Again, a long time since my last post – however, I will blame it mostly on my busy-ness as well as the fact that the last few weeks have been somewhat routine. Classes, work and job searching have been the main activies so far. A few of us did have a “last hurrah” for our final weekend as we went to Six Flags on Saturday which was a lot of fun. Sorry – no pictures as a camera would have just been a liability on all of the roller coasters.

Final reflections:

Looking back over the semester it seemed that I hadn’t really learned a whole lot in comparison to all of my other semesters where I would have at least 4 or 5 exams. When studying for an exam you realize all of the material that you have consumed over one semester. But then I began to realize how much I have really learned just by being completely immersed in an urban environment. It doesn’t seem like you are learning or picking up new skills, but once you take a step back you realize how much you have changed just by being forced to live in a new city, environment and job. I can definitely tell that I have grown and matured just by the product of having to complete all of my regular semester tasks of interning, going to class, experiencing different neighborhoods and art events and just plain living in the city.

Overall it was a great experience – one that I would recommend to almost anyone. However, it must be said that your semester will be what you put into it and you have to take your own initiative to make it what you want. Putting yourself out there and going to different events and new churches takes work and may be uncomfortable at times but in the end you are glad that you did it. Oh, and I “survived” the city without getting mugged, pick-pocketed or completely lost – you just have to use a little common sense and be careful.

With that I will leave you with some pictures taken from the 96th floor of the John Hancock building at night. Enjoy!

For those of you who know me, you probably know political views for more limited government. I also have blogged about Rick Santelli’s “Rant hear around the world,” after I saw him on the CBOT floor when I got a tour. As you may or may not know, hundreds of cities across the United States hosted a “Tea Party” or gathering in protest of higher taxes, bailouts and general government spending and waste today on April 15. I of course had to go check out Chicago’s Tea Party downtown. It was pretty good, lots of people upset (and rightly so) although the crowd as a whole wasn’t too rowdy. The had some various people speak and general rallying and sign waving. Check out the pictures below:

This post is also a bit late, but the other weekend my cousin from Canada came to visit so I got to show him around while he was here (aren’t I becoming quite the Chicago resident now huh?) One of the things we did was go to the Museum of Science and Industry which I would highly recommend. The submarine pictures below are from the museum; it is actually the German U-Boat, “U-505,” which the U.S. Navy captured. An amazing story which you can read about here if you like: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U505

Although it may appear that I have died or perhaps have gotten misplaced somewhere in this city, it is not true – my lack of blogging has been mainly due to business (and laziness.) However, I have also found myself settling into a good routine and perhaps did not feel the need to extensively blog. With the last few weeks ahead though I will try to stay on top.

First, a quick recap of the past few weeks. Work, class, art events and perhaps some fun activities on the weekend. One of our most notable art events recently was “Jersey Boys” the musical – the story of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. Fun music and overall a decent musical. I think many people my age don’t think they know the Four Seasons but once they hear their classics such as “Sherry,” “Walk like a man,” and “Oh what a night…” they realize that they do indeed know it.

The Alvin Ailey Dance Company – amazing to say the least. This was probably one of my most favorite events thus far. We got to see vingettes or a sampling of many of their pieces as well as the half hour long “Revelations” which is set to all gospel music. The dance and music was beutiful and very moving.

“Rent” – the musical. Very famous and long running musical. However, I was actually not very impressed. For one we were sitting literally at the very back of the theater, making it impossible to see facial expressions and hard to hear dialog and music. The other factor was that it is a musical that is hyped up so much that I was probably expecting too much. Finally, I actually didn’t think it is that well written of a musical. The script is very sporadic with all kinds of characters who never really develop, too much dialog is sung which makes the music seem weak and poorly written and overall I just thought it was poorly executed.

Chicago Symphony Orchestra – a few of us students bought cheap students tickets for the CSO, even though the arts class is attending the CSO as a group next week. The theme was “Back to Bach” and obviously featured some great Bach pieces. The Symphony and the hall was also a bit of an experience in itself. I would recommend going to the CSO at least once if you can for a night of rich culture.

Saturday the St. Patrick’s Day festivities were in full swing here in Chicago which boasts a few different parades as well as the famous dyeing of the river. We went to see the parade which was actually quite boring in my opinion. We went to the one on Columbus which is apparently 3 hours long; there were bands and floats and all but it was also just filled with a lot of people just walking in the parade.

The green Chicago river was quite cool though. Apparently (according to Wikipedia) the river has been dyed green on for St. Patrick’s since 1961; sewage workers used to purposely dye the sewage green to check for leaks and discharges and then got the idea to do the whole river as a celebration.

The city was absolutely packed with people all walking around but at least the weather was a really nice 55 degrees and sunny. Division street where we live was of course an absolute circus (see picture of the overflowing bars by our apartment)

This past wed. for our art event we walked over to the art museum to see the special display on Edward Munch. I had already been to the museum but didn’t see this display yet. It was very well done…unfortunately his iconic piece “The Scream” was not there at the time, but they had a lot of his other work.I liked that they had a lot of narrative details posted about his life, his circumstances and some explanations on some of his main themes to his work.

This past Thursday we went to the Looking Glass Theater which is in the old water tower building (the only building to have survived the Chicago fire.) We saw the play “Our Town” which was excellent – a great play that was done very well. “George Gibbs” of the play was actually played by David Schwimmer! (aka “Ross” from the show “Friends”) The theater is actually just a large “black box” kind of room (well,  rectangle) where the stage was just on the floor and the audience sat on all four sides. It was quite strange to see such a well known TV character acting on a stage right in front of you…at first I had a hard time keeping his stereotypical “Ross” character out of my head even though I have only seen Friends a few times. I would definitely recommend the play to anyone if they are in Chicago. A play that has been said it is “about nothing yet everything.”

