[Click on any of the thumbnail images to view a larger image]
I went to Chicago for a couple of reasons. The first day I was there I went to the NCTA show for work. As usual, the exhibitors were doing lots of hoaky things to get people to come into their boot. I got a chance to ski in the CNBC booth. Okay, so it is a picture of just my head superimposed on top of a skier, but hey, why not...
The next few days I hung out with some friends and my family. My sister was in from Hawaii for her son Chris' high school graduation and also to attend my niece Rebecca's wedding. My friend Kathy did me the honor of coming up the Friday night before the wedding so she could go to it with me (and swing dance, of course). She also has a couple of friends in the Chicago area that she hadn't seen since college. She had never been to Chicago before, so we tried to squeeze in a little sightseeing in the limited time she was there. Since I never really had any pictures of Chicago from the 30+ years I lived there (it wasn't novel at the time), I decided to take some now and include them here. I guess technically, Kathy took most of them, but whatever...
Kathy took this shot of the Chicago River, taken from the
Michigan Avenue bridge, looking east toward Lake Michigan:
This is the Chicago Water Tower. It is one of the few (if not
the only) landmark left standing after the great Chicago fire. It
looks so dwarfed now compared to all of the tall buildings. This
is also a good example of the difference between Kodak paper and good processing
and Agfa paper and discount film processing. The one on the left
was taken on my camera and had the better processing, the other on Kathy's
and had the cheaper processing:
Kathy went with one of her friends, Jenny, to Navy Pier. These
were taken from the big ferris wheel that is out on the pier. The
first is looking south, and the other looking north (roughly). Once
again, her pictures are surprisingly unvivid with a grey skyinstead of
blue. (It makes me glad I used Wolf Camera for mine):
There was (is still, until 10/99) a traveling art exhibit that happened to be in Chicago at the time. There were painted cows, literally 300 of them in all, scattered around downtown Chicago. We only took pictures of a few of them. If you're interested in finding out more about it or want to see all 300 of them, click here.
A bull serving a fish:
Well, they sort of look like swing shoes, right?
This is the entrance to the Tribune building. Pretty cool architecture,
eh? Anyhow, I had never noticed in my entire life that all along
the outside walls of the building, on all sides, there are stones that
were placed into the building when it was built -- stones from all around
the world from interesting places -- as part of an architecture contest
that the building was entered in way back when it was constructed.
Click on the picture below to view some of the stones that I'm talking
about:
Okay, we're up to Saturday now. My niece and her fiancé
(now husband) had a mixed Christian/Jewish wedding. It was held at
a Jewish temple. I was an usher, and thus the tuxedo. This
is Kathy and I outside, before the wedding:
My niece, Rebecca, and her new husband Joel in the receiving line after
the ceremony:
My sister-in-law, Meryl, and my brother, Mike, nearest the center of
the picture:
Me, my two sisters, Gwen and Adrienne, and Adrienne's son Christopher:
Two similar pictures of my immediate family -
Mike, Adrienne, Mom, Me, and Gwen:
Joel and Rebecca making their entrance into the reception hall:
The cutting of the cake:
The first dance:
These two are basically the same, but with slightly different facial
expressions.
My mom, Adrienne, Rebecca, Mike, me, Gwen, Chris (Adrienne's son),
Natasha (Rebecca's sister) and Beth (Gwen's daughter):
My niece Beth and her boyfriend Todd:
Kathy and I:
A ridiculously close-up picture I took of Kathy:
A sort of random shot of Joel (and somebody's head):
My mom and all her grandchildren -
Chris, Natasha, Rebecca, my mom, and Beth:
Basically the same as above without my mom:
Randy (Natasha's boyfriend), Natasha, and Rebecca:
Nope, no swing-dance photos during the wedding reception! My sister did videotape us though, so here is an animated GIF made from the video. It's a big file, so give it several minutes to load. It should animate at roughly actual speed:
Kathy and I a couple of the cows, "Muddy Holly & Peggy Moo"
©:
