trail is a very nice trail that takes you all the way up to North Chicago. In fact you can start from the south side of Chicago and bike along the trails next to Lake Michigan and connected to the Green Bay trail. From North Chicago you can go to Kenosha, WI and connect up towards Green Bay, WI. Unfortunately, from North Chicago to Kenos...

I cannot believe it, but I got another flat tire on my bike this morning going to work. I just replaced the inner tube before I started this morning. Luckily, it happened on the Northwestern University Campus so it was only a mile walk to my office. I patched it up and hope it holds until I get home. If not it maybe a long walk home.

Today is a beautiful spring day in Chicago. It has been 18 years since I left the corporate world. Of course, I am dating myself. It has its ups and downs being on my own. There have been years when we did extremely well and years in which it was a nightmare. My parents thought I was nuts to run my own business, but after many years in the corporate world I was tired of the bureaucracy and incompetents. Even with all its ups and downs, it has been a wondeful experience so far. There will be ups and downs in the future, but today as I biked to our office in shorts and have yogurt on the shores of Lake Michigan, I thought about what was really important. It is not about the fancy house or car, but having a wonderful family and a job that you enjoy. If I was in the corporate world, I would not be able to come into work in shorts and a t-shirt at odd hours or be with the family as often as I like. Yes, I work many hours each day, but I set the schedule. Oh yes, there is that call...