Hello, Readers! We’ve received some feedback that suggested we could possibly post a bit more frequently, and we agree that a more frequent posting schedule would be nice. We did some fun and long overdue things in the lead up to Thanksgiving. First, I took the car into get a brake light fixed (overdue) and had the pleasure of walking back by way of the 606, our new elevated park that runs east to west along the old Bloomingdale Trail through Wicker Park, Bucktown, Humboldt Park and Logan Square. Nice that I got the walk in because the next day…

Miles and some other students (who remain unseen in this video) did this project for their health class. The assignment was to describe how to make a healthy snack. Watch out all you cooking channels, Miles’s youtube presence may go viral! Quick explanation – he is wearing face paint and beads because this was filmed on his school’s homecoming day. For our readers abroad who haven’t watched Friday Night Lights or other shows that address this topic, every fall in high schools across the US, a football game played at the school’s home stadium is declared “homecoming” (refers to welcoming “home” of…

We drove to Urbana-Champaign today to bring him a few things, take him to lunch, see how his house is progressing, and give him lots of hugs! Here are a few scenes in front of his house. For this one we turned around and positioned ourself with the neighbor across the street’s well-planted garden in the background. Thanks, neighbor! It was great to see Liam and have some delicious Urbana BBQ at Black Dog with him. Hope he enjoys the extra pillows, warm blanket, Dave Brubeck albums (thanks, Nana and Grandpa, original owners of those!) and Frank sculpture we brought.…

Liam moved back to college today, his summer internship finished and classes starting Monday. We didn’t have room in the car for Frank, so he is staying here with us. This year Liam moved into a big house with friends rather than live in the dorm another year. They have a lot of space and it’s really close to campus, and they were all busy fixing up their rooms and the common areas today! Must have item in college room: Chicago flag. Also note the ceramic guinea pig on the shelf 🙂 Looks like it’s going to be a great…

For the last several years Liam or Miles has done trapeze camp after their weeks of junior counselor volunteer work ends. Trapeze camp, which does culminate in a trapeze performance, also includes other circus tricks like the high wire, hoops, silks (also seen at Cirque du Soleil) and the triple trap. This year the theme was seasons of the year, which explains all of the seasonal decorations you’ll see in the videos. I am hoping to learn a few things from the video team behind “C&C in Sydney” over Christmas — readers should expect some higher quality videos in the…

We noticed that our normally very peppy Mr T was very sluggish and not at all well this morning, which was cause for alarm since he’s always been a very healthy and active guinea pig. I took him to the vet that specializes in exotic pets (I saw a parrot and rabbit while there, I think the term means “not just cats and dogs” in this context.) The vet noticed he was very thin and dehydrated, and thought he might either have a teeth issue that wasn’t allowing him to eat and drink, or possibly organ issues. Unfortunately it turns…

How rude to post a series of blog posts about a road trip with no map! Here’s an annotated google map showing some of the places I mentioned.

On our last day in LA, we checked out of the hotel and took the metro downtown again. We had breakfast at the 5 cent diner. Then went to the Walt Disney Concert Hall, home of the LA Philharmonic. It was designed by Frank Gehry, and you may notice a similarity to the Pritzker Pavilion in Millennium Park in Chicago. They offer a free self-guided tour of the interior and exterior of the building. Very interesting. The donor, Walt Disney’s wife, told the architect that she wanted a concert hall that looked like a little brick church covered in vines.…

We drove into LA in the afternoon and settled into our hotel in West Hollywood. Liam decided to stay in and have a nap and John, Miles and I took the metro downtown to visit the Museum of Contemporary Art. LA is such a driving town, we heard that nobody takes public transportation, or that there isn’t any. Maybe it doesn’t extend enough to be usable in most cases, but we found the LA metro to be really great. Our station was decorated with movie related stuff like film reels. And drawings of Toto from the Wizard of Oz on ceramic tile.…

San Luis Obispo is a really nice town, and we had a bit of a walk around the downtown after dinner. No photos but some highlights were a nightclub called The Library (what? shhhh!) and an alleyway that was completely covered with chewing gum on the walls. Also there was a great coffeeshop called Kreuzberg, reminding me of the neighborhood where Mildred and I stayed in Berlin a long time ago. After breakfast we continued our drive south through a lot of farm country. We didn’t really get any good photos of farming, but that’s totally our bad because there was…