Monday, January 30, 2012
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Saturday Night Sixties
It’s Saturday night. Time to relax. Let’s set the wayback machine for the 60’s, my favorite decade.
Pour yourself a big, stiff cocktail. Put a thick wax platter on the turntable of the hi-fi and gently drop that needle.
Pour yourself a big, stiff cocktail. Put a thick wax platter on the turntable of the hi-fi and gently drop that needle.
The Art Of Hipgnosis
I was having a drink one night reading an article about someone's "favorite things" and they mentioned an out-of-print book from the 70's about the firm Hipgnosis that designed iconic album covers. Literally 5 or so clicks later I ordered it from my iPhone through Amazon and it recently arrived (amazing what the internet can do).
Hipgnosis was the name of the now-defunct firm that produced all the record covers that you have in your collection from the era when a record cover was a work of art, something to look at for hours on end while the music played over your stereo (or headphones). Wikipedia has a good summary of the firm here and also the main designer (Storm Thogerson) here who even today still creates great CD Covers (it doesn't sound the same, I admit) for bands like Muse. Here is a great site (non official) of Hipgnosis material, as well.
I was very impressed with these record covers growing up. At that time the internet didn't exist so unless you went to a show and saw the band "in the flesh" or read a music magazine (which I never paid for) at a magazine stand you didn't know much about the band "behind the music" so these iconic images helped you to imagine what the band stood for. Plus Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd and similar artists never really toured the states when I was at an age to afford to attend shows so their "message" came through on album covers, posters, and sleeves.
Some of the album art that Hipgnosis made from the 70's era is from great bands and albums like "The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway", the Pink Floyd classics, and the Led Zeppelin era, as well as the Peter Gabriel unnamed solo albums. These bands seemed to stand well with the images.
I am a huge Michael Schenker / UFO fan and loved their covers, too, except I didn't really understand them (especially "Force It" with the gleaming bathroom appliances). Obsession with the "ball bearing" images didn't make the book but it also was iconic.
Then you get the more obscure bands like Montrose (Sammy Hagar's band before he went solo) with their "arty" covers. Some of the band covers are hilarious when juxtaposition-ed against the fact that much of the underlying music was awful. Obviously these images were damn racy in the day; when I bought the book there were photocopies from a xerox machine inside the book of some of the racier album covers involving human body parts. These photocopies were likely 15 years old (nowadays way racier stuff is everywhere in the internet).
I also like the logos (in the collage) and the inside sleeve from "The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway". Hipgnosis really did outstanding work and I highly recommend the book if you can find it. The book is organized in a somewhat "cheeky" fashion (they are British, after all) with the famous "Flying Pig" over the power station for "Animals" filed under the category "Fiascos".
Cross posted at Chicago Boyz
Hipgnosis was the name of the now-defunct firm that produced all the record covers that you have in your collection from the era when a record cover was a work of art, something to look at for hours on end while the music played over your stereo (or headphones). Wikipedia has a good summary of the firm here and also the main designer (Storm Thogerson) here who even today still creates great CD Covers (it doesn't sound the same, I admit) for bands like Muse. Here is a great site (non official) of Hipgnosis material, as well.
I was very impressed with these record covers growing up. At that time the internet didn't exist so unless you went to a show and saw the band "in the flesh" or read a music magazine (which I never paid for) at a magazine stand you didn't know much about the band "behind the music" so these iconic images helped you to imagine what the band stood for. Plus Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd and similar artists never really toured the states when I was at an age to afford to attend shows so their "message" came through on album covers, posters, and sleeves.
Some of the album art that Hipgnosis made from the 70's era is from great bands and albums like "The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway", the Pink Floyd classics, and the Led Zeppelin era, as well as the Peter Gabriel unnamed solo albums. These bands seemed to stand well with the images.
I am a huge Michael Schenker / UFO fan and loved their covers, too, except I didn't really understand them (especially "Force It" with the gleaming bathroom appliances). Obsession with the "ball bearing" images didn't make the book but it also was iconic.
Then you get the more obscure bands like Montrose (Sammy Hagar's band before he went solo) with their "arty" covers. Some of the band covers are hilarious when juxtaposition-ed against the fact that much of the underlying music was awful. Obviously these images were damn racy in the day; when I bought the book there were photocopies from a xerox machine inside the book of some of the racier album covers involving human body parts. These photocopies were likely 15 years old (nowadays way racier stuff is everywhere in the internet).
I also like the logos (in the collage) and the inside sleeve from "The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway". Hipgnosis really did outstanding work and I highly recommend the book if you can find it. The book is organized in a somewhat "cheeky" fashion (they are British, after all) with the famous "Flying Pig" over the power station for "Animals" filed under the category "Fiascos".
Cross posted at Chicago Boyz
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
My Man Mitch
Never felt so good to be a Hoosier. Twenty years ago we made the smart choice in leaving Illinois to move back to the free world of Indiana, where the U.S. Constitution still means something.
A photo I took of Mitch as he waved to me at the Indy500 parade three years ago.
For the first time in the last three years I am proud of my country because it feels like common sense is finally making a comeback.”
In case you missed the Mitch response last night here are my favorite quotes.
“The President did not cause the economic and fiscal crises that continue in America tonight. But he was elected on a promise to fix them, and he cannot claim that the last three years have made things anything but worse: the percentage of Americans with a job is at the lowest in decades.”
“He seems to sincerely believe we can build a middle class out of government jobs paid for with borrowed dollars. In fact, it works the other way: a government as big and bossy as this one is maintained on the backs of the middle class, and those who hope to join it.”
“As Republicans our first concern is for those waiting tonight to begin or resume the climb up life’s ladder. We do not accept that ours will ever be a nation of haves and have not’s; we must always be a nation of haves and soon to haves.”
“Contrary to the President's constant disparagement of people in business, it's one of the noblest of human pursuits. The late Steve Jobs - what a fitting name he had - created more of them than all those stimulus dollars the President borrowed and blew.”
Out here in Indiana, when a businessperson asks me what he can do for our state, I say ‘First, make money. Be successful. If you make a profit, you'll have something left to hire someone else, and some to donate to the good causes we love.”
“The extremism that stifles the development of homegrown energy, or cancels a perfectly safe pipeline that would employ tens of thousands, or jacks up consumer utility bills for no improvement in either human health or world temperature, is a pro-poverty policy. It must be replaced by a passionate pro-growth approach that breaks all ties and calls all close ones in favor of private sector jobs that restore opportunity for all and generate the public revenues to pay our bills.”
“It's not fair and it's not true for the President to attack Republicans in Congress as obstacles on these questions. They and they alone have passed bills to reduce borrowing, reform entitlements, and encourage new job creation, only to be shot down time and time again by the President and his Democratic Senate allies.”
