Hayward

Since most fro-yo places charge by the pound, I wonder if they are more profitable than your typical one scoop, double scoop type of places. It's difficult for the average American to know what a pound of ice cream looks like, so they'll heap the dish full unsuspecting of price. When they get to the register, "oh damn, $9.50!" Business wins! I was at this fro-yo place in wicker park and my dish was pretty low. It was not even to the top of the dish after the oreos got added. I only kept it low to save money, while I guess a side benefit is less calories, fat, etc. But this chick next to me had hers filled pretty high. She looked at mine, and you could tell she was really embarrassed. Maybe paying by weight will force more Americans to eat less. I like to think that eventually people will change their habits and you'll see America's waistlines beginning to shrink.

Terrible. Axe the garage, and it would look great. They could have least turned it sideways. Funny thing is, most sensible homeowners know it's a sin to have all that garage facing forward. but the contractor ends up talking them out of it.

I think it's ugly, dark, and dreary looking. Why not something more refreshing with brighter colors and lots of glass?

Exactly 1 year ago, I packed up from a long relaxing summer in Ann Arbor, MI and move to Chicago for a new job. So far I really love it here. After a 5 year run of moving to a different apartment every year, I decided to stay put this time and renewed my lease. I figured I have enough photos from my building for a thread of its own. This photo was the toughest. I had to set the tripod on my bed. Because it's a soft surface the camera would tip over. After an hour I got it. My other alternative was to get it from the window in my shower....but I had just taken one and humid wet environments and cameras don't mix Trump Tower basking in the evening sun. Barney's New York department store (opened 2009) and other various retail Left: Elysian Tower, completed 2010, 60 floors Center: 10 East Delaware (just behind Elysian), completed 2010, 35 floors Right: Walton on the Park South Tower, completed 2010, 39 floors Walton Street Towers Looking down on Rush Street. Sutton Place Chicago to the right was apparently rated 4th best place in the world to stay. Barney's again. Found a coat here I really wanted, but it was $750 Wabash again 900 North Michigan or as people seem to call it, "The 900 building" It is one of the largest mixed use buildings in the city with a 7 story shopping mall, restaurants, office space, and residential at the top. There's a ridiculously huge rooftop garden above the Bloomingdale's. Unfortunately, attached is one of the largest parking garages in the city. 10 years ago this was all parking lots!!! Looking toward the Magnificent Mile (Michigan Ave) and the Oak Street Beach Construction of a 4 story high school with underground parking Towers of Near North Even 22 stories up, not a single building in the loop is visible. But the 900 Building garage is! Drake Oak St. Beach Taken by my friend This time of my building. Behind it Chicago's gold coast neighborhood Another year the neighborhood Hope you enjoyed

Nice pictures of Ann Arbor. Lived here 6 years. It's an incredible place, not just the buildings and campus, but the street life. Sunny afternoons in June, sidewalks jammed with people dining and sipping wine. So many pleasant memories. I've been considering renting a second apartment there.

Well, I've used tons of anti-scarring creams, but the face naturally heals faster than the rest of the body. The abrasions on my cheek scabbed and fell away within 4 days of it happening. I like the idea of a thread with crazy models to describe things. I'd love to create renderings of sh!t that drives me nuts.

Thanks, yeah I could give you the rendering thing for sketch-up if you want. Rob, there's yellow X's painted on the obstructions. They also paint over areas of damaged pavement. The document below shows the flyover bypass that will correct the bridge problem. The current issue is that sidewalks cannot be widened because there are large limestone and concrete bridge towers on each side. They will create openings in the towers to allow people to pass through, which should be really cool. I also think they should open up one of the towers to the public for photo taking so people don't stop and then back up into traffic to get the shot. http://www.cityofchicago.org/content/dam/city/depts/cdot/NavyPierFlyover_PublicPresentation_July2010.pdf

It was in honor of David's sketchup model showing is douchebag housemates parking job.

Actually, MTS ran away screaming when he saw the blood...er well it did shock quite a few people. Oak Street was in full swing that evening and coming back to my place entirely covered in blood was not a pretty sight. It's not the first time I've been asked so I come prepared. The sketch speaks for itself. Overcompensated and my head hit the steel column

July 5th August 16 FYI this happened just hours after an urbanohio meetup. The debates can get ugly! I have a before the accident photo too that would probably launch a ton of bad commentary. :-D

Ah pencil sharpener. I need one. I go downstairs to the leasing office and use theirs. They really hate it. The final straw was when I started using their copy machine. "Enough!! Go back upstairs and buy your own!"

ehh, it's more about electronics than appliances.

A friend of mine, her parents rent out their Florida condo to people for weeks to months. Maybe you should try renting to see if you like it? They are ready to dump the place though. As someone pointed out, they just aren't happy with the way things are going around there.

