Robert Pence

That's why I enjoy those comic strips; I feel like I know almost everyone in them. I've seen enthusiastic, happy young urban guys turn into middle-aged driven money-grubbers with a mortgage on too much house in the 'burbs and a 24/7 job, and then suddenly have to confront what they've become. I've seen dementia take away sharp mind of a person who inhabited a vital, energetic body and leave behind a shell that goes on breathing and eating and drinking and going to the bathroom, without any kind of comprehension or meaning, at least any that's evident to people on the outside of the experience. I've seen too many smart, talented, beautiful friends taken by illness without ever experiencing middle age. Both strips portray life pretty much as I'm experiencing it, and it's not depressing. It just is, and I can read them and sympathize or smile in recognition or laugh when Crankshaft gets one over on Keesterman, who's just as cranky as he is, and a whole lot more anal-retentive. I can watch a character setting himself up for disaster and want to shout, "Stop! Can't you see where this is headed?" Funky has turned his life into a treadmill that's wearing him down and wearing out the people who love and trust him, but at least he's not a drunk anymore - yet. I think Batiuk's a pretty good observer of life as a lot of people experience it, with a talent for wry commentary.

As I recall, MTS is around 6' 4". For someone that tall, 209 isn't skin-and-bones, but it's a long way from being hefty. We come in all sizes and shapes, from 5 foot-six/275 to 6 foot-two/135 and everywhere in between and beyond.

I love those photos! During one of the meets we did a drive-by of the neighborhood and I thought it was beautiful. The photos give me time to savor it. Nice combination of a gorgeous neighborhood and excellent pics.

Quick! While he's asleep! Get the mallet and wooden stake!

When I was a young whippersnapper I used to ride with a local cycling club. Sometimes our weekend rides would go upwards of 60 miles, and once or twice a season we'd do a century (100 miles) Early one season a new guy showed up at the meeting point, a big, heavyset guy around forty, with a single-speed, balloon-tired, cantilever-frame thing that we used to call a paper-route bike. I think a few eyes rolled. A few eyes got opened, too. The young hotshots would take off, sometimes in a draft pack, and leave everyone else far behind. He'd be somewhere behind them but ahead of most of the rest of us, and on a hilly ride there was a good chance he'd pass the hotshots before it was all over. He rode like a machine and he ate like he was stoking a locomotive. He said that he rode his beater because the modern lightweights didn't hold up for him. Every time he tried a newer bike he broke spokes. Contrast that with the guys (it was always guys) who would show up with their $1,500 bikes and all the latest most-expensive name-label attire, shoes, pedals, clips, etc. and never finish a ride. They'd crap out, usually before the halfway point, and blame it on equipment breakdown.

I appreciate the compliments, guys, but you have to get to know Crankshaft in order to appreciate him. That abrasive crust hides a good heart. Over the years I've met and worked with and for quite a few Crankshafts and their female counterparts, and in the long haul some of them turned out to be some of my best co-workers and customers. A lot of them have high standards for themselves and they come up just a little short when it comes to cutting other people some slack. Once you learn how to finesse your interactions with them, and let them know what lines won't be crossed, sometimes a pretty good rapport can result. Sometimes their rigidity has another manifestation, loyalty. It's often possible to develop a good working relationship with capable, demanding people. Insecure, incompetent pricks are quite another story.

There are some scary-crazy bikers. In the sixties a guy in Lima, Ohio carried a ball-peen hammer. If a driver cut him off or crowded him, he'd use it. He'd take off across yards or down alleys and between buildings to elude pursuit, and he took out quite a lot of auto glass before the cops finally caught up with him. I see a scary-crazy on the greenways around town every now and then. He looks like a caricature of a bike racer from the 1890s -- wiry, intense-looking guy with a big handlebar mustache, everything but the leather helmet. He rides like a demon, OK on open roads but not so much on the blind curves on the greenway, and is extremely aggressive toward anyone who interferes with his speed, be they biking, walking or driving. The cross-street beside my house is part of the greenway system. One day I was standing along the far edge of the street with the city flood-control supervisor and a city engineer, showing them a section of riverbank that was badly eroded and likely to collapse (It did a month later), when the crazy man came down the street on his bike. He came straight at us as if he intended to crash into us, and then yelled something like "Get the f..k out of the road!" before veering off at the last instant. He wears a helmet and all the customary colorful cycling attire and I think he has a pretty nice bike, although I've never been able to get a good look at it because whenever I see him coming, my first thought is to "Get the f..k out of the road!"

What a way to start my day - stunning buildings, fabulous streetscapes, and delicious photography! Oh, s***! I just drooled all over my keyboard! :clap:

Almost every time I've tried to use multiple cameras I've ended up getting confused and messing up a bunch of shots, especially if there's too much going on. Digital and the versatility of the D200 and 18-200 VR lens pretty much eliminates the need to do that for me, anyway. Ow! I dropped my Mamiya 7 when the tripod quick-release released quicker than I expected. Onto a concrete floor. It seems to have survived OK except for a slight misalignment of the rangefinder, but I've been able to work around it. I should probably send it in for repair while it's still possible to get it fixed. I still get the urge to go out and shoot a bunch of medium-format, though, with the Mamiya 7 and Rollei TLR. I have film in the freezer, and I should probably use it up before it dies. Oh. The car story reminds me of another one. I was acquainted with the company photographer at GE where I worked up until 1988. In the mid-80s he retired. He had done professional studio and on-site industrial photography on the outside, too, and he decided to sell all that equipment. I was interested in his 4x5 enlarger, and went to his house to check it out. We went out to his garage, which was cleaner and brighter than many houses I've been in. All his hand tools were in marked spaces on a board, and most of his power tools were in their original boxes, all lined up neatly on shelves. The enlarger, while not in its original package, was sitting on the workbench wrapped in plastic. It was a 1950s Omega and it looked new. Not a scratch or trace of dust anywhere. In one of the garage bays sat a 1957 Plymouth 4-door sedan that he owned since it was new. It was clean and shiny in original paint with wide whitewalls and a spotless, completely intact interior. It started at the touch of a key. He was just as fastidious in taking care of his darkroom at GE. It was all stainless steel, and you could have eaten off any surface. He always seemed like a nice, personable guy, but I had a feeling that he might have been hell to live with, unless his wife was just as obsessive as he was.

Makes me wanna fix me up a mess o' sausage 'n eggs 'n greasy home fries. While I'm at it, how 'bout some biscuits 'n red-eye gravy? Sounds like a dang good bedtime snack t' me. Wash it all down with a couple o' Shiner beers. The alcohol helps break down the grease. :drunk:

Nah! We'll just turn the whole thing over to the whippersnappers after we set up a rockin'-chair-on-the-veranda board where we can sit around and complain about the younger generation. That's nothin'. I saw one one o' them last week when I was out workin' in my yard. Kid in a convertible ...

Anything and everything by tom batuik (sorry Cleveland). Its like, alright we get it, Crankshaft is a crotchety old man who is a bad bus driver, that same joke has last you 10+ years? You hush! Crankshaft is my hero and role model! I don't drive a bus, but I aspire to crotchety. :x The stuff I did and said when I was a young whippersnapper got me branded as a smartass kid. Now I do and say the same stuff and I'm a crotchety old guy. By comparison, it has a certain ring of respectability. :-D

Looks like a fella oughta be able to buy the whole thing cheap. Once he had it, though, what would he do with it?