“No feature of the Obama Presidency has been sadder than its constant efforts to divide us, to curry favor with some Americans by castigating others. As in previous moments of national danger, we Americans are all in the same boat.”
We will fall for the con job that says we can just plow ahead and someone else will pick up the tab. We will allow ourselves to be pitted one against the other, blaming our neighbor for troubles worldwide trends or our own government has caused.”
And here’s my favorite:
“In word and deed, the President and his allies tell us that we just cannot handle ourselves in this complex, perilous world without their benevolent protection. Left to ourselves, we might pick the wrong health insurance, the wrong mortgage, the wrong school for our kids; why, unless they stop us, we might pick the wrong light bulb!”
The entire content is here.
Mitch is about to win one last battle in my state. the Indiana Right To Work law. It will be the last courageous act of a conservative governor restricted to a limit of two terms.
While Mitch will be moving back to the private sector next January we should be in good shape for another eight years. This guy will win easily.
A photo I took of Mitch as he waved to me at the Indy500 parade three years ago.
For the first time in the last three years I am proud of my country because it feels like common sense is finally making a comeback.”
In case you missed the Mitch response last night here are my favorite quotes.
“The President did not cause the economic and fiscal crises that continue in America tonight. But he was elected on a promise to fix them, and he cannot claim that the last three years have made things anything but worse: the percentage of Americans with a job is at the lowest in decades.”
“He seems to sincerely believe we can build a middle class out of government jobs paid for with borrowed dollars. In fact, it works the other way: a government as big and bossy as this one is maintained on the backs of the middle class, and those who hope to join it.”
“As Republicans our first concern is for those waiting tonight to begin or resume the climb up life’s ladder. We do not accept that ours will ever be a nation of haves and have not’s; we must always be a nation of haves and soon to haves.”
“Contrary to the President's constant disparagement of people in business, it's one of the noblest of human pursuits. The late Steve Jobs - what a fitting name he had - created more of them than all those stimulus dollars the President borrowed and blew.”
Out here in Indiana, when a businessperson asks me what he can do for our state, I say ‘First, make money. Be successful. If you make a profit, you'll have something left to hire someone else, and some to donate to the good causes we love.”
“The extremism that stifles the development of homegrown energy, or cancels a perfectly safe pipeline that would employ tens of thousands, or jacks up consumer utility bills for no improvement in either human health or world temperature, is a pro-poverty policy. It must be replaced by a passionate pro-growth approach that breaks all ties and calls all close ones in favor of private sector jobs that restore opportunity for all and generate the public revenues to pay our bills.”
“It's not fair and it's not true for the President to attack Republicans in Congress as obstacles on these questions. They and they alone have passed bills to reduce borrowing, reform entitlements, and encourage new job creation, only to be shot down time and time again by the President and his Democratic Senate allies.”
“No feature of the Obama Presidency has been sadder than its constant efforts to divide us, to curry favor with some Americans by castigating others. As in previous moments of national danger, we Americans are all in the same boat.”
We will fall for the con job that says we can just plow ahead and someone else will pick up the tab. We will allow ourselves to be pitted one against the other, blaming our neighbor for troubles worldwide trends or our own government has caused.”
And here’s my favorite:
“In word and deed, the President and his allies tell us that we just cannot handle ourselves in this complex, perilous world without their benevolent protection. Left to ourselves, we might pick the wrong health insurance, the wrong mortgage, the wrong school for our kids; why, unless they stop us, we might pick the wrong light bulb!”
The entire content is here.
Mitch is about to win one last battle in my state. the Indiana Right To Work law. It will be the last courageous act of a conservative governor restricted to a limit of two terms.
While Mitch will be moving back to the private sector next January we should be in good shape for another eight years. This guy will win easily.
Monday, January 23, 2012
NYT Has A Decent Article on Taxes
Both our current administration and the New York Times appeared to have little or no understanding how the "real" economy worked or the impact of incentives on tax policy. In more recent years they grasped that changing tax policy can impact economic incentives, which in turn, can increase their chances of being re-elected.
Their first major foray was "cash for clunkers" which gave a tax deduction for turning in your old car for a new one. Like most one-time incentives, it accelerated purchases into the current period, giving a boost to auto manufacturers and car dealerships (and sticking the tax credit to the deficit). Lately the administration has gotten bolder, offering 100% deduction for capital purchases in the current year for tax purposes (which has the same effect as "cash for clunkers", except on a wider scale as tax incentives for corporations and private companies), and then giving a 2% "payroll tax cut" which finally eliminates even the concept that social security is anything more than a "pay as you go" system and that there is nothing there waiting for you when you retire.
My view of tax policy is that the goal of a sound policy is to:
1) raise the revenue that you set out to achieve
2) minimize negative effects or dis-incentives of the policy
Examples abound of a failure of #1, including raising marginal taxes on the wealthy (they change their behavior or move to another jurisdiction) and the distortive effects of #2 are legendary, including over-investment in non-productive housing stock (due to the mortgage interest deduction) and the massive numbers of lawyers and accountants that make a living on the entrails of our bewildering and counter-productive tax system.
In recent years the NYT, as the sounding arm for the administration, has started to realize that the haphazard and counter-productive effects of our current tax system are legion, and that better core policies could improve revenues while minimizing negative behavior. This article called "A Better Tax System" (Instructions Included) laid our four principles that seem reasonable overall:
1) Broaden the base and lower rates
2) Tax consumption rather than income
3) Tax "bads" rather than "goods"
4) Keep it simple, stupid
I would say that their item 1 corresponds to my number 1, above, because a wider base with a less sloped marginal top is the core to a sustainable base of revenues that won't fluctuate as much over time. Items 2-4 are under the negative minimization principle.
Of course part of the reason that this article seems to make sense is that it was written by a non NYT staffer who works for an opposition candidate. But I do think that the NYT and the administration are starting to realize that our current tax system is an unholy mess with huge dis-incentives (the highest corporate taxes in the world drive jobs overseas), that doesn't raise revenue broadly, and has huge dis-incentives in terms of ability for companies and individuals to plan ahead.
Too bad it is too late in the game for them to do much more than talk about it. Also shame on the prior administration for never spending the political capital to attempt to change the system and reform it. They neglected to wield their power to make America more competitive.
Cross posted at Chicago Boyz
Their first major foray was "cash for clunkers" which gave a tax deduction for turning in your old car for a new one. Like most one-time incentives, it accelerated purchases into the current period, giving a boost to auto manufacturers and car dealerships (and sticking the tax credit to the deficit). Lately the administration has gotten bolder, offering 100% deduction for capital purchases in the current year for tax purposes (which has the same effect as "cash for clunkers", except on a wider scale as tax incentives for corporations and private companies), and then giving a 2% "payroll tax cut" which finally eliminates even the concept that social security is anything more than a "pay as you go" system and that there is nothing there waiting for you when you retire.
