Events

The New York Times Magazine ran a lengthy story about the scourge of modern robber barons: massive thefts from trains. It turns out, the super-long container trains that the duopoly of railroad companies run throughout the western US don't seem worth defending, unless you talk to the shippers' insurance companies. The threads of early-21st-century corporate amalgamation all kind of come together in this one story: Some 20 million containers move through the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach every...

What do you get when you combine a 2°C air temperature, a 2°C dew point, frozen ground with snow patches, and nearly-calm winds? Visibility under 100 meters on my commute to the office: They say we may not see the sun until Wednesday. But they also say it'll be 7°C that day. March came early this year, it seems.

A weather pattern has set up shop near Chicago that threatens to occlude the sun for the next week, in exchange for temperatures approaching 15°C the first weekend of February. We've already had 43 days with above-normal temperatures this winter, and just 12 below normal during the cold snap from January 13th through the 22nd. By February 2nd, 84% of our days will have had above-normal temperatures since December 1st. Thank you, El Niño. Though I'm not sure the gloominess is a fair exchange for it....

Welcome to stop #99 on the Brews and Choos project. Brewery: Forbidden Root, 1746 W. Chicago Ave., ChicagoTrain line: CTA Blue Line, ChicagoTime from Chicago: 8 minutesDistance from station: 1.1 km After visiting three breweries on Saturday and having less than a full pint of beer at each, by 5pm we had worked up an appetite for food and for more than a couple sips of beer. So we walked the whole 800 meters from On Tour to Forbidden Root's first restaurant and brewery. (They also own Cultivate, in the...

Walking Cassie to day camp took a lot longer than usual this morning because the freezing rain and near-freezing temperatures after a long cold snap laid a layer of ice over nearly every sidewalk and street in Chicago. She seemed very concerned about my ability to walk, and very disappointed that we didn't take our usual detour to the bagel place to get me some coffee and her a fresh dog treat. The "wintry mix" has stopped and the temperature has risen all the way to 1.5°C at Inner Drive Technology...

Closed in April 2025; Links Taproom will move into the space in 2026. Welcome to stop #98 on the Brews and Choos project. Brewery: On Tour Brewing, 1725 W. Hubbard St., ChicagoTrain line: CTA Green and Pink lines, Ashland Time from Chicago: 6 minutesDistance from station: 700 m Of the three breweries my friend and I planned to visit last Saturday, On Tour was our clear favorite. It helped that her employer has done several events there, one of which I attended before the pandemic, so we were both happy...

Ctrl+W closes the active browser window, you see. I meant to type the word "Wade" in italics but somehow hit the Ctrl key instead of the Shift key. There may be some irony there. Possibly the warmth has addled my brain? It's just gone above freezing for the first time since the wee hours of January 13th. It's also gloomy and gray, but those things go together. Anyway: Today is the 51st anniversary of the US Supreme Court's decision in Roe v Wade. Michael Tomasky wants to know why the press seem to...

Welcome to stop #97 on the Brews and Choos project. Brewery: Goose Island Beer Co., 1800 W Fulton St., ChicagoTrain line: CTA Green and Pink lines, Ashland Time from Chicago: 6 minutesDistance from station: 600 m Given Chicago's long association with Goose Island Beer, and my own review of their (now closed) flagship brewpub on Clybourn almost exactly a year ago, I haven't got much to add. Since InBev bought the brewery in 2016 and expanded to places like Seoul and Shanghai, it almost doesn't qualify as...

Welcome to stop #96 on the Brews and Choos project. Brewery: Great Central Brewing, 221 N. Wood St., ChicagoTrain line: CTA Green and Pink lines, Ashland Time from Chicago: 6 minutesDistance from station: 500 m Despite the cold yesterday, a friend and I set off to the West Fulton Corridor industrial area to visit a cluster of three breweries all within a few hundred meters of each other. First on the list: Great Central Brewing. We liked the place, though it really leans into the "industrial" part of...

I grabbed a friend for a couple of Brews & Choos visits yesterday, and through judicious moderation (8-10 oz of beer per person at each stop), we managed to get the entire West Fulton Corridor cluster done in six hours. So in a few minutes I'll start writing four B&C reviews, which will come out over the next three days. Before I start, though, I'm going to read all these stories that have piled up since Friday: Sports Illustrated shut down publication and laid off the entire editorial staff after an...