chocolate & vanilla

A chilly yet clear Valentine's Day that started at the new movie theater on Roosevelt and ended with coffee and treats at the Bourgeois Pig cafe in Lincoln Park.

SNOW DAY!

Scenes from the 'blizzard' Chicago experienced today... there really isn't as much snow on the ground as I expected though there is more forecast for tonight. I didn't think six inches of snow would shake up Chicago like it has but it's probably more of the fear of what could happen than really what occurs. I'm not going to argue though as my school declared a SNOW DAY today. Okay, it was a little wimpy because they decided only night class and activities (so after 5pm) would be canceled but fortunately on Tuesdays I have a night class (6-10) and I TA for a class that goes from 3:30-6. As soon as the school activated our emergency warning (pretty much a glorified phone tree system), I started getting calls and emails from my students, wondering if we would still have class (for an hour or so). The answer was 'no' so that meant I was free to go frolic in the snow!

Never thought I'd get a Snow Day in graduate school, the last one I had was nearly six years ago in high school. To take full advantage of the snow I decided to do something a little crazy, I walked the mile from my El stop rather than taking the bus like I normally do. While my hair and coat ended up getting soaked from the snow I had a good time taking pictures with my iphone, crunching through the fresh snow and watching other Chicagoans out playing with their kids or dogs. Have to savor the 'pure' snow while it lasts as it will quickly turn into treacherous ice, piles of grimy blackness and the worst for shoes-- slush puddles of death that wait for you on the curbs of sidewalks. Have ruined more than one pair of boots by going through a slush puddle that had disguised itself to look like the surface of the road. :(

Off of Western Avenue

Just a few interesting things I saw while wandering around the Lincoln Square & Bucktown neighborhoods today (photos taken with my iphone).

Night Vision

Night photography is always tricky... to best execute you need to use a tripod & long exposure times but since the point of this project is for me to be loosen up a bit and shoot more on the fly I decided to see how my iphone handled low-light situations. Not too bad, I think the snow helped reflect the available light. Photos taken last night (hope this still counts!) on my walk home from the Star Lounge coffee shop in the Ukrainian Village.

Winter Stroll

Lots of photos today... these were taken while I slushed through 7 inches of snow on the way to an estate sale on the North Side (Ravenswood/Albany Park area). Most people have their holiday decorations still up... it's interesting to see the artificial snow and snowflakes juxtaposed with the reality!

Living Inside a Snowglobe

After living in Chicago for almost 3 years I've gotten a little cynical about snow. Gone are the days when I'd go to sleep as a kid, praying for snow--in Arkansas we only got 4 or 5 snowfalls a year, usually an inch at most, that would melt within 4 hours of touching the ground.

There's a weather warning advisory on-- it's been snowing since I left my apartment at 8AM this morning and we're supposed to accumulate up to an inch of snow per hour! This is the view from my office window-- on the 7th floor of a building on S. Michigan Avenue. It appears so still and peaceful out, like a dream.

Structure of a Snowflake

While waiting for a Western bus in Lincoln Square I happened across an empty storefront (sadly now a common sight in this economy) whose windows had been taken over by lacy, icy configurations of condensation. I'd never seen frost accumulate like this before-- they reminded me of other configurations in nature (namely leaves and trees) and also Japanese brush paintings and 1960s minimal paintings.