My view of tax policy is that the goal of a sound policy is to:
1) raise the revenue that you set out to achieve
2) minimize negative effects or dis-incentives of the policy
Examples abound of a failure of #1, including raising marginal taxes on the wealthy (they change their behavior or move to another jurisdiction) and the distortive effects of #2 are legendary, including over-investment in non-productive housing stock (due to the mortgage interest deduction) and the massive numbers of lawyers and accountants that make a living on the entrails of our bewildering and counter-productive tax system.
In recent years the NYT, as the sounding arm for the administration, has started to realize that the haphazard and counter-productive effects of our current tax system are legion, and that better core policies could improve revenues while minimizing negative behavior. This article called "A Better Tax System" (Instructions Included) laid our four principles that seem reasonable overall:
1) Broaden the base and lower rates
2) Tax consumption rather than income
3) Tax "bads" rather than "goods"
4) Keep it simple, stupid
I would say that their item 1 corresponds to my number 1, above, because a wider base with a less sloped marginal top is the core to a sustainable base of revenues that won't fluctuate as much over time. Items 2-4 are under the negative minimization principle.
Of course part of the reason that this article seems to make sense is that it was written by a non NYT staffer who works for an opposition candidate. But I do think that the NYT and the administration are starting to realize that our current tax system is an unholy mess with huge dis-incentives (the highest corporate taxes in the world drive jobs overseas), that doesn't raise revenue broadly, and has huge dis-incentives in terms of ability for companies and individuals to plan ahead.
Too bad it is too late in the game for them to do much more than talk about it. Also shame on the prior administration for never spending the political capital to attempt to change the system and reform it. They neglected to wield their power to make America more competitive.
Cross posted at Chicago Boyz
Walgreens Hates Pigeons
And so do I!
I don't think that they can find any more places to put those "pigeon spikes" on the sign.
Sunday, January 22, 2012
Saturday, January 21, 2012
Saturday Night Sixties
It’s Saturday night. Time to relax. Let’s set the wayback machine for the 60’s, my favorite decade.
Pour yourself a big, stiff cocktail. Put a thick wax platter on the turntable of the hi-fi and gently drop that needle.
You can help yourself, but don't take too much.
Pour yourself a big, stiff cocktail. Put a thick wax platter on the turntable of the hi-fi and gently drop that needle.
You can help yourself, but don't take too much.
Thursday, January 19, 2012
France 2012
Tonight I attended a meeting about the France trip I will be going on in late June/early July 2012. I met a bunch of the people I was with in France in 2011. It was good to see them again.
They had a slide show on a big screen of France 2011. A feeling of immense pride and accomplishment ran through my veins while I watched the images scrolling across the screen.
I saw photos of me dripping with sweat in full combat with intense heat and enormous mountains on my bicycle. I liked the look on my face. I saw myself with my trip mates later that day smiling and drinking wine and eating goat cheese in our cabins.
I remembered how intense it was racing in a real bike race with cameras, scooters, official cars and the like.
It was great recalling how I was humbled by some with their biking abilities, and how satisfying it was being able to humble others.
All of us France alumni agreed that besides personal events such as weddings and births of children that it was the best event of our lives.
Several of us will be going next year. My trip mates were astonished to learn that I have been training two months already for this trip.
I have a lot of unfinished business with myself, others, and the Plateau de Beille.
I can't wait.
Monday, January 16, 2012
Social Distortion and Time
Dan and I are going to see Social Distortion out in Reno, Nevada. Social Distortion has been around for years and years, meaning that at one time or other I have owned their music on record, on cassettes, on CD's, and finally in MP3 format. But pretty much everything got lost along the way.
So in order to catch up on Social Distortion and what they are playing now I just typed "Social Distortion Setlist" and went to the set list wiki and filled up my iPod with the songs that they have been playing on the recent tour. Good thing too, because most of the songs I am familiar with are from their earliest couple of albums and they seem to be playing some new music. I'll just clear everything else off my shuffle and play this while I am working out and running and soon I will be ready for the show.
In the end I just need to break down and buy all their albums again in electronic format and probably will do so after the show. It is a good cause, anyways, since like Lemmy I can hardly believe that Mike Ness is still alive after all these years.
Another surprising thing is that I typed "Social Distortion" in Google and Dan's concert review was #3 on the list, even ahead of their Wikipedia entry, which stunned me. Either Google is smokin' something or we have a few more readers than we expect. Probably the former...
So in order to catch up on Social Distortion and what they are playing now I just typed "Social Distortion Setlist" and went to the set list wiki and filled up my iPod with the songs that they have been playing on the recent tour. Good thing too, because most of the songs I am familiar with are from their earliest couple of albums and they seem to be playing some new music. I'll just clear everything else off my shuffle and play this while I am working out and running and soon I will be ready for the show.
In the end I just need to break down and buy all their albums again in electronic format and probably will do so after the show. It is a good cause, anyways, since like Lemmy I can hardly believe that Mike Ness is still alive after all these years.
Another surprising thing is that I typed "Social Distortion" in Google and Dan's concert review was #3 on the list, even ahead of their Wikipedia entry, which stunned me. Either Google is smokin' something or we have a few more readers than we expect. Probably the former...
Natural Gas
In a post about interest rates I wrote about being a little kid and over-hearing my grandfather (who was actually "grandfathered" in as a CPA because he was a practicing accountant before they had the exam) talk in the early 1980's saying that he though interest rates "would never go below 10%". At the time inflation was rampant (as Volker came in) and interest rates were in the 20% or so range, so this seemed like a valid observation. As we all know, interest rates have fallen to near-zero right now and even a "ceiling" of 10% (rather than a floor) seems far away.
Along the same lines, when I started in the energy business in the early 1990's, the "rule of thumb" of what a utility would pay for natural gas was about $2 / unit. The price would rise in the winter during the peak heating season and fall in the summer as utilities re-filled their storage, and it would vary around the $2 / unit mark, but not deviate too significantly. At the time there wasn't a lot of vision forward on prices that I was aware of, but if you mentioned anything like the $14 / unit peak that was hit in 2005-6, you would have been laughed out of the room.
Today natural gas, propelled by innovation and "fracking", has dropped to a price level that no one would have foreseen back in 2005-6. Per Bloomberg:
What happened? Free enterprise and capital markets happened. Fracking and innovation allowed new natural gas deposits to be found in our country which brought forth huge reserves of US energy and drove down costs even while usage soared.
