Wedding Update

As promised, directions to the wedding will be posted shortly. Check back on September 4th.

-Brian

Where are all the Dunkin' Donuts?

I must be bored without Kelly around. Anyway, another musing of mine along the lines of Boston versus Chicago. In my former town of Somerville, there are eight Dunkin' Donuts. That's one for every 9,500 residents. Its also one for every half a square mile. Boston, itself has 72 shops, or one for every 8000 residents and 0.67 square miles. (Even more impressive is Chelsea with seven locations; one per 5,000 residents and one per 0.3 square miles!) Sure looks like Bostonians like their donuts and sickeningly sweet coffee.

Oak Park has 52,000 residents (thats 25,000 fewer than Somerville) packed into about the same 4.5 square miles. How many Dunkin Donuts do you think are here? Exactly one, and it sits right on the city limits. If we're really feeling the need for DD, we can always wander just over the city line (two venues in Forest Park and Chicago), but of course that was also true in Somerville.

I'm not sure if there's any great conclusion to draw from this analysis, and its not like Oak Park is short of coffee and donut shops, but it really was quite noticeable when we first moved here that there weren't Dunkin' Donuts on every street corner like we were used to seeing in Boston. Of course, we have one more Chipotle than all of New England combined and that's something to be thankful for.

-Brian

Old Pictures

A while back I promised to post pictures of my drive into Chicago. Here they are. By the way, I guess its not the safest thing to take pictures while on a freeway. In my defense, I wasn't traveling all that fast, what with Chicago traffic and all. Still, better not to try this at home, kids. Actually, if you're at home its pretty safe, its when you're driving your car that its not safe.



Here I am crossing into Indiana. I also took a picture of the Illinois state border sign, but it didn't come out well.



Here I am on the Dan Ryan expressway near Comisky Park, uh, I mean U.S. Cellular Field. Home of the White Sox. Since I spent eight years on the South Side, I guess I'm a Sox fan and Cubs hater.



Still on the Dan Ryan. There's the Sears Tower in the distance.



A little bit closer. See, traffic. Plus I'm, uh, driving a Volvo.

-Brian

Friends and Family

My sister, the high-powered business woman, came and went last week, and a good time was had by all. Although she's more of a Naperville kind of person, I think she appreciated the kind of urban lifestyle that Oak Park has to offer.

While at dinner we caught up with the goings on of her life. The funniest story she told us involved her daughter (who is not yet in high school). My niece apparently wanted a fairly pricey swimsuit (she swims competitively), but my sister was balking at the cost. So what did my intrepid niece do? To convince her mom, she had to think like her mom: She wrote a detailed business plan including a cost/benefit analysis demonstrating why the purchase, albeit initially expensive, would make financial sense in the long run. To make a long story short, it involved faster swim times resulting in more victories resulting in big athletic scholarship to college. If you figure a $150 swimsuit potentially leads to a free ride at Harvard, its a pretty good deal. Aside from this specific example, I think its a great idea to have kids learn how to make and present to others these kinds of decisions. Definitely a useful skill to have for the future. I'll have to remember this in the future for my own kids.

On an unrelated note, Kelly and I were down in Hyde Park last week to visit some friends of ours. Ann and Evan moved from Boston about a month before we did to start medical school at the University of Chicago, my alma mater. We had been meaning to meet up with them since we'd moved here, and they were also being visited by Shawn and Diane, also from Boston. It was a nice little Boston reunion.


We went to Java Jive and danced a bit, but gave up after a while due to the heat and humidity. We went back to their air-conditioned apartment and admired the furniture and shelving that Evan had built. Kelly tried to persuade Evan into building us some furniture, without much success.

-Brian

Everything's Relative

Like your favorite television series, Life As We Know It has been on a summer hiatus. But never fear, intrepid reader, we've got many great new episodes coming up for this season filled with intrigue, romance, car chases, and alien abductions. You'll laugh, you'll cry, it'll be better than Cats.

Kelly was back in Boston for a week at the end of July for a top secret mission and while there she also managed to reaquaint herself with friends, family, and the insane Boston road system. Its amazing how quickly you appreciate a grid network. In the meantime, I was stuck all by myself and managed somehow not to get into serious trouble.

She came back with a guest, none other than her mother, who spent a few days with us, and helped us get our place in shape as well as checked out the local attractions. While she was here, we went all over Chicagoland, from Navy Pier in the center of bustling Chicago to Geneva, IL, a bucolic and charming little town about 50 miles due west of the Loop. Unfortunately, we weren't able to see Oprah this time, so that will have to wait till another visit.

Soon after Kelly's mom departed, we drove up to Milwaukee to see my mother who was visiting with her sister. This was the first time that Kelly met members of my extended family: my aunt and uncle, and my cousin Alex and his wife Julie. We had a big Korean-style lunch and a good time was had by all. My relatives seemed to like Kelly, and she impressed them by speaking a few key words in Korean that she picked up hanging around me. Seeing how we're so close to Milwaukee (100 miles) I'm sure that we'll be visiting often again in the future. Unfortunately, due to scheduling conflicts, my mom wasn't able to see our place in Oak Park just yet, but they'll be plenty of time in the future.

Speaking of relatives, my sister called and said she would be in town on business, so it seems we'll be having another guest shortly. She's one of the blog's biggest fans, so we'll no doubt be busy signing autographs :)

-Brian