I replaced my BlackBerry Curve with an Android smartphone (HTC Thunderbolt) in May. Although I still miss the BlackBerry’s superior handling of multiple email accounts and most of all BlackBerry Messenger, I don’t miss its less-than-stellar 2MP camera.
The HTC phones all seem to have better than average cameras. The Thunderbolt has an 8MP camera and image quality in adequate light is probably better than that of my first digital point and shoot camera.
When I’m stopped at the light at Orleans and Ontario, every so often I use the phone to snap a photo of the Sears Tower. Or at least the top of the Sears Tower plus all of the other shorter buildings on Orleans. Yes, I know that is not its current name. I do not acknowledge that name. So far, luck has not had me stopped safely at the light for the most interesting cloud formations and lighting conditions. Eventually I’ll get them all, I hope.
I’m having a tough time getting back into the rhythm of daily writing. As I’ve mentioned before, November is not the best time for me to start any kind of involved personal project.
Today was a particularly aggravating day with no chance to enjoy the unseasonably mild weather. All week, AT&T repair trucks have been working in the alley behind the house, mostly blocking our garage. It has been a real inconvenience, plus I hate to open the garage when strangers of any variety are around. The work day started early and ended late. In between, we were missing several people due to illness or minor emergencies. When I finally got home, it was to the news that one of our neighbors had his home broken into.
I know I have complained about the jagoffs in my neighborhood quite often. The neighbor whose home was broken into is not one of them. He is a very nice older gentleman who certainly did not deserve the headache. Thankfully he was not home at the time, and the only saving grace is that the scumbag criminals did not hurt his dog. Not physically, anyway. I hope she was not too traumatized by the invasion.
I put part of the blame on another neighbor who is definitely one of the jagoffs. His constant yard sales (so many as to be in violation of city ordinances, but of course since it’s not a “real” crime nothing has been done) bring around unknowns and undesirables as well as legitimate neighborhood bargain seekers. I would not be surprised if some of the unknowns were also casing out the area for easy marks.
I’ve always bought into the conventional wisdom that having a dog is a deterrent to break-ins. Now I’m not so sure. I do know that when the Rottweilers bark and growl at unknowns or unfriendlies, I won’t be making an effort to stop them any longer. This is one time that I plan to use the stereotype of killer Rottweilers for good — our good. I truly hate that I feel I have to do that.
There are still quite a few 1960s signs near my home and office. Here’s one I go past every day. It’s at the CVS drugstore at the corner of Nagle and Higgins on the northwest side of Chicago.
A restaurant and banquet hall called the Golden Flame used to be on that corner, and they kept the old sign. I was trying to remember if there was actually a neon flame on top of the original sign. I never took a picture of it when I moved into the neighborhood, and no one else seems to have taken one either. Among the many, many photographs of vintage signage in Chicago on the internet, I have still not found even one of the original Golden Flame sign.
I have made fun of the people I’ve seen taking pictures of garbage cans. Now I’m not so sure I should ever be making fun of anyone taking pictures of anything they might want to remember, even if I can’t imagine why they’d want to remember it.
And if you have a photo of the old Golden Flame sign? Please, please let me know!
I’m taking a rare non-dog related sports break tonight to watch the hockey game. Third period just starting… come on, Blackhawks… don’t break my heart like most of the other Chicago teams!
That’s the difference between the high temperature on December 26 and the high on December 31. I’m still not entirely convinced about global warming, but there have been a lot of strange things going on with the weather in recent years. We did have local warming in a big way last week, with a high of 55°F on December 31. That is pretty unnatural for the Chicago area.
Just a few days earlier on the day after Christmas, the high for the day was 31°F and a few inches of snow had fallen overnight. The dogs loved it because it was deep enough to wrestle in and roll around in. Please note that these are Rottweilers at play, not war. They may appear to be killing each other, but trust me. They tell me this is big Rottweiler fun.
Temperatures were warm enough on the 29th and 30th for the snow to start melting. The unseasonably warm temperatures on the 31st killed it off almost completely. I don’t have photos of the in-between swamplike stage featuring freezing cold mud, but here’s that same yard on New Year’s Eve day, after rain overnight and through the early morning.
We’re back to a more typical 20something°F today. No more local warming here.
On an unrelated note, I’m starting a Project 365 and attempting to take and post a photo every day this year. We’ll see how that goes. I’ll be adding a link to my photoblog in the right sidebar soon, but I’ll repost only the dog- and computer-related photos here. Like today’s:
The day started off with strong thunderstorms and continued on with high winds all day. But in my sector, the storm really didn’t live up to the claims of being the biggest storm to hit the area in more than 70 years. In other parts of the Chicago metro area, there were tornadoes, wind damage, power outages, and weather-related injuries. Here on the northwest side of the city, though, this rather lame video was the best I could get: lots of wind noise, more than the usual amount of tree movement, and our Rottweiler swirly wind spinner actually spinning in the wind.