This low price for natural gas is not a short-term phenomenon. These reserves are significant and since natural gas is often found alongside oil, with oil at $100 / barrel the fact that natural gas is at a low price won't impact it as much as you'd think because anything the driller gets is just profit on top of the huge profits for US sourced oil. The largest "threat" to low prices for natural gas in the US is actually the "high" price of natural gas overseas, because US drillers and pipelines can ship it to foreign countries in a liquified (LNG) format if their high prices make it economical. Per this WSJ article:
As far as the US electricity industry, natural gas is causing coal plants to be mothballed or for their owners to choose to not spend money on costly "scrubbers" to comply with EPA guidelines, changing the long term footprint of the US market. Since the nuclear boom was a "mirage" anyways (basically we will get a plant out of Southern Company and one in South Carolina, which won't even keep up with likely decommissioning of units), this lower priced power is killing the market for new plants entirely.
For heavily indebted companies like Energy Futures Holdings (which bought up TXU assets in Texas), the low price of natural gas spells difficulties, since gas fired "peakers" set the "market price" for energy and with the price of gas at $2 / unit, not $8 or $10 / unit, they will make less money on their "base load" coal and nuclear plants which need to run all the time. Some of these utilities had a great summer in 2011 with high temperatures (especially in Texas) which helped to offset the increasing competitiveness of gas-fired generation.
The other key item to keep in mind is that when we buy US produced energy, we enrich our OWN country rather than sending wealth overseas, often to countries that despise us (and even if we don't buy directly from Iran, the high cost of oil overall benefits them just the same whether or not we buy or someone else). The new innovative technologies have enormously benefited the United States, making us more competitive in business and reducing energy bills for tens of millions of households. And while energy companies do have "breaks" in the tax code to some extent, this innovation was not part of a government program and is in stark contrast to the failures of the energy department "research" and political backing of "green" energy which is likely to be a major campaign issue in 2012.
If only they'd unleash our oil companies in the US we would likely be able to dramatically increase our production and further reduce our dependence on foreign energy producers, while enriching our own country. The parable of natural gas is plain for all to see, which is that markets work if you let them, and that government intervention is usually far more harmful than inaction.
Cross posted at Chicago Boyz
Along the same lines, when I started in the energy business in the early 1990's, the "rule of thumb" of what a utility would pay for natural gas was about $2 / unit. The price would rise in the winter during the peak heating season and fall in the summer as utilities re-filled their storage, and it would vary around the $2 / unit mark, but not deviate too significantly. At the time there wasn't a lot of vision forward on prices that I was aware of, but if you mentioned anything like the $14 / unit peak that was hit in 2005-6, you would have been laughed out of the room.
Today natural gas, propelled by innovation and "fracking", has dropped to a price level that no one would have foreseen back in 2005-6. Per Bloomberg:
Supplies may reach a seasonal record of 2.4 trillion cubic feet in March, which is when heating demand usually ends and producers begin piping more gas into storage, Cooper said. Unless production falls or cold weather bolsters demand, prices will drop to $2.40 per million Btu, and perhaps below $2, as gas overflows storage caverns and clogs pipelines, he said.To think that natural gas would return to 1990 price levels is amazing. Even using the governments' figures, which I think understate inflation dramatically, in the 21 years from 1990 to 2011, inflation makes the $2 in 1990 the equivalent of $3.51 today, per this inflation calculator.
What happened? Free enterprise and capital markets happened. Fracking and innovation allowed new natural gas deposits to be found in our country which brought forth huge reserves of US energy and drove down costs even while usage soared.
This low price for natural gas is not a short-term phenomenon. These reserves are significant and since natural gas is often found alongside oil, with oil at $100 / barrel the fact that natural gas is at a low price won't impact it as much as you'd think because anything the driller gets is just profit on top of the huge profits for US sourced oil. The largest "threat" to low prices for natural gas in the US is actually the "high" price of natural gas overseas, because US drillers and pipelines can ship it to foreign countries in a liquified (LNG) format if their high prices make it economical. Per this WSJ article:
(T)he current low natural gas prices are attracting market demand from around the world. There are already federal permits for 3 trillion cubic feet per year of natural gas exports, Apt said. "Will we export that bounty, and if we do, will that drive up U.S. prices," he said. Natural gas sells for about $8 in Europe and $14 in Japan, but less than $4 here.The real longer-term issue is whether other countries in Europe and Asia will also find large reserves of natural gas in shale just like they did in the US, and whether they will drill for it or avoid drilling out of environmental concerns. The French have already banned "fracking" but my (unproven) opinion is that this really says more about the power of the nuclear lobby in France, since the low price of natural gas has really been the final nail in the coffin of nuclear energy (along with the obvious issue of Japan) because it makes the plant's un-economic to build. Likely the Ukrainians (smarting from Russia's bullying over natural gas pricing), the Poles, and the Chinese will take up this technology in earnest and change the overall economics, even if countries like France are content to wait idly by.
As far as the US electricity industry, natural gas is causing coal plants to be mothballed or for their owners to choose to not spend money on costly "scrubbers" to comply with EPA guidelines, changing the long term footprint of the US market. Since the nuclear boom was a "mirage" anyways (basically we will get a plant out of Southern Company and one in South Carolina, which won't even keep up with likely decommissioning of units), this lower priced power is killing the market for new plants entirely.
For heavily indebted companies like Energy Futures Holdings (which bought up TXU assets in Texas), the low price of natural gas spells difficulties, since gas fired "peakers" set the "market price" for energy and with the price of gas at $2 / unit, not $8 or $10 / unit, they will make less money on their "base load" coal and nuclear plants which need to run all the time. Some of these utilities had a great summer in 2011 with high temperatures (especially in Texas) which helped to offset the increasing competitiveness of gas-fired generation.
The other key item to keep in mind is that when we buy US produced energy, we enrich our OWN country rather than sending wealth overseas, often to countries that despise us (and even if we don't buy directly from Iran, the high cost of oil overall benefits them just the same whether or not we buy or someone else). The new innovative technologies have enormously benefited the United States, making us more competitive in business and reducing energy bills for tens of millions of households. And while energy companies do have "breaks" in the tax code to some extent, this innovation was not part of a government program and is in stark contrast to the failures of the energy department "research" and political backing of "green" energy which is likely to be a major campaign issue in 2012.
If only they'd unleash our oil companies in the US we would likely be able to dramatically increase our production and further reduce our dependence on foreign energy producers, while enriching our own country. The parable of natural gas is plain for all to see, which is that markets work if you let them, and that government intervention is usually far more harmful than inaction.
Cross posted at Chicago Boyz
Sunday, January 15, 2012
Homemade Tacos
These are easily better than they have to be.
To make tacos it’s so easy to brown some ground beef, pork chicken or venison, toss in a packet of prepared spices (I prefer the Taco Bell store bought spice) and cook. Add the meat to a store bought corn or flour tortilla with lettuce, cheese and chomp, done.
I like fresh chopped onion along with pickled jalapenos and chopped fresh cilantro on my tacos too. Tomato and sour cream? No.
