As a follow-up to the story I posted last week about potholes, here is a news article about a group of residents on Chicago's West Side who bought eight bags of a pavement mix for about $100 and used shovels, rakes and a 250-pound push roller to fill 15 holes. The group's members hope their efforts will shame the city into repairing neighborhood side streets and inspire other residents to band together and patch their own blocks. They also hope residents will create a citywide Pothole Repair Day.
And the city is concerned with KFC fixing them...
Showing posts with label Winter Woes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Winter Woes. Show all posts
Thursday, April 09, 2009
Neighbors take to the street: Chicago wasn't patching potholes, so West Sider's became a DIY road crew -- chicagotribune.com
Monday, January 19, 2009
Winter Woes from Becca
Last weekend I had to travel to Atlanta for work. While I was not extremely excited to go to this meeting (many reasons here), I was extremely excited to get out of the brutally cold weather (although even Atlanta was 12 degrees on that Friday). While I was away, Becca sent me a detailed account of her day...
pretty much what happened was i had to go to a meeting on friday for work on mandated reporting (dcfs type stuff) at another church school.
so i wake up. tired and groggy, as always fearing the ferocious cold that will bite me once I get outside, and I walk into the bathroom to brush my teeth. Roughly one half of a drop of a water comes out of the faucet, so I crank both knobs to their full force. this time approximately 1/4 of a drop of water comes out of the faucet. i think to myself, "this is probably a big issue that i need to tell victor about." but then i think about how he's been an asshole lately, and i pray that a water mane has gone out and that the issue will be resolved by the time i get back from my meeting. i swish some generic listerine around in my mouth instead of brushing and then bleach wipe the sink so that it doesnt look like the hulk has recently done any business there.
i get dressed, carefully placing double layers of long underwear as to prepare for the coldest day in 10 years (which according to weather.com, was actually colder in chicago than the south pole that day).
before i can leave to go to work on time, i get a phone call from paul. apparently he has no running water either. great. he happens to catch me outside before i leave and now i have to run inside and turn all the faucets slightly on for the plumber. now im late to this meeting...
my hands by this point (having spent roughly 8.5 minutes outside wearing my ski gloves) are completely frozen to the point that I cannot properly steer my car. However, i am late, and cannot wait, so drive i must. gps has problems with giving directions if i have to make two turns right after each other, so i ended up getting lost with my gps. about five minutes later, gps figures out where i am, and i make it back. i turn into the parking lot, only to discover that i would be blocking someone if i parked, and it takes me another titulating 10 minutes to back out of the parking lot because everyone else has managed to make their own parking spots. i find parking on the street and once again my hands are frozen solid.
i walk into the meeting and the speaker calls me and three other people out on being "obnoxiously late" -her words not mine. she then proceeds to tell me that if i don't move to a seat closer to the front i can "attend another meeting in the spring when it is warmer outside". i go up one row and sit next to my assistant principal and religion teacher. the religion teacher, whispers under her breath that the speaker is a bitch. and she was... for the next two hours, we listen to some lady gallyhoot about her opinions and stereotypes. fortunately for us, she is from the south side and the only two areas that she speaks at are the south and west side because, no offense, she doesn't like to deal with the yuppy catholic schools. as a real plot twister, the english teacher at our school, pulls out a reporter's notebook and proceeds to write down every inappropriate thing the lady says. she has since written a letter to the archdiocese about this. (and no, i am actually not the english teacher i teach reading. however, i always admire someone who isn't afraid to pull out a reporter's notebook when the time calls for it)
after the meeting, i manage to get home pretty easily, with the exception that my fingers remained yellow for about 45 minutes. there is still no water in the house, and mike informs me that he took a shit in the toilet, and he can't get it to flush. note: he knew about the situation, but i guess he was in a bit of a predicament i tell him to use the water from the brita water pitcher to get it to flush. he tells me that was what he was planning on using to wash his hands. note: haven't used the water pitcher since.
after spending an hour packing to go to Ashley's, i decide to start on my trek of taking out three bags of garbage. i manage to get the first bag out pretty safely, but when it comes to bag number 2, i slip on the mountain of snow on the steps and end up sliding the rest of the way down, bumping my tailbone on roughly 5 or 6 stairs. at this, i burst in immediate tears, and the garbage man who happens to be there at this moment in time, helps me up and brushes the garbage off of my coat and pants. he is the true protagonist of this saga, as he takes it upon himself to clean up the rest of the mess covering teh snow. he even volunteers to take any other garbage that i might have from my house, but i tell him not to worry about it. over a week later, the last garbage bag is still in the house untouched...
