iMatt :: The Blog of Matt Clare

I upgraded my phone to a RAZR yesterday. It’s still on Telus, so same number, but the fancy Motorola RAZR V3c (c for CDMA, not the GSM technology the rest of the world is on) is like a Ferrari with a ford engine.

I have upgraded my plan and now can check my E-Mail from my phone and send mail from it. Which includes sending mail to my flickr account, the following being the first. Excuse my nose.

Monday of this week I had a full day (baring the time I spent responding to frantic E-Mails from Brock) to explore Chicago. I used this opportunity to head out to Wicker Park.

On the Blue Line El’ on the way from O’Hare to downtown I noticed that there were a lot of nice lofts, cools shops, and lots of young people in Chicago. I took note of the ads too: Mac tech support and Johny Walker – an F1 sponsor. When I got off the El’ at Division station I realized that this was the neighborhood I was looking at on that first El’ trip.

Wicker Park is where the Double Door is – the club that hosted all the hot acts in the late 90s grunge music scene. The Double Door also hosted a lot of Smashing Pumpkins show, including the last (for the moment) show. I’ve always been a really big Smashing Pumpkins fan (not in a Kiss Army kind of way) and to see the Double Door was pretty cool.

Tuesday brought rain and all I managed to do was visit the United Center (home of the Blackhawks) and do a little meaningless shopping and ultimately register and attend the start of the WebCT !mpact 2006 conference.

One last experience I want to share is about stereotypical Americans – there aren’t that many and I’d suggest that the stereotype (at least in this Democratic city) is the exception, not the norm. American’s aren’t all overweight – but those that are, they enjoy the freedom to really be obese. One last note is an old woman (70+) who I met standing in the rain just beside the Christian Science reading room.

Old woman: Does this bus go to ____.
Matt: I’m sorry what was that?
Old woman: Does this bus go up ____.
Matt: Come stand under the umbrella. The bus…
Old woman: Do you know where it goes?
Matt: No, I’ll admit, I’m from Canada.
Old woman: The Black country?
Matt: No, not Ghana or Gambia, Can-a-da.
Old woman: Oh that’s OK. It’s a British country. You know Britain created this country and Canada. So that’s OK.
Matt: Well I’m glad that’s OK. Well… I have to go. Good luck.

— Every city has it’s crazies, but I’ve never had a conversation about public transportation turn that direction.

I also took a bunch of night pictures without a tripod (forgot my mini-tripod in the hotel room) which the Flickr people seem to enjoy.

I made it to Chicago OK. I even made it to my hotel room here at the Fairmont (swanky) in time to catch the end of the world cup finals (Zidane, what was that?).

I’ve since taken lots of pictures of Gotham Chicago and used my in-line skates to cover lots of the downtown core. I copied and pasted the Wikipedia entry on Chicago into “Saybert” and exported it into an audio file and onto my iPod. This morning I skated around to Stephen Hawking telling be about Chicago.

I’m here for the 2006 WebCT Conference which starts tomorrow so today was my chance to see the town. Did you know that Chicago is the third most popular conference destination in the US? Stephen Hawking told me that.

Unfortunately it was overcast all day – but I’ll have lots of time to capture sunset pictures through the week. Watch flickr.

Lindz and I went to Marineland on sunday and witnessed the birth of a baby beluga…. well almost, we walked away from the top of the tank, not knowing what was going on, but we made it back for the baby’s first breaths.

For the record, Marineland only has two serious rides, Sky Screamer and Dragon Mountain both both are twice as good as Vortex and Dropzone.

I’ve often said bad things about my adopted home in St. Catharines, but clearly the individuals roaming the streets around me are not stupid.

Take for example the person who slashed the line from my propane tank to my BBQ while I was on vacation.  This person clearly knew about the safety features designed into gas fittings.  The evidence suggests that they were using my propane tank to shoot fire and the regular end that screws into the BBQ will only allow gas to flow when attached to the proper fitting.  By slashing it they were able to achieve their task – of course providing that their goal was only to shoot fire and not actually burn my house down.