Alot of it had to do with the fact that I've moved alot. When I moved to Chicago, I wanted to make my lifestyle more light-weight. From owning less stuff, to living close to work, ditching my car, purchasing devices that are all in one, etc. Despite that I'm streamlined at home, work is another story. I do a ton of 3d rendering and my computer rig is 3 towers, 2 24" flat screen monitors, and two sets of speakers, two keyboards, and two mice. The area under my desk is a mess of a criss-cross of wires that everything has to be labeled so it can be disconnected and reassembled. Because our company is going through growing pains, I've been moved twice, fortunately to good spots. It takes exactly 3 hours to relocate my work computer to another station, not to mention the towers are incredibly heavy......16 processor cores and 20 GB of RAM, you don't want to drop it.

What's up with this place? I've noticed most of the locations in Chicago have closed down. There's lots of speculation from yelp posting of health code violations to a recent WSJ article saying franchisers fell short of expectations on their investment. I used to like this place, but overtime I started to get an aversion. Kind of that "I ate way to much cake feeling." The stuff always seems way too rich. It's unusual for me since I like ice cream and can finish of a quart of it with no problem. I'm curious how this chain is doing where you live While I may not be right, here's my own opinion why locations here in Chicago struggled 1. We are a cold city most of the year. The casual consumer will probably avoid it. Meanwhile, specialty locations downtown (Ghirardelli) will do quite well regardless of the temperature outside. This also includes local or regional chains with a dedicated customer base. 2. It's the opposite of healthy. I think people rather not be tempted and may just avoid the place altogether. 3. Fro-Yo craze has inundated the Chicago market more than ever in the past year or two. I actually feel confident in saying that fro yo establishments actually made a dent in mitigating street level retail vacancies through the recession. Essentially these establishments are plentiful and "healthy appearing" they have removed many customers from chain ice cream parlors. Some fro yo establishments are already replacing vacant coldstones 4. Besides frozen deserts, other competition includes the fresh wave of cupcake stores opening all throughout Chicago. First there was More, and now Sprinkle which have lines out the door. Though probably not as healthy like Coldstone's ice cream, they are well defined servings, which make it more attractive.

I've noticed I have way less electronic crap than I used to. If you walked into my living room, aside from modern furniture, it has a lot in common with the year 1900. The only piece of technology in that room is a lamp with incandescent light bulb (fixture won't fit CFL) My dining room has my computer, but it's an imac so it's not bulky, which is also connected to my flat screen TV. Accessories include an external hard drive and my camera. Next to that I have an itouch and my cell phone. That said, the majority of my technology sits on a 65" x 30" desk. Items I've gotten rid of, or may have once needed in recent times but don't anymore 1. Alarm clock (replaced by cell phone) 2. Hard line phone (obvious) 3. Answering machine (what the hell is that?) 4. Stereo (replaced by computer) 5. DVD player. (computer plays DVD but still requires an external device for Blu-ray 6. I've thrown out/donated all my CDS. Don't need them, I have them in my music library Alot of devices have merged too with mp3 players, phones, and GPS. Laptops are becoming increasingly irrelevant as they are replaced by smart phones. So it's possible some people may not see the need for the computer either if they accomplish the majority of their daily tasks with a phone and type up a long memo with a pocket wireless keyboard. I personally like that I can keep technology less visible. I deal with the complexities of technology everyday at work and it's nice to come home and see less of it. I think it's going to even disappear more when our screens become invisible sheets on the wall and all our data and processing power is done at offsite cloud centers.

Actually, I've grown up in two cities where sorting recyclables was not necessary. Just throw everything in the bin. Don't worry to much about washing everything out...as long as jars aren't half full of apple sauce or boxes have half a pizza in them, you're good. If you don't know if its recyclable, doesn't matter, throw it in. When I went to U of M and lived in the dorms, recyclables were thrown in a storage closet. The university did not require you to wash them since the students had no means of doing so, unless you wanted to clog the bathroom drains. Items were moved to the basement] where people who worked for facilities would pick through and sort them. I was shocked when I moved to Chicago that we actually had to manually sort things in bins. It's not a matter of laziness, recycling should be convenient. Our bins are overflowing and some people just dump everything all over the basement floor or leave it in stairwells, and even worse the freight elevator.

if you read that website that Ram23 posted, you'll see why some people hate them. I actually don't have that much anger towards...well, anyone...but, i do dislike the general attitude of hipsters (at their worst). The website shows a large amount of anger at the way that hipsters are moving into that guys South Brooklyn neighborhood and using Daddy's money to drive out long term residents. That's a pretty specific and small group of them, over all...but, still the anger is easy to empathize with. I don't understand why hipsters are always targeted as this group of people living off of their parents money or using their trust fund to live in high priced neighborhoods. There are tons of young people doing that, who aren't hipsters. It's hard for young people to get good stable jobs while having to pay off student debt and so they have to rely on their parents' help. Most kids in their 20s are broke as hell right now. Maybe because the other group of people are more responsible by moving back home with their parents to reduce costs and pay off debt? I'll launch my final attack against the hipster. They don't recycle. I was in Wicker Park today and was surprised to find the trash bin loaded with newspapers, soda cans, and bottles while the very easy to use recycle bin next to it had barely anything, but was flooded with non recyclable trash. Of course, for that extra urban grit feeling, more of that trash was strewn about on the street. I guess we could get into the debate that David pointed out, "lots of people don't recycle either"

