Spring in Chicago

Saturday, the temperature hit 80 degrees in Chicago for the first time in over six months. After the long, particularly brutal winter we had just endured, we deserved a break. Not a long break, though--by Monday afternoon, it was snowing. Again.

On the Way to Work This Morning 3/20/14

Yay! The first day of spring. After such a long winter and so much snow, it's good to...what...

WHAT IS THIS SHIT?!? To paraphrase Sterling Archer: "Eat a dick, Mother Nature!"

On the Way to Work This Morning 3/12/14

Last night, yet another snowstorm left a few inches of wet, heavy snow spraypainted over damn near everything.

On the Way to Work This Morning 3/8/14

A cute young woman wrote this on the bench at my train stop and took a picture of it to send to her brother in California. I hope he's sympathetic.

Every Picture Tells a Story 3/6/14

This Christmas tree still has not been carted off by city garbage crews--most likely because it's frozen into a snowbank.

Every Picture Tells a Story 2/12/14

I don't think any of these bikes will be moving again until it warms up again--so, maybe, July.

Every Picture Tells a Story 2/11/14

Snowmegeddon 2014: Even More Dibs

Every Picture Tells a Story 2/6/14

The snow piles along Richmond Street now reach up past my hips and, in some places, up to my chest.

Snowmageddon 2014: More Dibs

More examples of "dibs," the dubious, embarrassing Chicago "tradition" of setting out random crap from around the house to mark off parking spots--even though the snowstorm that necessitated the digging out of said parking spots happened a week ago.

How -10 Looks on Me

Brutal Beauty

Snowmageddon 2014: Dibs

In my (thankfully brief) travels yesterday, I only ran into one example of the dubious Chicago "tradition" known as "dibs": The placing of random shit to mark and hold shoveled-out parking spaces. I think the only reason I saw just these two mismatched dining room chairs on my street was because once everyone had cleared their spots, they parked and stayed, likely because the weather was/is so bad.

Snowmageddon 2014: The Western Avenue Brown Line Stop

I ventured outside for a few minutes yesterday--more to gather supplies to hunker down with than anything else--and found myself briefly on CTA.

The Francisco stop looked like it hadn't been shoveled in a while, if at all--note the height of the snow accumulated on the bench.

The Western stop didn't look much better. The snow drifts were pretty, though.

The pigeons, however, seemed to appreciate it when I hit the button to turn on the heat lamps.

Snowmageddon 2014, Part 2

For the second time in under a week, Chicago got hit with a snowstorm--more than 20" since the first of the year. And now? Temperatures well below zero. All this after tornadoes in November.

Whatever we did to piss you off so much, Mother Nature, we're sorry. Really, truly sorry.

Snowmageddon 2014

OK, so this wasn't an all-out blizzard like, say, Snowmegeddon 2011, but it is the most snow we've gotten at one time in nearly two years, and the forecast is for another six inches of snow tomorrow night/Sunday morning, followed by deep, bitter cold--as in not reaching zero for a high temperature either Monday or Tuesday.