Work And More Work

I took two more days off to spend time with my friends and to show them around. While I was off, I occasionally looked at work Slack and saw that work was accumulating and that several things required my attention. Still, I decided not to work and not to interfere until I was back.

As a result, today, I came to the office at 7 AM and left at 5:20 PM, and the only breaks I had were for breakfast and lunch in the cafeteria. One of these days when your butt hurts from sitting! And there were still more things to do.

And I believe I didn’t mention that my talk was accepted for PG Day UK! Actually, one talk was accepted, and another is on the reserve list, which means that I need to prepare both! I am excited and nervous :). And I do no know where I can find time for that!

Next week, I am hosting Chicago PUG, and I already have over fifty RSVPs, so it might be yet another eight RSVPs meetup, and once again, I am excited and scared. Life is good, but one life is definitely not enough!

Showing The Best Of Rogers Park

I had a total of five days off work, including two vacation days I took on July 3 and 5 to help my friends feel at home and show them all of the Rogers Park highlights. I think I succeeded: they love it here!

We went to the beach several times (actually, at least twice, they went without me).

On July 4, we went to look at the Artists of the Wall:

We went to Devon Market and Morse Market (and to get to the former one, I made sure that all of them had a bike they could ride. My friend Natasha didn’t ride a bike for several years, and she never did biking in the street traffic. I could understand her anxiety – I felt the same way when I first biked in Rogers Park, but she survived :).

This morning, we went for breakfast to the Common Cup:

And then to the Glenwood market, where we got purple and yellow beans, Benison bakery pastries, Mickii’s cobblers, flowers, and tart cherries. And Natasha got herself a new neckless, and then we all got different flavors of popsicles.

And then we went to the Art Institute, where, to my deepest disappointment, we found the Ryan Canter closed because of the NASCAR race – don’t ask what it has to do with that! However, Sonia compensated this loss with another round of slashes in the Crown Fountain:

Tomorrow, I will be back to work, but I think my friends will find their way around and things to do!

Being A Proud Chicagoan…

I am a proud Chicagoan. I love our city and I love showing all the best things to out-of-town visitors. I think our city is special and not like others. Being a proud Chicagoan comes with a very clear understanding that our city has many problems and that there are many things that are done better elsewhere.

That being said, there were quiet rumors that panhandlers and the homeless would be removed from State Street as a part of “getting ready for the summer influx of tourists.” When I was in the Loop on July 4, I realized that it was also “do not spoil the Independence Day celebration and do not expose the city problems on that day.” I do not know (and I would be curious to know) what it took to remove people from the streets, but apparently something was done. And I am not happy of that way of solving problems. Should I be? Should I be happy about the city looking less problematic than it is?…

Aquarium

Today, we visited the Aquarium. I love this museum, and I reserved the tickets immediately after knowing my friends were coming. This was a great idea since the Aquarium was sold out for the day!

What I completely forgot (or ignored) was that this weekend is a NASCAR weekend. Although the races are happening during the weekend, the street closures started a week before (and would still be there the week after). Last night, I tried to figure out what exactly would be opened and closed, but without any luck.

That being said, getting there was quite an adventure, and Sonia (the youngest child and my goddaughter) was screaming that she couldn’t go anymore, but when we finally got to the Aquarium, all the hardships were forgotten! I love when people love the Aquarium and when they not just quickly browse the exhibits but actually pay attention to all of them, so it was a real joy!

We spent five hours in the Aquarium, and that’s only because we skipped the show and a big portion of it is closed for renovation. And a way back seemed not as bad!

TIME Magazine: The Least Amount of Sleep

As my friends can imagine, I have an opinion on that subject! Time Magazine article What’s the Least Amount of Sleep You Need to Get? suggests that only people with a very rare genetic anomaly can function on less than 6.5 hours of sleep and that, in general, people who sleep for less than 7 hours for more than a couple of days incur serious health consequences. I do not know how to argue all this research except by saying that it does work differently for me. As usual, the full text is below.

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July 4

My feelings towards Independence Day are now more complex than they used to be. i am not ready for the in-depth analysis yet, but let me just say that I can understand people who do not want to celebrate this day. It does not mean that I do not want to celebrate – I do, and this day means a lot to me.

We do not have any Independence Day parades in Rogers Park, and we do not have official fireworks (although I can hear the illegal ones right now, and very loud!). Instead, my guests and I went to Millennium Park’s Independence Day Salute concert. I got us close-up seats, and it was amazing! I have gone to this concert every year since I moved to Rogers Park, and I love how Christopher Bell conducts them! My guests liked it as well 🙂

I will try to add more pictures tomorrow when there will be something in the media

Breakfast

I can’t believe it, but last Sunday was the first time I had breakfast outside this season! That’s mostly because I have breakfast at work most days, and also, I was away a lot, but still! One of my favorite things!

Pride North

I didn’t go to the Pride Parade this year; instead, I went to Jarvis Square for Pride North. I thought I took a lot of pictures, but somehow, almost all of them ended up not-so-good-not-much-to-see. And in any case, the best thing I liked was an atmosphere, and people friendliness and a feeling of everybody celebrating diversity – – and this can’t be capture on film 🙂

ORD

I am sitting in Terminal 5 of ORD, waiting for my friends from Helsinki to arrive. I know that the aircraft landed more than twenty minutes ago, but nobody can tell how long is the security line.

I have a full fridge and places for five people to sleep, and that’s exciting – I didn’t have any international guests since pre-pandemic, and that will be the first time I have international guests since I moved to Rogers Park.

The first line from today’s WBEZ newsletter says:

It’s a fact we Chicagoans hold dear: No city summers better than ours.

And don’t you dare to tell me otherwise!