FYI, since my post originated the discussion, I don't dislike hipsters at all. I just found it ironic that in the elevator, the guy couldn't get a clue why employers weren't giving him the time. Would've not thought about it too much until he said he was actually stopping by places picking up applications....I'm assuming dressed like he was. I personally would not hire someone who walks in not taking a potential job seriously. I'm more concerned about stupid people, like I saw today. Currently lollapalooza is going on in Chicago. The city and police departments have been concerned about large crowds falling out of formation the sidewalks so they've put up fencing along the streets. Along LSD there is currently a chain fence about 3 feet high. Behind that they constructed a 4' mesh fence. Then behind that they constructed a 6' chain link fence. The same thing exists on the other side of the expressway except without the 6' high chain link. STILL, a stupid bunch of kids jump the fence and run across the expressway. When they get to the other side, they begin climbing the 6' high fence. About an 80' run of it begins to tip over under their weight, falling onto the soutbound lane of the lakefront bike path. I'm heading northbound and one of the girls who was climbing the fence falls face down onto the path. I slammed on the brakes nearly missing her head, as she fell in front of me Other bikers and pedestrians had to dodge the fence climbers as well. Everyone seemed to be all right, but it was a huge mess of screams and squealing brakes. Unfortunate for the fence climbers, the cops were rolling nearby on segways. One of them saying "you don't know how much trouble you are in." I'm assuming, it would be some sort of reckless endangerment charge, and depending on the seriousness of the risk to other people, it could be a felony. I'd like to say generation after generation, kids don't seem to realize the consequences of their stupidity. You thought running across 10 lanes of traffic and jumping a fence would be okay. Harmless right? Just imagine if that fence fell on a baby in a stroller or knocked over some elderly person. Or from my own experience, fall off your bike and get a nasty gash in the head. We have rules and regulations for a reason. It's far from being "not a big deal"

That guy was NOT on the set. Trust me I was 100% aware of all the vantage points. I'm sure one of the other forumers who worked security there could comment as well. They had these fencing barricades up that allowed public viewing areas that seemingly jutted right into the center of the set. In fact people could request to walk through the filming area to reach the Corner Bakery. They could sit outside during filming except when explosions took place. All the spots those photos were taken from places anyone could stand at. Good zooms though. The only notable celebs I saw were R Kelly and Tyrese in the lobby of my office building. Ehhh nobody felt comfortable asking for autographs.

Man some people just overkill the "hipster look" Trying to be different, but so much the same as their friends....and their friends hanging around Chicago's Wicker Park. Today I was on the 7th floor of Macy's getting lunch with a coworker. This dude walks in with skinny green jeans some raggedy overstretched blue striped tank top with thick black glasses and heavy mustache. My coworker says "What's the first thing you think of when you see that guy." I said, an elf. My coworker says unemployed. Sure enough we were in the same elevator heading down. The girl he was with that seemed to have a completely different personality said "don't worry just keep looking for jobs around town, you'll find something eventually." The guy needed advice. 1. Many Chicago businesses are hiring 2. All of them that pay decently will consider you when you take them seriously by changing your wardrobe. 3. You are in one of the largest department stores in the midwest. Look about you for some more professional attire.

I like them. They need to be simple to avoid sidewalks looking cluttered. I like how they've merged newstands with clocks and bus shelters. Hopefully they withstand the elements. The JCDecaux stuff has held up incredibly well despite the beating they take from our harsh winters and vandalism.

Today, they flipped the switch and the Chicago River began to flow towards the lake. It went from a beautiful green color to a vile barf brown/orange color. You could see all this garbage and floating raw sewage heading to the lake. What a bad weekend to do this since people will probably want to swim in the lake. The feds regulate how much water is drained from the lake by the Chicago river. If they approach quota, they are required to change the river's orientation so that it flows out to the lake. It also raises the level of the river a few feat.

Surprised MTS didn't follow us back to the Oak Street "mall"

^pics? ----------------------------------- So I'm just blown away by some of my friends' indifference of the financial burden that lays ahead of them. Good friend of mine that got married a year ago both have combined student loans of almost $200,000. That's like paying off a house. Certainly his wife will be making big dollars if she gets a job, but man I don't think I'd ever get sleep until then. A few other of my friends were way to indecisive and generally unfocused (partied too much) in college and had to add additional years to their undergrad taking only a few classes, but still paying for a full year. They just seemed to not give a damn that they'd have to take out more and more loans. They could have easily been done in the typical 4. Now they are finished, still unfocused, and face their first payment this fall. Not surprisingly, they had no idea their first payment would be this November.