Snuggles

Does anyone else look at these two together and think "Awww, that's cute"? It's like they're just begging to be modeled as cuddly little plush toys.

Brain damage

I woke up to find a shattered CFL all over my bathroom floor. I do not recall that happening.

Man, mercury poisoning sure works fast...

In seriousness, is it safe to assume that the vapors would have been sucked out by the ventilation fan by now? It has to have been at least several hours.

How did I miss this?

The Onion:
Shitty Neighborhood Rallies Against Asshole Developer

We are already under attack

My grandmother is scared paranoid that any minute now I will perish in some elaborate terrorist attack on Chicago, because Obama is president or something.

I'm vastly more worried that I'll be taken out by some dumbfuck gang underling with bad aim, because that is what is actually happening day after day after day.

But that's not terrorism, it's just business as usual on the streets in the city, so no one is terribly concerned about that sort of thing.

Bike to the train museum

I got tired of waiting for Some Guy to take me to the Illinois Railway Museum in Union. Well, isn't that why I have a bike? So last Saturday I finally went there myself.


It's about 10 miles from the Woodstock Metra station (Union Pacific Northwest line, out of Ogilvie Transportation Center). I might have saved a few miles if I'd gone to Crystal Lake instead, but Crystal Lake has sprawled the size of a small republic with correspondingly nutty traffic. I didn't want to deal with that, and it was high time I took on some bona fide country roads this season anyway. That turned out to be a good plan---it was a pleasant ride, and the drivers were (*gasp!*) courteous and safe, although I'd still try to avoid Dean Street in the future. Hills plus headwind plus heavy traffic is more than I'd prefer to handle at the same time, at least when I'm riding through a rural area. Or what's supposed to be a rural area. Or at least for now.

The museum wasn't quite what I was expecting, but I still had a geeked-out great time. If only I hadn't had to leave in such a hurry later that afternoon in order to catch my train back to Chicago. The subtle irony of this did not escape me, given that most of the other visitors riding the two demo trains running that day probably hadn't ridden any sort of normal train recently. Whereas I ride both diesel and electric trains all the time, some of which probably even qualify as "vintage," unfortunately. (Dear Amtrak: The fact that the passenger cars currently in use were built in 1979 really isn't something that should be bragged about.) It's just like riding a real train, I thought, complete with the repeating chorus of "are we there yet?" in shrill, youthful voices almost as soon as we'd pulled out of the depot.

This coming weekend is Diesel Days, so I'll probably be heading back to partake in the awesomeness. With better planning I would have put off my trip for another week anyway, since by midnight I was so tired that I ended up skipping the L.A.T.E. Ride. Again. As I had figured that I probably would. (And I'd finally snagged a rider number in the first wave, too.) Well, most of my adventures are pretty spontaneous. I needed to get out, and the Illinois Railway Museum was the first crazy idea that popped into my head at 6am. (Long story.) You do one L.A.T.E. Ride by yourself, and you've done 'em all.

Save American jobs without driving off a cliff

Is there any good reason the Big 3 couldn't get into train car manufacturing? The federal government orders trains from Japan even as it flings money around attempting to lure citizens into purchasing American cars. It makes no frackin' sense!

Support the Calumet-Sag Trail and win a sexy, sexy bike

The Friends of the Calumet Sag Trail is having a raffle: For just $5 per ticket or $10 per three tickets, you could win a 2009 Trek Soho, an 8-speed belt-drive bike in Trek's Urban Series.* Even better, for every $5 you spend on raffle tickets, you compel the federal government to give us $25 to build the Calumet-Sag Trail.

Super special thanks to RBikes in Palos Heights, Trek, and Senator Durbin.


*Of course, this is not to say that any other kind of bike is not urban, or that "urban bikes" can't be ridden outside major cities. Don't let marketing gimmicks tell you what you can and can't do!

Gender confusion

I don't understand how on the same day (in the same outfit and on the same bike) I can be both borderline sexual harassed and then actually harassed by some homophobe who mistook me for a guy.

Two cyclists struck, one killed, in Yorkville

Darlene McCue, 46

Multicorporate train

CN, CSX, BC Rail, and Illinois Central locomotives all pulling the same train. It was kind of cool.

[And that is quite possibly the most interesting thing that will happen to me today.]