As I mentioned in a recent book review, I took Daughter #2 (and her sister) off to the Chicago History Museum a month or two back to do some research on the "Burnham Plan". While we didn't get much info on that there (well, except for the book I picked up) we did have have a chance to wander around a bit, including down in the "kids'" area. One thing they have there is an electronic thing with all sorts of pictures of scenes around Chicago that you're able to drag-and-drop into letters. For the "O" in Chicago it takes a pic of you. For obvious reasons, my face is not in the "prime zone" for these pics, so this is me bending down to get "in shot", which also brought my glasses into a very reflective relation to the monitor, resulting in a freaky "Brendan with glowing blue eyes" effect. Click on the card for a larger version.When you're done making the card you can send it attached to an e-mail to yourself or others, which is a fun thing. It's a nicely interactive exhibit with a free "souvenir" involved. It ain't a Mold-A-Rama, but it's a cool thing to have from the museum visit! I still have a hard time thinking of that place as "the Chicago History Museum" as for years it was "the Chicago Historical Society", right across from my highschool. A number of years ago they built a whole new building in front of the old building, in the part of the park that used to be largely taken up by a large curved drive ... the new building being about the same "footprint" as the old building, which I suspect was "landmarked" and was only able to be "lightly" worked on.
It's one of those things for somebody like me who's not moved much ... for the past 45 years I've lived in 4 places (30 years at my current address!) within about a 2-mile stretch up and down the lakeshore ... that all the stuff that I remember is pretty much gone or changed, and part of me still expects to see that park up front of the CHS rather than the to-the-sidewalk wall of the CHM! Frankly, down by me, except for some of the high-rises, there's almost nothing that's as it was when I moved into the neighborhood, and that stretch of Lincoln Park up there was a key feature of my childhood memories.
Oh, well ... ran across the graphic, and figured it was too cool to not pass along, even being "old news" (I guess we were there mid-April) at this point. On "new news", I was off at a follow-up of the Rt.66 party that I covered a couple of weeks ago, this being the "welcome back" bash ... met a couple of people who might be good for job leads (unless they were simply "blowing smoke"), and ducked out just early enough to get in before this big thunderstorm blew into the city!