I have eaten tacos at those upscale Mezcan restaurants. They’re damn good but get 2 tacos for about $6? True ethnic bodegas in Chicago neighborhoods such as this one are delicious and less expensive but not worth the risk of getting robbed on the way home or having my car stolen.
We found this great taco recipe a few years ago that is very different tasting, nothing like the seasoning packets. In fact, they do not possess the usual flavor notes most taco fans are accustomed to. What makes them even more special is frying our own fresh corn tortillas. Dan and Carl have had our fresh fried nacho chips at tailgates. Frying wedge shaped tacos shells isn’t much different. This in itself makes any taco much better than it has to be regardless of your seasoning choice.
For the meat filling:
Start by adding a small amount of oil to a hot skillet. Toss in one small diced onion, a pinch of coarse salt, then stir for about three minutes on medium. When the onions become transparent add three large cloves of garlic either chopped or pressed. Stir for about 30 seconds. The next step is where the real magic happens.
Add to the onion, garlic and oil a spice (that has been pre-mixed) that consists of:
1T chili powder (I could pull a foodie snob trick here and recommend Penzys but brand any will do)
1t ground cumin
1t ground coriander
½ t dried oregano
½ t cayenne
Stir for a minute or so, this will bloom the spices to form a paste-like substance and bring out much more flavor. Then add 1-1.25 lbs lean ground beef. Stirring the beef and chopping it with a wooden spatula will give it the finer crumb that I prefer. Stir until cooked.
Then add:
½ c canned tomato sauce
½ c chicken broth
1t brown sugar
2t cider vinegar
Salt & pepper to taste
Fold in well then reduce heat to low and allow the resulting matter to reduce, up to 30 minutes.
While this is going on take a wide skillet and fill it with ¼ to 1/3 “ of oil. Heat but be careful not to burn it. I buy fresh corn tortillas and they’re everywhere. I cut one into quarters to test the oil temp. Then add a whole one using two pair of tongs. Fold it into ½ by holding up one side with tongs leaving a 2’ gap forming a wedge. It will soon become crisp, then flip to fry the other half, again keeping the gap using the tongs. This takes less than 2 minutes total per tortilla.
I try to challenge myself constantly to cook food better than restaurants serve. For the most part, I do. It takes work and time but worth it. The rewards beyond the taste is not having to go anywhere, drinking as I feel like it, having a good time (it’s like a hobby), and doing as I wish when full. It’s frugality at it’s best and there is no tipping : )
Homemade tacos…better than they have to be.
To make tacos it’s so easy to brown some ground beef, pork chicken or venison, toss in a packet of prepared spices (I prefer the Taco Bell store bought spice) and cook. Add the meat to a store bought corn or flour tortilla with lettuce, cheese and chomp, done.
I like fresh chopped onion along with pickled jalapenos and chopped fresh cilantro on my tacos too. Tomato and sour cream? No.
I have eaten tacos at those upscale Mezcan restaurants. They’re damn good but get 2 tacos for about $6? True ethnic bodegas in Chicago neighborhoods such as this one are delicious and less expensive but not worth the risk of getting robbed on the way home or having my car stolen.
We found this great taco recipe a few years ago that is very different tasting, nothing like the seasoning packets. In fact, they do not possess the usual flavor notes most taco fans are accustomed to. What makes them even more special is frying our own fresh corn tortillas. Dan and Carl have had our fresh fried nacho chips at tailgates. Frying wedge shaped tacos shells isn’t much different. This in itself makes any taco much better than it has to be regardless of your seasoning choice.
For the meat filling:
Start by adding a small amount of oil to a hot skillet. Toss in one small diced onion, a pinch of coarse salt, then stir for about three minutes on medium. When the onions become transparent add three large cloves of garlic either chopped or pressed. Stir for about 30 seconds. The next step is where the real magic happens.
Add to the onion, garlic and oil a spice (that has been pre-mixed) that consists of:
1T chili powder (I could pull a foodie snob trick here and recommend Penzys but brand any will do)
1t ground cumin
1t ground coriander
½ t dried oregano
½ t cayenne
Stir for a minute or so, this will bloom the spices to form a paste-like substance and bring out much more flavor. Then add 1-1.25 lbs lean ground beef. Stirring the beef and chopping it with a wooden spatula will give it the finer crumb that I prefer. Stir until cooked.
Then add:
½ c canned tomato sauce
½ c chicken broth
1t brown sugar
2t cider vinegar
Salt & pepper to taste
Fold in well then reduce heat to low and allow the resulting matter to reduce, up to 30 minutes.
While this is going on take a wide skillet and fill it with ¼ to 1/3 “ of oil. Heat but be careful not to burn it. I buy fresh corn tortillas and they’re everywhere. I cut one into quarters to test the oil temp. Then add a whole one using two pair of tongs. Fold it into ½ by holding up one side with tongs leaving a 2’ gap forming a wedge. It will soon become crisp, then flip to fry the other half, again keeping the gap using the tongs. This takes less than 2 minutes total per tortilla.
I try to challenge myself constantly to cook food better than restaurants serve. For the most part, I do. It takes work and time but worth it. The rewards beyond the taste is not having to go anywhere, drinking as I feel like it, having a good time (it’s like a hobby), and doing as I wish when full. It’s frugality at it’s best and there is no tipping : )
Homemade tacos…better than they have to be.
Saturday, January 14, 2012
Saturday Night Sixties
It’s Saturday night. Time to relax. Let’s set the wayback machine for the 60’s, my favorite decade.
Pour yourself a big, stiff cocktail. Put a thick wax platter on the turntable of the hi-fi and gently drop that needle.
Stronger than dirt.
Pour yourself a big, stiff cocktail. Put a thick wax platter on the turntable of the hi-fi and gently drop that needle.
Stronger than dirt.
Time and Money
Chicago winters are hell on your shoes. Aside from protecting them with those rubber shoe protectors, you can either 1) shine them yourself 2) go to a shoe shine stand. Since my poor shine technique leaves them not much better off than being dirty, I usually try to rely on a shoe shine stand.
The problem is that it takes about 20 minutes or so of standing in line and then getting your shoes done to do this right. And I usually don't have 20 minutes when I am thinking about my shoes and I happen to be somewhere where a shine is available. As a result, I am stuck with a few pairs of forlorn and nasty shoes in the closet.
Thus I had a brainstorm recently and decided to just take my shoes to my dry cleaner, since they can also send them off for a shoe shine. "Just a shine?" my dry cleaner asked in her Korean accent... she seemed a bit confused. Yes indeed, just a shine.
Since then I've taken in all my shoes and given them a new lease on life. I am certain that this seems like a big waste of money (it is $7) but that is not far from the price of a shine plus tip and this takes no extra time at all.