i go inside and hunt for a bottle of advil. at some point (im guessing during my stint of unemployment last year) i oddly purchased a generic bottle of advil. for minutes i try to align the arrows and pop the top off. the only thing that comes off, though, is my fingernail from this pathetic attempt. i find a bottle of advil from deb's room and take some of that.
i get an update from paul. apparently the pipes froze int eh house. why wouldn't it when it's literally -38 outside. just what he needs is another flood in his apt (this would be the third time this year for him).
before i depart on my 2 hour journey to ashley's house (it's a friday so anticipated traffic is not good), i decide i really need to pee. after judging the risk of peaking at the toilet, i decide to check and see if mike has managed to flush. ....not so lucky...
i drive to the walgreens to pick up some advil, and wait in line for about 15 minutes. their bathroom is out of order. i decide to just give up and leave to go to Antioch. surprisingly, traffic wasn't all that bad, and the rest of my day went by pretty uneventful. i guess the glooming shadow of darkness that every once in a while haunts me doesn't travel past cook county.
pretty much what happened was i had to go to a meeting on friday for work on mandated reporting (dcfs type stuff) at another church school.
so i wake up. tired and groggy, as always fearing the ferocious cold that will bite me once I get outside, and I walk into the bathroom to brush my teeth. Roughly one half of a drop of a water comes out of the faucet, so I crank both knobs to their full force. this time approximately 1/4 of a drop of water comes out of the faucet. i think to myself, "this is probably a big issue that i need to tell victor about." but then i think about how he's been an asshole lately, and i pray that a water mane has gone out and that the issue will be resolved by the time i get back from my meeting. i swish some generic listerine around in my mouth instead of brushing and then bleach wipe the sink so that it doesnt look like the hulk has recently done any business there.
i get dressed, carefully placing double layers of long underwear as to prepare for the coldest day in 10 years (which according to weather.com, was actually colder in chicago than the south pole that day).
before i can leave to go to work on time, i get a phone call from paul. apparently he has no running water either. great. he happens to catch me outside before i leave and now i have to run inside and turn all the faucets slightly on for the plumber. now im late to this meeting...
my hands by this point (having spent roughly 8.5 minutes outside wearing my ski gloves) are completely frozen to the point that I cannot properly steer my car. However, i am late, and cannot wait, so drive i must. gps has problems with giving directions if i have to make two turns right after each other, so i ended up getting lost with my gps. about five minutes later, gps figures out where i am, and i make it back. i turn into the parking lot, only to discover that i would be blocking someone if i parked, and it takes me another titulating 10 minutes to back out of the parking lot because everyone else has managed to make their own parking spots. i find parking on the street and once again my hands are frozen solid.
i walk into the meeting and the speaker calls me and three other people out on being "obnoxiously late" -her words not mine. she then proceeds to tell me that if i don't move to a seat closer to the front i can "attend another meeting in the spring when it is warmer outside". i go up one row and sit next to my assistant principal and religion teacher. the religion teacher, whispers under her breath that the speaker is a bitch. and she was... for the next two hours, we listen to some lady gallyhoot about her opinions and stereotypes. fortunately for us, she is from the south side and the only two areas that she speaks at are the south and west side because, no offense, she doesn't like to deal with the yuppy catholic schools. as a real plot twister, the english teacher at our school, pulls out a reporter's notebook and proceeds to write down every inappropriate thing the lady says. she has since written a letter to the archdiocese about this. (and no, i am actually not the english teacher i teach reading. however, i always admire someone who isn't afraid to pull out a reporter's notebook when the time calls for it)
after the meeting, i manage to get home pretty easily, with the exception that my fingers remained yellow for about 45 minutes. there is still no water in the house, and mike informs me that he took a shit in the toilet, and he can't get it to flush. note: he knew about the situation, but i guess he was in a bit of a predicament i tell him to use the water from the brita water pitcher to get it to flush. he tells me that was what he was planning on using to wash his hands. note: haven't used the water pitcher since.
