Chicagoist: Bears Gaining Respect: Pats Game Moved to 3:15 Start

The NFL is moving up the Patriots vs. Bears game to a later start time at 3:15 PM on Dec. 12th. Chicagoist further speculates that if the Bears face Green Bay for the NFC North title that game on January 2nd, that game may be pushed up as well.

It's safe to say this blog rarely becomes an NFL blog during the football season. Just can't get into football, but it's mostly because the Bears can't help but disappoint. They're doing surprisingly well this year and most of the time I'm working when I could be watching a Bears game.

I do look forward to watching the Bears in the playoffs in the near future, but not sure they'll be in the Super Bowl like they were almost four years ago.

Also, the Bears are doing something right when you see a thread for them over at Capitol Fax. And Rich Miller is more of a baseball fan.

YoChicago: I had to disrobe some, said the architect

You know I think you'd like this story. Joe Zekas recalled the story of an architect who, back in the 1970s, was frustrated by state architecture licensing authorities that he showed up taking the test in a Batman costume. Officials administering this exam weren't very happy needless to say.

The last Jew of South Shore Gardens

She died this past April and I just now found this article. Found it very interesting. She was the last Jew in the area called South Shore Gardens. Well I just refer to that area with it's boundaries as Pill Hill although that may not entirely be accurate:

Gloria Kolodny Chanenson, the last Jewish resident of the Chicago neighborhood of South Shore Gardens, died while visiting her daughter in Cincinnati on April 8, at age 90. She refused to move from her home, which was built in South Shore Gardens in 1954. South Shore Gardens suffered an acute epidemic of white, and especially Jewish, flight between 1967 and 1972, while the neighborhood was new and building up. These tumultuous times were reviewed in the book "The South Side" by Louis Rosen (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, Inc., 1999). The neighborhood is bounded by 87th Street on the North, Jeffrey Boulevard (2000 East) on the West, 93rd Street on the South and Anthony Avenue on the East.
...
When their neighbors began to move in the late 1960s, the Chanensons decided to stay in their home, and they became friendly with their new African-American neighbors as they moved in. "We integrate the neighborhood," Irving said. Eventually, only a few other staunch and stubborn Jewish families refused to "go with the flow." Among the last couples to remain in their homes in South Shore Gardens or neighboring Pill Hill were Esther Malkin Lesner, a retired elementary school French and adjustment teacher, and her husband, Samuel J. ("Sam") Lesner, retired movie and night club critic of the Chicago Daily News and a columnist for the Hyde Park Herald; Minnie Brainin Lieb and Dr. Bernard Lieb, a physician; and Dr. Max Martin Jacobson, a distinguished ophthalmologist who had studied in Vienna early in his career, and his wife, Eugenia ("Jeanne") Rydnik Jacobson, a pianist and piano teacher.

These three couples all died while remaining in their neighborhood homes, and Irving passed away in 1990, leaving Gloria as the last Jew in the South Shore Gardens area and probably the only Jew in the entire South Shore-South Chicago area from 71st Street southward to the city limits and from Lake Michigan to Stony Island Avenue.

An interesting story taking place on the South Side.

If you want to know more about this racial change that took place in that particular area then I would like to refer you to this post I had written in 2005 about a book I had checked out of the library. It was about this very community that was populated by the Jews and what happened when Black Americans started moving in.

Check out these wallets

This first wallet is from the Chicago Transit Authority's (CTA) Gift Shop:

The Mighty Wallet is printed with the licensed graphics of the CTA and is not only functional for quick transfer info on the go but it also adds a level of stealth that safeguards your valuables from theft. Mighty Wallets have actually evaded theft in real life situations through their uncommon stealthy design.

Made from Tyvek (think express mail envelopes), the Mighty Wallet resists tearing because of thousands of interlocking plastic fibers spun in random patterns giving the wallet incredible strength.

This might be very cool. Such a wallet can foil theft attempts, especially if a potential pickpocket thinks that this is merely a CTA Map.

Also check out this second wallet:

A dot-matrix wallet from ThinkGeek. The description doesn't mention foiling thieves, but it does mention that it's made of a similar material to the CTA Mighty Wallet. The fact that it's a dot-matrix wallet should ring a bell to old-time computer geeks.

Some of the other wallets you might find at ThinkGeek may have some added features that may foil criminals. Although the hazard isn't necessarily to think of actual pickpockets or theft as opposed to a theft of a different type.

Obligatory ballot receipt shot

I voted early this morning. Just now took a picture of it and posted it on twitter. I hope those of you reading this blog has voted already.

Oh yeah that is one of my Moleskine notebooks that the receipt is sitting on.