Sherman, I don't think anyone intends to put you in the same group with people whose expensive cameras are a waste. You're a serious photographer with the eye and technical grasp to make good use of the camera, and a need for its capabilities. Lord knows, I'd love to have a D3X and I know exactly the situations I've faced where it would be a blessing. I got what the pope was referring to, right away. As soon as I read that, I remembered something from back when the Germans still dominated the camera business and Leica was the ultimate in 35mm. I was a student at Indiana University in Bloomington, and bought film and supplies in a little camera shop on Kirkwood that's been gone for years. One day I was in the store when a chauffeur-driven Cadillac pulled up outside. The driver got out and opened doors for a woman I'd guess was in her sixties, as she came into the shop carrying a nearly new, top-of-the-line Leica. The shop owner opened the camera and loaded a 36-exposure roll of Kodachrome, and then made aperture and shutter-speed settings that were appropriate for outdoor scenes in the weather we were having that day. She left to take pictures with a camera I could only dream of affording, using it like a point-and-shoot, or what the dealer called an idiot camera (after she left). That was a regular ritual. A day or so later, she'd bring the camera in and have him rewind and remove the film and send it in for processing. Kodachrome then was ISO 10, and contrasty like you wouldn't believe. Unless she shot everything in full open daylight, she probably got a lot of slides dominated by black shadows.

Thanks, Jeffrey, for another remarkable piece of research.

Wonderful photos! I love Chicago's energy when it's busy, but that crowd would have been overwhelming for me. Thanks for posting the photos.

Pretty amazing place, MTS! Just looking at the photos is a visual feast. I'm pretty good on the technical/mechanical end of projects, but if I wanted to design something like that I wouldn't know where to begin. Show me some piece of construction, and it's likely I can replicate it or fix it if it's broken, and I can appreciate someone else's creativity, but don't ask me to come up with a design or theme.

Perhaps a metaphor for the future of the consumer society. I'm visualizing Wal-Marts looking like this, only not so fancy, ten or fifteen years down the road.

Beautiful scenes, regardless of the point-and-shoot hardware. The photographer's eye is more important than the kind of camera.

Several years ago I received a hospital bill that was duplicate of one I had already paid. I contacted the accounts payable supervisor at the hospital, and after several go-arounds involving my insurance provider, I thought it was all settled. About a year later, a collection agency contacted me. I tried to give them copies of everything I had from before, showing that I didn't owe the debt. They told me I'd have to work it out with the hospital. I contacted the hospital's accounts payable supervisor, and she said it was out of her hands and I'd have to work it out with the collection agency. No one would give me info regarding a higher-up that I could contact. I made copies of all my information and sent them along with letters to the Better Business Bureaus in Chicago, where the hospital is located, and Merrillville, Indiana, where the collection agency is located. Then, I went to Chicago with copies and a cover letter explaining the situation, got a customer satisfaction survey from the reception desk, filled out a scathing response, put the whole works in an envelope, and stuffed it through the slot in the customer-survey drop box. About two weeks later, I got a letter from the hospital verifying that I didn't owe anything. I got follow-up letters from both BBBs, asking if my complaint had been resolved to my satisfaction, and I responded in the affirmative. Case Closed. I thought. Two years later, the same collection agency again contacted me about the same bill. Different person, same name; they always use fake names. My efforts met the same runaround. This time I followed the procedure that had worked before, adding the letter that verified that I didn't owe the debt. Then, I took it a step farther. I sent copies of all the info along with a cover letter (proof of delivery requested) to the president of the university that owns the hospital, stating that I had involved the BBB and was considering suing for harassment and defamation. Again it took two weeks, but I got written verification that my account is paid up to date, and in the several years since, I've heard nothing more about it. I hope somebody got fired over that. I still keep all the paperwork in a folder at the front of my file drawer, just in case I need it again. I've checked my credit report, and it's clean. The collection agencies always isolate themselves with fake names and mail drops that can't be traced to their physical location. It's much easier to resolve contested debts face to face. One day a guy came to my door and got rude and aggressive about a cable bill he said was overdue. Maybe he had the wrong house, or maybe it was a scam or a shakedown; I've never had cable. Anyway, did you ever see a skinny little old guy make a big, burly young guy run? :whip: I keep a plain ol' hardware-store hatchet beside the door. Nothing fancy. Some folks are more afraid of that than they would be of a gun.

