I noticed this fountain this morning with about 8 feet of foam on the top. By the time I was back to take a picture someone, obviously without a sense of humor, turned it off. Still a nice combination snow-white foam and flowers.

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

I’ve never made a trip to Chicago I didn’t like. Travelling by train and booking hotels on priceline.com makes it an affordable and fun weekend trip. While visiting Chicago is always exciting, winter is a good time to enjoy indoor activities. During a recent trip we visited the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry – probably the most awesome museum in the country which we would’ve enjoyed more if it didn’t close at 4pm; saw a comedy show at the Second City, if you laugh non-stop when watching SNL you’ll probably love this one; saw a Broadway show American Idiot – I liked it a lot and I am not even a fan of Green Day, the first musical I’ve seen without an intermission; we took a tour of Chicago Pedway and walked for 90 minutes without getting out in the cold; went to the top of the John Hancock building – we didn’t use the skating rink but in case you were wondering – it’s small, lame and not even real ice. In between, we ate a lot of good food, walked around in the cold as much as we liked, saw a light show at the Millennium Park and even had time to visit relatives. And all of this in one short weekend. I’ve been to Chicago many times and never had to do the same thing twice or eat twice at the same place (unless I wanted to). There is a never-ending list of things to do, see and eat.

Today was a nice day to bring your garage sale to the masses at the City Market .

Garage sale wedding dress.
Just as much happiness,
For half the price.

Continue reading →

When I was growing up©, I used to calculate how old I will be in the year 2000. This was my Mayan Calendar of sorts – the year 2000 was so far away and the double-digit age of 31 seemed so unbelievably huge that I didn’t bother to look beyond the year with too many zeroes. Now, ten years on the other side of that imaginary horizon I still can’t believe I made it so far without any outstanding achievements. No lives saved, no cure for cancer discovered, no small town square named after me, no major scientific problems solved, no bestselling books written and no spread in the Blind Playgirl Magazine. The only thing I can show for the previous 40 years of my life is a steady weight gain and a child who is extracting the most aggravating noises out of the Nintendo WII as I type this.
This year started with me trying to decide if that’s what an alcohol poisoning feels like and will end at the same place in another attempt to achieve it. As always I hurt some people, made some people laugh, got fatter but not any wiser. In other words, a pretty average year, just another one in now a long line separating me from that naive age when I couldn’t imagine the life past 31.

I would like to thank many readers of this blog, people who thought enough of my writing to stop by and leave a comment, and many others who know me on Twitter, Facebook and in real life (there are about 4 or 5 of the lucky ones). I hope you all have a great year, stay healthy, employed and sexually active happy.

This is an old (1956) Soviet song – “5 minutes til the New Year”:

httpv://youtu.be/12kPdU6A71o

Preface:

Hundreds of thousands of people with better cameras and better photography skills vacation at the same places as me.

Hundreds of thousands of people are better at travel writing than I am, better at writing in general, and are clearly better than me at speaking English.

Go read their damn blogs….

I love to travel. It helps me to relax; feel in charge when I am planning my next trip, buying tickets and making reservations; learn new things; change the scenery; feel better (or worse) about my hometown. Most importantly, it helps me not to raise a moron. This year we traveled to the Pacific Northwest, a place that until now remained a blank spot on my travel map. We visited Seattle, took an Amtrak train to San Francisco and drove 450 miles along the Pacific Coast on Highways 1 and 101, stopping for a night in Monterey. The trip turned out to be even better than I imagined.

The next several posts will be about these places illustrated with tons of photos (I brought back 1,214, which would probably weigh tons if I was using film).

Face:

If there was a god, the Pacific Northwest would have been his reward to the people who didn’t quit going West in the middle of Kansas, and, instead of making “Ad Astra Per Aspera” their motto and giving up, continued to endure and persevere for months and years, slowly consuming their mates on the way. When these people, exhausted and with little hope remaining, saw the water in front of them (after the rain stopped and the fog cleared 6 months later), they knew it was all worth it, and everyone they ate on the way would have wanted it that way. Over time they proceeded to cut and kill most of the things so abundant in the area, swindle the Indians, build depressing slums and fill the void with homeless people, Mexican radio stations, French-speaking tourists and a special breed of people who ride the Ducks.

Over time, people had an epiphany, and after multiple fires and earthquakes, the Pacific Northwest and Northern California (I have no idea if these are considered one geographical region) are an American jewel, a place where the nature, weather and landscape combined with the architecture, city planning, atmosphere and a number of Asian restaurants approaching infinity make one understand why people are willing to pay mind-blowing prices to live there.

If I had to summarize Seattle in one photo, it would probably be this shot of a redheaded, bearded guy in a cap, wearing sandals and smoking a pipe.