after spending an hour packing to go to Ashley's, i decide to start on my trek of taking out three bags of garbage. i manage to get the first bag out pretty safely, but when it comes to bag number 2, i slip on the mountain of snow on the steps and end up sliding the rest of the way down, bumping my tailbone on roughly 5 or 6 stairs. at this, i burst in immediate tears, and the garbage man who happens to be there at this moment in time, helps me up and brushes the garbage off of my coat and pants. he is the true protagonist of this saga, as he takes it upon himself to clean up the rest of the mess covering teh snow. he even volunteers to take any other garbage that i might have from my house, but i tell him not to worry about it. over a week later, the last garbage bag is still in the house untouched...
i go inside and hunt for a bottle of advil. at some point (im guessing during my stint of unemployment last year) i oddly purchased a generic bottle of advil. for minutes i try to align the arrows and pop the top off. the only thing that comes off, though, is my fingernail from this pathetic attempt. i find a bottle of advil from deb's room and take some of that.
i get an update from paul. apparently the pipes froze int eh house. why wouldn't it when it's literally -38 outside. just what he needs is another flood in his apt (this would be the third time this year for him).
before i depart on my 2 hour journey to ashley's house (it's a friday so anticipated traffic is not good), i decide i really need to pee. after judging the risk of peaking at the toilet, i decide to check and see if mike has managed to flush. ....not so lucky...
i drive to the walgreens to pick up some advil, and wait in line for about 15 minutes. their bathroom is out of order. i decide to just give up and leave to go to Antioch. surprisingly, traffic wasn't all that bad, and the rest of my day went by pretty uneventful. i guess the glooming shadow of darkness that every once in a while haunts me doesn't travel past cook county.
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Squatter's Rights Rule
It's been a rather rough winter so far this year. Right now it is 5 degrees out and I believe it's snowed for 10 days straight now. The cumulative snow fall so far is around 40 inches, when it is typically closer to 15 inches.
Just before Christmas the weather was so bad that I couldn't get my car out for days and I questioned whether I would even be able to get it out to go home for the Holidays. I eventually did get it out thanks to some shoveling and the help of Ashley, my post man, a random bumb (not kidding), and another kind stranger.
Last Fri/Sat it snowed about a foot, with more predicted this week. And the temp was expected to drop drastically, meaning it would all turn to a 16 inch block of ice. So, Becca and I decided to shovel our spots. We shoveled for about an hour or so and managed to get both of our spots fairly clean, plus the ones in front of us.
At this point we decided to make a Target trip, however I was very hesitant to give up my newly cleaned spot. Mike came outside about this time and assured me that common courtesy in Chicago winters is to respect someone's clean spot, especially on a friendly street like ours.
Just to be sure though, I decided to mark the spot with a chair (there was a whole parking spot in front of me that was fairly cleared off from me as well). I've seen tons of people do this by Nikki's house and it always seemed to work there, so why not here. And, for the record, I would never do this for an extended period of time, nor if I lived in a place where parking was scarce. As it is, my street is zoned 24/7 so it's really not that bad.
The Target trip was quite successful, since we both made it out for less than $50. The whole way home we contemplated whether my chair would still be there. Becca was skeptical, but I was confident that it would be, especially since there was an open spot in front of me.
But, I was wrong. This little blue Kia had parked in my spot. There were plenty of open spots on our street (including the one in front of my spot) but they still decided to park in my spot. They left a little note to clarify though - "Chairs in the street are illegal!"
Alright, so maybe it is illegal, but I'm not really sure that it is. Plus, who the hell cares. Half of the things people do in this city are illegal, particularly drivers. So, let's ad this one to the list. Either way, I was pissed. Correction, we were pissed. I think I would have been fine with it, almost expected it, except the person was simply being an ass trying to prove a point - 1. the spot in front was left empty and 2. they left the note. Also, I was pissed because they clearly didn't even live here since they had a visitor parking pass in their window.
Now, I have always been a firm believer in good karma. But, I have also been a firm believer in what is just, however different my version of just is from the next person. This time proving a point outweighed any fear of attracting bad karma.
Becca suggested we put snow on this person's car. I took it a step further and suggested we simply clear my new spot by putting all the snow on their car. And, that's just what we did.