Outstanding tour, all 4 parts. You covered an amazing amount of territory!

Amazing! I had heard of it, but had no idea it's so well preserved and beautiful. I want to visit the bicycle museum. It once was on Navy Pier in Chicago, but went broke there and the collection was sold and moved -- maybe a couple of times -- and ended up in New Bremen. That's an amazing downtown.

I visited my parents in Naples in the mid-seventies. They wintered there a few years until it started getting priced out of their range, and then they built a house at Englewood. The shops in Naples were $$$ even then, and in some areas there were quite a few Bentleys and Rolls Royces. I overheard a couple complaining about the quality of their accomodations. The woman was griping about something, and her husband said, "I know, but what can you expect for $375 a night?" Remember, that was thirty years ago! The palms are beautiful, but watch out for the coconuts. I was walking back from the beach one night and heard a rustling noise coming from above. Before I realized what it was, a coconut went BANG! on the hood of a car just a few feet from where I was walking. It made a dent. I liked the beach because it didn't appeal to a party crowd. It was peaceful and a nice place to spend a day in the sun. The fishing pier was busy all day and into the evening, and it was Dad's favorite hangout. If he had never had anything to do with his life but fish, he would have been perfectly happy. Most days, he brought home supper, fresh caught and cleaned at the pier.

I haven't read the whole back story on this thread, so if I'm re-hashing something that's already been said, I apologize. < :type: > From the beginning I've been concerned about the long-term viability of much of the widely acclaimed urban renaissance that's been going on in many cities. Downtown residential developments have been almost entirely high-end, and among the potential buyers for expensive condos are many people who are accustomed to pulling in large salaries for jobs that are rooted in speculation on financial markets. The term, "services economy," including financial services like banks, brokerages and investment firms, is an oxymoron. The services sector can function long-term only as an adjunct to industries that apply labor to raw materials to produce essential tangible products. General categories that encompass most of those industries are mining, manufacturing, and agriculture. Money is a medium of exchange that reduces the need for cumbersome activites like bartering, and financial and other services can facilitate an industrial economy by making funds available for manufacturing startups, construction, expansion and updating of facilities and by assisting with the marketing and distribution of products. The services sector at best exists in symbiosis with the industrial sector. At worst the services sector becomes parasitic upon the industrial sector. When investors buy industries in order to realize short-term return on their investment by liquidating assets, eliminating workers' jobs and looting retirement plans, or when they impose multi-tiered labor contracts designed to force out experienced skilled workers and replace them with new hires at reduced compensation and benefit levels, they undermine the structure that generates new wealth. They sabotage the industries' long-term prospects in a quest for short-term gain. The mythical "services economy" is like a group of players sitting around a table, starting with a pile of money that someone else gave them, and passing it around the table with each player keeping a portion until the money is all in the pockets of the individual players. By hoarding the money, they make it worthless and everybody loses. Our economy has been propped up by virtual money; brokers, traders and investment firms have created so many instruments based upon other instruments based upon still other instruments that somewhere in their ancestry might have represented real value, that it's impossible to tell how much real money exists. Such a system can continue to grow only so long as general gullibility continues to make available assets to feed it. When the real assets become depleted and confidence evaporates, the whole thing collapses. At some point there will be large blocks of condo conversions and newer construction available for thirty cents on the dollar until the developers give up and in a last-gasp effort to recoup their investments, turn them in to rentals. Then, cost-cutting construction and careless, indifferent and possibly impoverished tenants will turn them into the tenements of the future. There will be units and whole buildings and complexes boarded up, projects abandoned under construction, and proposed condos for which ground never gets broken. Also see: Ponzi, Charles < / :type: >

Or a conjoined twin