So I somewhat forgot to post this; but the other week at work I got a tour of the floor! It was pretty awesome to actually be down there at the Board of Trade. They have undergone a number of changes since the whole CME group merger thing. Basically they have one room where all of the commodities are traded like grains and a second room that is connected where they trade the financials like interest rates and currencies. The futures pits are apparently much more empty than they used to be as much of this trading has gone electronic. But the options pit is still very full as many option strategies are still too complicated to do all electronically or the clients don’t want their whole trade to be seen on the screen by others and would thus rather have their trades done on the floor.

Here was the best part of it though, I actually got to walk right past Rick Santelli! He is a reporter for CNBC and reports directly from the floor there. In hindsight I wish I would have shaken his hand or something but it looked like he was getting ready for his segment. What is so cool too is that he has recently gotten a lot of attention for his “rant heard around the world” on CNBC a few weeks ago. You can view it below:

Finally, some people in Chicago actually put some legs on his words and held a small “tea party” right downtown at the Daley Civic Plaza. Apparently there were well over 500 people protesting the bailouts and stimulus packages. Here is just one video on youtube, but there are plenty more if you search for “Chicago Tea Party”

If I would have known about it I would have gone to check it out; oh well, perhaps I can get to the next one.

So these pictures are long overdue, but on Sat. the 21 of Feb. we had a CS Progressive dinner where various apartments signed up to prepare either an appetizer, main course or dessert for all the other CS students. It was a lot of fun going from apartment to apartment and seeing everyone. There were three different appetizer apartments, two main courses (I think) and three desserts. We started at the LaSalle apartments, made our way to Canterbury and then ended at the Millenium Park Plaza apartments. All in all a good evening. What was very comical to me though was that most of the people who volunteered had studio apartments; you get the idea from the pictures with everyone crowded in a small room and maybe some food laid out on the bed. Good memories.

Other notable events: We went to a play that was actually written by one of the CS Professors – Loren Crawford. The play was called “Goldbrick” and was based around Jon Langford’s music who actually came to one of our CS classes to talk about some of his art, career and music which was very cool. Our last art event was “Dada Machinations” performed at the Harris Theater. Very cool venue as the theater is almost completely underground. The concert was interesting to say the least. It featured very post-modern music which usually meant irregular beats and time signatures without melodies or typical musical patterns. The final piece was quite impressive in the fact that it had a band mixed with two grand pianos played by pianists as well as 8 player pianos that were synchronized to the piece. They also used sirens, gongs and propellers for different sounds and effects.

Finally last Friday we went to a Bulls game. I had never been to the United Center; it was a good game and I think everyone had a good time. Pictures of the progressive dinner below.

WARNING: What follows is a somewhat long and geeky post about coffee. Continue to read at your own risk of boredom.

So on Saturday (last Sat.) I went to Coffee Fest Chicago. This is one of the regional shows where they have an expo, seminars and the Great Lakes Regional Barista Competition. The winners from this competition go on to the National Barista Competition at the annual SCAA (Specialty Coffee Association of America) expo. The winners there go on to compete at the world competition – yes world.

The competitors have 15 minutes to prepare their stations, dial-in their grinders and pull some practice shots. The judges then come out and they have 15 minutes to serve four espressos, four cappuccinos and four signature drinks. (There are four tasting judges as well as 2 technical judges and 1 head judge for a total of 7 judges watching.) The signature drink can be anything as long as espresso is the main ingredient and there is no alcohol. One specialty drink used blue cheese (for a more complementing taste to a smoky, or spicy sumatra.) Another guy modeled his drink after Elvis’ famous sandwich “The Elvis” which was made with peanut butter, banannas, honey and bacon slices served with a pickel. The drink was a latte but had a kind of bannana cream made for it and real bacon pieces sprinkled on top with a pickel served on the side. There were also more traditional sweet drinks.

They also had a latte art competition where competitors had to do free-pour (no etching or chocolate allowed, only allowed to pour milk into designs) for cash prizes. There was actually a 16 year old girl there that has been competing since she was 14! Very cool as well. Oh, I also thought the espresso van was very cool. I got to walk around inside of it – it basically has everything a basic starbucks or other kiosk has: A three group espresso machine, grinder, double coffee brewer, three compartment sink, cash register/computer, ice machine etc. It is also completely self sufficient with a gas generator contained in the back with the option to plug the whole thing into a 220. It would actually be a lot of fun to do a few gigs in there. Enough room for 2 people to operate easily with maybe the option of 3.

So last weekend on Friday after work I met another CS Student at McCormick place to see the 2009 Chicago Auto Show. However, I still haven’t put up the pictures. So here is a small sampling. The show was great – lots of nice cars to see and the concepts cars were pretty cool. I also got to see the much hyped up Chevy “Volt.” My first comment was “Hey look, it’s my tax dollars.” : ) It was cool yes, but not that cool. I mean you can only go 40 miles on a charge. However, it does plug into a standard 110 outlet. Jeep had a cool demonstration where they drove people on this big track they had set up; they went up very steep inclines over railroad ties etc. Also the other highlight was one of the “Transformers” from the second movie that is coming out. For more info on the show click here: http://www.chicagoautoshow.com/index.asp

Otherwise here are the pics. The cars by Lotus were very cool. Also, the red car I am sitting in is a Viper – very cool but very cramped inside. It was actually really hard to get in and out of the car. And the one-man car was actually a older Mazda.