After 15 min or so, spot #2 was completely clean. After a little thought, I decided it was best to move my car from that spot, lest I receive any retributions for our actions. A half hour or so later, Becca got curious and decided to see if the car was still there...
Turns out it was Paul's car!
Who is Paul?
Paul is the neighbor who lives below us and takes care of everything. He shovels our walk and fixes everything anytime we have a problem. And, he offered to pull my car out when it was stuck before Christmas. And, I'm sure he already shoveled out at least one spot that day. And, that was his rental car because he totaled his truck last week on the ice.
So, I guess there's karma for you. Now I feel terrible.
O well, there's not a whole lot we can do, other than fess up that it was us if he brings it up. Becca thought maybe we should just go tell him it was us, but I'm sort of against that idea since the only reason we would know that is if we were secretly watching the car afterward - and if that was the case, we really should've went out at that point in time. Plus, really we didn't hurt anything - after all, it was just a little snow on a car.
I guess the lesson here is don't retaliate when people do stuff to you. And, don't try to hold your spot, even though everyone else does.
Just before Christmas the weather was so bad that I couldn't get my car out for days and I questioned whether I would even be able to get it out to go home for the Holidays. I eventually did get it out thanks to some shoveling and the help of Ashley, my post man, a random bumb (not kidding), and another kind stranger.
Last Fri/Sat it snowed about a foot, with more predicted this week. And the temp was expected to drop drastically, meaning it would all turn to a 16 inch block of ice. So, Becca and I decided to shovel our spots. We shoveled for about an hour or so and managed to get both of our spots fairly clean, plus the ones in front of us.
At this point we decided to make a Target trip, however I was very hesitant to give up my newly cleaned spot. Mike came outside about this time and assured me that common courtesy in Chicago winters is to respect someone's clean spot, especially on a friendly street like ours.
Just to be sure though, I decided to mark the spot with a chair (there was a whole parking spot in front of me that was fairly cleared off from me as well). I've seen tons of people do this by Nikki's house and it always seemed to work there, so why not here. And, for the record, I would never do this for an extended period of time, nor if I lived in a place where parking was scarce. As it is, my street is zoned 24/7 so it's really not that bad.
The Target trip was quite successful, since we both made it out for less than $50. The whole way home we contemplated whether my chair would still be there. Becca was skeptical, but I was confident that it would be, especially since there was an open spot in front of me.
But, I was wrong. This little blue Kia had parked in my spot. There were plenty of open spots on our street (including the one in front of my spot) but they still decided to park in my spot. They left a little note to clarify though - "Chairs in the street are illegal!"
Alright, so maybe it is illegal, but I'm not really sure that it is. Plus, who the hell cares. Half of the things people do in this city are illegal, particularly drivers. So, let's ad this one to the list. Either way, I was pissed. Correction, we were pissed. I think I would have been fine with it, almost expected it, except the person was simply being an ass trying to prove a point - 1. the spot in front was left empty and 2. they left the note. Also, I was pissed because they clearly didn't even live here since they had a visitor parking pass in their window.
Now, I have always been a firm believer in good karma. But, I have also been a firm believer in what is just, however different my version of just is from the next person. This time proving a point outweighed any fear of attracting bad karma.
Becca suggested we put snow on this person's car. I took it a step further and suggested we simply clear my new spot by putting all the snow on their car. And, that's just what we did.
After 15 min or so, spot #2 was completely clean. After a little thought, I decided it was best to move my car from that spot, lest I receive any retributions for our actions. A half hour or so later, Becca got curious and decided to see if the car was still there...
Turns out it was Paul's car!
Who is Paul?
Paul is the neighbor who lives below us and takes care of everything. He shovels our walk and fixes everything anytime we have a problem. And, he offered to pull my car out when it was stuck before Christmas. And, I'm sure he already shoveled out at least one spot that day. And, that was his rental car because he totaled his truck last week on the ice.
So, I guess there's karma for you. Now I feel terrible.
O well, there's not a whole lot we can do, other than fess up that it was us if he brings it up. Becca thought maybe we should just go tell him it was us, but I'm sort of against that idea since the only reason we would know that is if we were secretly watching the car afterward - and if that was the case, we really should've went out at that point in time. Plus, really we didn't hurt anything - after all, it was just a little snow on a car.
I guess the lesson here is don't retaliate when people do stuff to you. And, don't try to hold your spot, even though everyone else does.
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