But what is time really worth? I talked about this to a friend of mine in the investment world who refinanced his house and spoke of the endless rounds of re-submitting the same or slightly different documents over and over again and answering (virtually the same) questions until it hurt. Did he even "break even" on the re-financing after this was all taken into account? If your job is by the clock / corporate your off hours aren't worth much; but if your job involves planning and marketing yourself or thinking of new ideas / research in fact those hours can be quite valuable.
I think that a shoe shine at $7 with a time commitment of zero is a good deal, for me at least. What's your time worth?
Cross posted at Chicago Boyz
The problem is that it takes about 20 minutes or so of standing in line and then getting your shoes done to do this right. And I usually don't have 20 minutes when I am thinking about my shoes and I happen to be somewhere where a shine is available. As a result, I am stuck with a few pairs of forlorn and nasty shoes in the closet.
Thus I had a brainstorm recently and decided to just take my shoes to my dry cleaner, since they can also send them off for a shoe shine. "Just a shine?" my dry cleaner asked in her Korean accent... she seemed a bit confused. Yes indeed, just a shine.
Since then I've taken in all my shoes and given them a new lease on life. I am certain that this seems like a big waste of money (it is $7) but that is not far from the price of a shine plus tip and this takes no extra time at all.
But what is time really worth? I talked about this to a friend of mine in the investment world who refinanced his house and spoke of the endless rounds of re-submitting the same or slightly different documents over and over again and answering (virtually the same) questions until it hurt. Did he even "break even" on the re-financing after this was all taken into account? If your job is by the clock / corporate your off hours aren't worth much; but if your job involves planning and marketing yourself or thinking of new ideas / research in fact those hours can be quite valuable.
I think that a shoe shine at $7 with a time commitment of zero is a good deal, for me at least. What's your time worth?
Cross posted at Chicago Boyz
LITGM Going Strong
I just looked at something. This blog has been in existence since Nov. 20, 2004. That is seven years plus, eons in internet time. 3,767 posts so far. No plans to stop. Thanks to all of you readers, and authors past and present for making this project so special!
Bordain Loves Tiki Too
Any long term readers of this blog know that I love anything tiki. Especially with the infinite winters and darkness here in Chicago.
Recently I was watching the great Anthony Bourdain show "The Layover" when he stopped over at San Francisco and a local chef took him to "The Tonga Room". The Tonga room is the best tiki place I have ever been to in the US and Dan and I went there when we were in San Francisco to run a race a couple years ago.
Here you can see the pool they also have with simulated thundershowers (you don't get wet) regularly to boot. Anthony drank something out of a skull drinking vessel and seemed pretty blotto after that which is very understandable.
Recently I was watching the great Anthony Bourdain show "The Layover" when he stopped over at San Francisco and a local chef took him to "The Tonga Room". The Tonga room is the best tiki place I have ever been to in the US and Dan and I went there when we were in San Francisco to run a race a couple years ago.
Here you can see the pool they also have with simulated thundershowers (you don't get wet) regularly to boot. Anthony drank something out of a skull drinking vessel and seemed pretty blotto after that which is very understandable.
Friday, January 13, 2012
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Interesting Videos
I received some Apple gift cards for xmas and went in search of some new songs to buy. Over at Pitchfork they had some interesting "top lists" (and I am a sucker for any list) including best music videos of the year.
This is Rammstein, the German metal band, in a completely ridiculous send up of 60's beach movies.
Here is something for Dan. A video of the fantastic Joy Division song "Transmission"(live) done in a very intricate Playmobil mode. I especially like the drummer.
This is Rammstein, the German metal band, in a completely ridiculous send up of 60's beach movies.
Here is something for Dan. A video of the fantastic Joy Division song "Transmission"(live) done in a very intricate Playmobil mode. I especially like the drummer.
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
The Euro Is Already Gone
Today I read an article about the fact that the German government can issue debt with a negative yield.
Meanwhile, Italy is having a tough time finding buyers for its bonds. In order to sell debt, the yield is now above 7%, a line that (for some reason) in the popular press is read as the dividing line for "unsustainable", kind of like the "Mendoza line" for baseball batting averages.
The debt market is saying something different than what the politicians are saying - the debt market doesn't believe the hype and, when the dust settles, they want to be holding paper from the creditworthy countries (Germany and the Netherlands) and not the PIIGS (the above countries plus Spain).
Back when Dan and I were in college we had a friend nicknamed "Strohs". Since we were all very poor back then when we played poker often people used "markers" instead of cash. At the end of the game (generally when we ran out of beer and / or someone passed out) you might hold cash or you might hold "markers" which were really IOU's from each person at the game. "Strohs" markers were a deck of cards marked with the ubiquitous "Dogs playing poker" picture, and thus at the end of the game if you held his marker, they were "Dogs". "Strohs", while a good friend of ours, wasn't an especially credit-worthy guy (at the time). He earned his nickname by showing up for college with some clothes in a hefty trash bag and a pallet of Strohs 30 packs with which he filled his entire closet top to bottom.
So as the night wore on, if you held "Dogs" in your pile of chips and markers, your betting became especially reckless. It was common to say "I'll raise you a bucket of dogs" which probably meant you were bluffing because if you lost all you did was remove the markers with which payment was unlikely to happen out of your stack of chips, for the promise of winning "real" markers (equivalent to the German debt above) or actual cash, instead.
For years books and magazines have focused on "yield" and also the credit worthiness of individual companies and (mostly) ignored currency risk. A friend of mine in the investment business talked about a customer who bought a huge Australian debt position and their piddly yield was irrelevant as currency gains from the Australian dollar (which I wrote about here) drove the position to a huge gain, when translated back into (weak) US dollars. Obviously this trader was ignoring yield and betting on currencies.
This is what appears to be happening today. When Europe's dust cloud settles, people don't want to be holding "a bucket of dogs" backed by promises from PIIGS governments', they want the equivalent of the old Deutschmark from Germany. That is why they are essentially ignoring yield and accepting a negative yield from one country and demanding a 7% yield from another country ostensibly backed from the same currency.
Cross posted at Chicago Boyz
Germany sold six-month treasury bills at a negative yield for the first time amid demand for the debt securities of Europe’s biggest economy as a haven from the sovereign debt crisis roiling the region. The government auctioned 3.9 billion euros ($4.98 billion) of securities maturing in July at an average yield of minus 0.0122 percent, the Federal Finance Agency said in an e-mailed statement today. It was the first time it sold the securities at a negative yield, Joerg Mueller, a spokesman in Frankfurt, said in a telephone interview. The Netherlands sold 107-day bills at minus 0.007 percent on Dec. 12.Thus purchasers are paying the German (and Dutch) governments for the privilege of lending them money.
