Another Icing On The Cake post

Yesterday, the fourth of July, Independence Day, was gloriously beautiful and aptly hot in the Chicago area. KLK and I made a big suburban* shopping excursion during which he replaced his entire blue jeans wardrobe (not so much the black jeans, I guess that will be another trip) and his "between-running-and-dress" shoes - the kind you wear with khakis on Fridays at work. The latter acquisition was an emergency, given that his old pair spontaneously up and disintegrated as he walked along a banking district street in Zurich last week.What else was nice about it, besides the hunting and gathering successes, was that apparently either a lot of people were at bar-b-ques, or they thought the stores would be closed (however unAmerican that would have been).

We came home in time for dinner, with the thought that we might go out to Promontory Point,  a wonderful park that juts well out into Lake Michigan, along with 99% of the rest of the neighborhood, to watch the tiny little official city fireworks shot out over the lake from Navy Pier some 5 or 6 miles away. As it got truly dark out,  we suddenly realized there were major fireworks being rocketed from very close by. Hoorah!  Unbeknown to us, the City has provincialized the fireworks display, presumably to mitigate  huge congestion downtown. Yes, the main fireworks, which we could see on TV, proceeded as usual (well, not quite, they lasted 15 minutes, not the traditional 20, so hey, it's only a 25% cut) , but they also miraculously selected our  neighborhood to put on a secondary show. What extraordinary luck! I took a few photos through the window, and given that and that the camera was hand-held, I was very pleased with the results. Next year, when we know this is coming (unless the economy tanks even more between now and then) we'll go to our  building roof deck with the tripod at the ready. How fun, what a treat, whatever we did to deserve this, let's do it again!

* Land of the Free parking and where gas is cheaper and the sales tax a couple of points lower

Life in the City That Works. Or maybe not.

A couple of weeks ago I took my VW Jetta (born in 2003, but with fewer than 26,000 miles on it still) to the dealer for a oil change. For only $100 more than the cost of an oil change, the service rep pointed out, I could have my "34,000 mile check-up" and since that timely offering included checking transmission fluid (mine's a stick) I said, yeah, okay, what's another hundred bucks..."

So along with topping off the fluids, they pulled off my tires (new less than a month ago) to check the brakes, and lo! I got the news that BOTH FRONT STRUT MOUNTS/BEARINGS COLLAPSED (in capital letters, just like that, on my service statement).

So why would that happen in such a low-mileage car, you ask?

Check out these photos of the street where my office is, for example. Chicago, the City That Works, the City of Big Shoulders. No, wait, that would be, City of Potholes on a scale that would trip Godzilla. In fact I almost always ride the bus. Along this stretch (60th Street, as it happens) the ride is like something you would otherwise pay a lot of money for at Disney World.