Army of Almond Spritzers

The other night, Cathy made desserts for Bernice's bridal shower. I watched as she constructed a delicious army of almond spritzers and vanilla cupcakes. Here are some (yellowish and whitish) photos of the adventure.


She used a cookie press to press the cookies. Sounds about right.


Lots of cookies.


Lots.


Sprinkling of pink sprinkles. I read that a couple times and in my head it eventually sounded like stprinkling of prink spinkles.


Into the oven the army went.


Then the cupcakes stood in line to get their uniforms.


Stprinkling of spink prinkles.


Waiting for battle.

More later.

John G. Shedd Aquarium

Three posts ago, I wrote that said I wanted to see the shitty parts of Chicago, not the parks, museums, and what not. Well, I took a random day off last week and, ironically, I found myself at the Shedd Aquarium with Cathy. The Shedd hasn't changed much since I've last been there. It was a good time, despite the incredibly boring dolphin show.


We got to the Shedd early, so we were able to walk right in. We started by checking out the many (relatively small) aquariums. Eels, crabs, turtles, coral, and of course fish, like this Seawolf for example. He looks like he wants to get out, or die... uh I can't tell


There was a big Blue Iguana catching some rays.


Yeah. I later learned there were dolphins in there somewhere (oceanarium).


It started getting crowded.


Looks crowded here too.


A ceiling window to part of an aquarium. Rad.


By the time we left, a long line had built up. Those people are crazy. To me, it was long enough to constitute "screw that I'm going home" long.

We later went to the Field Museum of Natural History. Oh the irony. I'll post the awesomely mediocre photos of that later.

Technically, Spring is Here

Well, Spring is here. Although it did snow the other day. I find that totally unacceptable. Weather, you're a little bitch.


In honor of Spring: a Red-Spotted Purple, hanging out amongst the blackberries. Found this guy on North Manitou years ago. I later wasted about 15 minutes of my life identifying it via the Internets.


Westinghouse Career Academy High School in Chicago. Not doing so hot.


Screwing around.

Music: Anecdote

So here's some music. I haven't written any music in a long time, but I was looking around on my hard drive and found some of my, well, notes I guess. I'll post some of these every now and then for the hell of it.

This one seems to be called Anecdote. It's just a combination of some basic techniques I was practicing back then. I made up a couple riffs on a boring afternoon and this is what I got. All I had was one of the first practice takes (I vaguely remember recording this in a kitchen), so it's a little rough:

Good Ribs and Crime

I've been wanting to see more of Chicago lately. Not the museums, the parks, or any of that. I'm talking about the more unsavory parts of town, where buildings are deteriorating, the crime rate is high, the bbq ribs are great, and the L stop smells like piss. Why would I explore an area where getting mocked, mugged, and/or molested is a real possibility? I don't know, but I never really do anyway.


Westside vantage point.