Meanwhile, Italy is having a tough time finding buyers for its bonds. In order to sell debt, the yield is now above 7%, a line that (for some reason) in the popular press is read as the dividing line for "unsustainable", kind of like the "Mendoza line" for baseball batting averages.
Italian bond yields rose above 7% on Friday (Dec 23) as worries about the government's debt problems resurfaced. The yield on 10-year Italian government bonds edged up to 7.04%, after falling below 6% earlier this month. Italian yields first topped 7% in November amid fears that Italy could fall victim to the same debt crisis that led to bailouts for Greece, Ireland and Portugal.On the face of it, this seems odd. Germany and the Netherlands are issuing bonds in Euros, just like the Greeks, Italians, Ireland and Portugal. Theoretically, all of these countries have the same "backstops" built into the Euro, and there is no exit mechanism.
The debt market is saying something different than what the politicians are saying - the debt market doesn't believe the hype and, when the dust settles, they want to be holding paper from the creditworthy countries (Germany and the Netherlands) and not the PIIGS (the above countries plus Spain).
Back when Dan and I were in college we had a friend nicknamed "Strohs". Since we were all very poor back then when we played poker often people used "markers" instead of cash. At the end of the game (generally when we ran out of beer and / or someone passed out) you might hold cash or you might hold "markers" which were really IOU's from each person at the game. "Strohs" markers were a deck of cards marked with the ubiquitous "Dogs playing poker" picture, and thus at the end of the game if you held his marker, they were "Dogs". "Strohs", while a good friend of ours, wasn't an especially credit-worthy guy (at the time). He earned his nickname by showing up for college with some clothes in a hefty trash bag and a pallet of Strohs 30 packs with which he filled his entire closet top to bottom.
So as the night wore on, if you held "Dogs" in your pile of chips and markers, your betting became especially reckless. It was common to say "I'll raise you a bucket of dogs" which probably meant you were bluffing because if you lost all you did was remove the markers with which payment was unlikely to happen out of your stack of chips, for the promise of winning "real" markers (equivalent to the German debt above) or actual cash, instead.
For years books and magazines have focused on "yield" and also the credit worthiness of individual companies and (mostly) ignored currency risk. A friend of mine in the investment business talked about a customer who bought a huge Australian debt position and their piddly yield was irrelevant as currency gains from the Australian dollar (which I wrote about here) drove the position to a huge gain, when translated back into (weak) US dollars. Obviously this trader was ignoring yield and betting on currencies.
This is what appears to be happening today. When Europe's dust cloud settles, people don't want to be holding "a bucket of dogs" backed by promises from PIIGS governments', they want the equivalent of the old Deutschmark from Germany. That is why they are essentially ignoring yield and accepting a negative yield from one country and demanding a 7% yield from another country ostensibly backed from the same currency.
Cross posted at Chicago Boyz
Monday, January 09, 2012
Old Man Winter
Is he dead, or what??
Fabulous January weather we’re having. Only started the snowblower once and that was to get it ready in late October, preparing it for the dark days. Changed the oil and greased her up good. So far, we have had two snowfalls each less than 2”.
I am not that old that I can’t manually shovel a 2”snowfall.
The heating (utility) bill is lower and the woodpile has not been depleted except for two fires at Christmas.
Life is good. And the dog’s life is good too.
Dot had some big paws to fill and so far she has filled them well at two years old.
I am a bit different from most serious pointing dog owners. There are many who believe in keeping their dog(s) outside all year. They claim having a dog in the home ruins their nose. I call bullsh!t.
My dog must not only hunt (she does), she needs to be a lovable house pet. Dot is both. She’ll sit on my footstool or lap until I need another beer or to let one go. It makes me feel guilty to get up and displace this peaceful and loving pup at rest. She will sit there for hours resting on my leg, having fallen asleep for a while only to awaken and find she's still there. Friends who own cats claim Dot is more of a cat than a dog. Well, they should see her hunt.
Who needs a warm fire when all I need is a warm, soft bird dog, some cotton sweats, comfy slippers and watching Tim Tebow beat those awful Stiller heathens from the east?
Do I get an amen?
Fabulous January weather we’re having. Only started the snowblower once and that was to get it ready in late October, preparing it for the dark days. Changed the oil and greased her up good. So far, we have had two snowfalls each less than 2”.
I am not that old that I can’t manually shovel a 2”snowfall.
The heating (utility) bill is lower and the woodpile has not been depleted except for two fires at Christmas.
Life is good. And the dog’s life is good too.
Dot had some big paws to fill and so far she has filled them well at two years old.
I am a bit different from most serious pointing dog owners. There are many who believe in keeping their dog(s) outside all year. They claim having a dog in the home ruins their nose. I call bullsh!t.
My dog must not only hunt (she does), she needs to be a lovable house pet. Dot is both. She’ll sit on my footstool or lap until I need another beer or to let one go. It makes me feel guilty to get up and displace this peaceful and loving pup at rest. She will sit there for hours resting on my leg, having fallen asleep for a while only to awaken and find she's still there. Friends who own cats claim Dot is more of a cat than a dog. Well, they should see her hunt.
Who needs a warm fire when all I need is a warm, soft bird dog, some cotton sweats, comfy slippers and watching Tim Tebow beat those awful Stiller heathens from the east?
Do I get an amen?
Sunday, January 08, 2012
Butch McGuire's Has Christmas Spirit!
The sports bar Butch McGuire's on division street (famous for bars like "Mothers" and where the movie "About Last Night" was supposedly set) is known for their Christmas decorations. I went there recently to check them out (and have a beer) and was mightily impressed.
This is a view of the front bar from the doorway and you can clearly see the two levels of train tracks as well. There are also dual level trains in one of the other dining rooms off the bar.
Here is a close up of the trains.
I like Santa in the outhouse reading a Pl*yboy magazine, too. Nice touch.
Highly recommended if you are in the vicinity. Per the bartender they keep the decorations up until near St. Patrick's day when they are replaced with the seasonal green for drinking.
Cross Posted at Chicago Boyz
This is a view of the front bar from the doorway and you can clearly see the two levels of train tracks as well. There are also dual level trains in one of the other dining rooms off the bar.
Here is a close up of the trains.
I like Santa in the outhouse reading a Pl*yboy magazine, too. Nice touch.
Highly recommended if you are in the vicinity. Per the bartender they keep the decorations up until near St. Patrick's day when they are replaced with the seasonal green for drinking.
Cross Posted at Chicago Boyz
Famous Photos
Gerry from Valpo has met more famous people than I can even name. It always cracks me up when he tells his stories, and I hope more are coming. Maybe he can put up a new category "famous people Gerry has met" so we can keep track of the photos and stories here in LITGM. In fact, I think I will do that right now. I need to go back and re-categorize the Bobby Knight stuff.
Last night I went to the fights here in Madison and some of the guys from a very famous gym in Milwaukee were competing. It was Duke Roufus's gym.
Duke is a legendary Muay Thai fighter, and his gym is putting out guys fighting in the UFC. His picture is up in our gym - there is a loose affiliation between our gym and his.
One of Duke's most successful fighters is Anthony "Showtime" Pettis. Pettis threw one of the most incredible strikes in MMA history with this insane kick on Ben Henderson.
As an interesting side note, Henderson has gone on to great things in the UFC and has a championship bout in Tokyo in the near future. I have a friend in Phoenix that trains Jiu Jitsu with him.
Here is Showtime and a local Madison legend.
This ends my collection of photos with famous people. And they aren't even that famous for anyone outside of the MMA sphere.
Last night I went to the fights here in Madison and some of the guys from a very famous gym in Milwaukee were competing. It was Duke Roufus's gym.
Duke is a legendary Muay Thai fighter, and his gym is putting out guys fighting in the UFC. His picture is up in our gym - there is a loose affiliation between our gym and his.
One of Duke's most successful fighters is Anthony "Showtime" Pettis. Pettis threw one of the most incredible strikes in MMA history with this insane kick on Ben Henderson.
As an interesting side note, Henderson has gone on to great things in the UFC and has a championship bout in Tokyo in the near future. I have a friend in Phoenix that trains Jiu Jitsu with him.
Here is Showtime and a local Madison legend.
This ends my collection of photos with famous people. And they aren't even that famous for anyone outside of the MMA sphere.
Me And The Pope
By request.
It was Friday, October 5, 1979. Pope John Paul ll was in Chicago, a very rare occurrence for a Pope to be visiting the Midwest.
The Pope was originally from Poland and the reason for his visit may have been the fact that Chicago has the largest Polish population outside of Warsaw (count me as one). The Pope was going to say Mass in Grant Park that day and millions were expected to attend.
Most offices in the downtown area decided to shut down Friday, as mine did. But I had to go in because there was a high profile assignment (my latest designs for some new McD packaging) that was ultimately my responsibility. My plan was to go in very early and get out by noon.
Our office was located at 360 N. Michigan, on the southwest corner of Michigan and Wacker where the London House was still open on the street level and WLS radio was on the fourth floor. I could go on about that, let’s just say I often rode in the elevator along with some very famous DJ’s and rock stars of the day. On the way down, if the elevator stopped at the fourth floor it was always interesting to see who would climb in.
When I rode down about noon to head over to the Metra Electric train the crowds along Michigan had already formed. One of our building engineers at the door told me the Pope was about to travel south on Michigan to Grant Park. So WTF? Figured I would hang around to check that out.
I positioned myself on the east side of the bridge and peered north up the avenue. Far away were some flashing lights. Not long after, as the motorcade drew near those of us on the east side crossed over to the center medium railing since the northbound lanes were closed. I stood on the railing and watched the Pope go by no more than fifteen feet away. What a sight.
Being raised Roman Catholic it was unavoidable to have a very strange feeling come over me. I would call it a rapture. No shit. As the short motorcade passed a huge flock of onlookers walked south down the avenue following the motorcade. I went along.
Having seen parades for the White Sox World Series Championship, one Chicago Bulls Championship, one Chicago Bears Super Bowl Championship and most recently one Chicago Blackhawks Stanley Cup victory parade, nothing comes close to what I witnessed as the Pope rode through town. It was so enormous, it is simply indescribable to see millions of people in the biggest crowd Chicago had ever seen.
No way was I going to see the Grant Park Mass. Instead, I caught the train and watched it from our apartment in Park Forest IL.
On Monday when I arrived in the office a coworker named Joe Murphy passed by and said to me, “Hey, nice photo of you and the Pope!” Whaaaa? He told me there was a photo of me and the Pope in Saturday’s Chicago Tribune special section on the Pope. Joe then said,” It looked like you were in the car with the Pope.”
I dashed down the elevator, crossed the bridge and went to the Trib’s first floor store where back issues could be purchased. I looked at one and saw the photo. I then bought five copies, some for me and others for my mom and grandmothers.
A closer crop
Is still have one copy. It was used to scan in the photo above.
It was Friday, October 5, 1979. Pope John Paul ll was in Chicago, a very rare occurrence for a Pope to be visiting the Midwest.
The Pope was originally from Poland and the reason for his visit may have been the fact that Chicago has the largest Polish population outside of Warsaw (count me as one). The Pope was going to say Mass in Grant Park that day and millions were expected to attend.
Most offices in the downtown area decided to shut down Friday, as mine did. But I had to go in because there was a high profile assignment (my latest designs for some new McD packaging) that was ultimately my responsibility. My plan was to go in very early and get out by noon.
Our office was located at 360 N. Michigan, on the southwest corner of Michigan and Wacker where the London House was still open on the street level and WLS radio was on the fourth floor. I could go on about that, let’s just say I often rode in the elevator along with some very famous DJ’s and rock stars of the day. On the way down, if the elevator stopped at the fourth floor it was always interesting to see who would climb in.
When I rode down about noon to head over to the Metra Electric train the crowds along Michigan had already formed. One of our building engineers at the door told me the Pope was about to travel south on Michigan to Grant Park. So WTF? Figured I would hang around to check that out.
I positioned myself on the east side of the bridge and peered north up the avenue. Far away were some flashing lights. Not long after, as the motorcade drew near those of us on the east side crossed over to the center medium railing since the northbound lanes were closed. I stood on the railing and watched the Pope go by no more than fifteen feet away. What a sight.
Being raised Roman Catholic it was unavoidable to have a very strange feeling come over me. I would call it a rapture. No shit. As the short motorcade passed a huge flock of onlookers walked south down the avenue following the motorcade. I went along.
Having seen parades for the White Sox World Series Championship, one Chicago Bulls Championship, one Chicago Bears Super Bowl Championship and most recently one Chicago Blackhawks Stanley Cup victory parade, nothing comes close to what I witnessed as the Pope rode through town. It was so enormous, it is simply indescribable to see millions of people in the biggest crowd Chicago had ever seen.
No way was I going to see the Grant Park Mass. Instead, I caught the train and watched it from our apartment in Park Forest IL.
On Monday when I arrived in the office a coworker named Joe Murphy passed by and said to me, “Hey, nice photo of you and the Pope!” Whaaaa? He told me there was a photo of me and the Pope in Saturday’s Chicago Tribune special section on the Pope. Joe then said,” It looked like you were in the car with the Pope.”
I dashed down the elevator, crossed the bridge and went to the Trib’s first floor store where back issues could be purchased. I looked at one and saw the photo. I then bought five copies, some for me and others for my mom and grandmothers.
A closer crop
Is still have one copy. It was used to scan in the photo above.
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