Since we're supposed to have a serious snow storm the next two days...

Let's check out how Chicago did snow removal back in 1907 according to Unknown Chicago. Streetcars did the plowing and manual laborers shoveled what the streetcars couldn't plow. Backbreaking work I can only imagine, especially if you had to do this around the city.

No, this is the Sony bloggie camera I'd like to get...

Strike that post from last weekend. I had intended to write about my preference for opitical zoom and that other bloggie camera model had digital zoom instead. Digital zoom isn't good because that type merely crops digitally the area that is to be shot. And that can only result in further pixelation and the video image will not have clarity.

Thus I have settled on model: MHS-CM5/V. This has optical zoom up to 5X and 40 X digital zoom. By contrast my Sony MiniDV camcorder has 40X optical with a 2000 Digital zoom. Also like with the Sanyo Xacti I can also treat this camera as if it's a digital camera as well.

Well still this option isn't perfect. I want a camera that could be used somewhat inconspicuously and this camera may not foot this bill. One can't just look in a viewfinder to make a shot and one must flip open the viewscreen to make a shot. The bad thing is with the other tiny digital camcorders out there doesn't have the type of zoom I would really like.

You know it's possible for me to take on the following scenarios. To start buy this camcorder because I went to a Sony Style store in Skokie, IL this week to see if they sold this camera. As it happens it's only display and could be had for $150. Also this week my travels took me to a TigerDirect store on Elston and saw that this same camera costs $180. Wow more bang for my buck at Sony, interesting.

So let's say I did buy it? I would still want a Flip, Kodak Mini, or a Kodak Playsport that could be used for my purposes inconspicuosly. It would be worth it if either of those cameras could be had for a reasonable price.

Still got some thinking on this and some budgeting. Then again since I'm hardpressed to find this bloggie it might be time to make a purchase before this model won't be found in stores any longer.

It appears I'm not the only one tracking these signs...

Well other than me or John Ruberry @ Marathon Pundit. There's Tom Mannis @ Chicago News Bench who was in the Loop outside of the Harold Washington Library took a picture of this American Recovery Act sign yesterday. It's right in the median on State Street. He says that there appeared to be no work done at this location

American Recovery Act sign on the South Side

I'm pretty sure Marathon Pundit is still tracking these Recovery Act signs around the nation if not only in the Chicago area. This sign was on a trailer near 95th & Michigan on Tuesday morning and I believe the work there involved the utilities. Didn't exactly get all the information for what was being done here.

Unknown Chicago: Super Bears

While the Chicago Bears lost their bid to go to the Super Bowl this year, we can always reminisce about their only Super Bowl victory 25 years ago today. The NFC Title game got good in the 2nd half, but ultimately the Bears came up short against teir arch-rival Green Bay Packers. Read more about what happened on this day over at Unknown Chicago!

Marathon Pundit: Packers win NFC championship

Marathon Pundit: Packers win NFC championship

I think I want a Sony Bloggie Camera

Pictured is a model the Sony MHS-PM5 bloggie HD Video Camera which I have seen in the stores over the Christmas Holidays. That is the one I really would like to get. At the Sony Website a different model of the bloggie camera is shown and I really don't want that model.


Last year, I was looking at a small camcorder such as the Flip, but ultimately I just decided the Flip wasn't a good fit. Mainly because I didn't want to just have to move the footage off of the storage on the camera itself. The Flip camera from what I have seen offers no means to save any footage onto a separate memory card.


If I only had at the very least 2 hrs recording time on a Flip, I could also have some more recording time if I used a separate memory card. At that surely, there are memory cards of different sizes which would offer me variable recording time. Perhaps similar to what I could get on a MiniDV tape.


That is what I have in mind. Also I do like the design of the Sanyo Xacti cameras but some of the models I like are overpriced. Even worse those model cameras are not readily available as so far I have only found them at Radio Shack stores.

In honor of the Chicago Bears....

In their drive to make it to the Super Bowl this year here is a video that shows us the history of their homestand, Soldier Field. I also hear it's mistakenly referred to by some locals as Soldier's Field. Courtesy of NBC Chicago via Curbed.

The Bears will take on their arch-rival Green Bay Packers for the NFC Title on Sunday, January 23 at 3:30 PM at Soldier Field. Also it's the first time in 69 years that the Bears and Packers will meet in a playoff. I'm so watching!

You can watch a video about that here! :P

Bloggers quitting what they call a demanding task with few rewards

This Crain's story started off with Jim Harbison who blogged about art and design and found that the people he showcased got all the rewards and he got very little so he quit.

There are about 31 million blogs in the United States, a number expected to swell to 34 million by the end of this year. But Mr. Harbison is part of a small but growing trend of blog quitters. Last year, the number of blogging teens and adults ages 18 to 33 declined, in the first reported drop in blogging, according to Pew Research Center data.

Some have simply switched to another blog-like medium, say, Twitter or Facebook. Others have faced unpleasant facts about blogging. It's cheap to do but usually doesn't pay. Having a platform may be fun at first, but building a following takes much more work than simply typing and posting.

And millions of them go virtually unnoticed, despite the occasional breakout sensation like the humorous “Stuff White People Like” and the Julia Child-inspired “The Julie/Julia Project.”

When “people see these, they say, ‘I can do that—it will be easy,' “ says Raanan Bar-Cohen, vice-president of media services at San Francisco-based WordPress, which hosts 16.5 million blogs. “If you're looking for fame and fortune, blogging has as good a chance as any medium,” he adds.

But new bloggers misunderstand what the venture is really all about. “The best bloggers are good at highlighting, snipping and curating,” Mr. Bar-Cohen says. All that draws “the feedback that is as or more important than the actual posts.”

You know as long as there is information out there to share, there is no reason for me to quit. I have no family yet and I have the time to blog. I also would use Twitter to supplement my posting and people have been know to Retweet my posts. Also while do have a Facebook account I prefer to keep that for more private purposes for right now than anything else. As you see I do have some FB widgets that show which posts are being shared or liked by FB users.

All the same, while I wish this blog could get more traffic or even comments it's not that big of a deal to me. It has taken off at moments and even better I have been seen on much bigger blogs than this one. Still this blogging thing is still considered a hobby and if the hobby can be more useful then there's my satisfaction right there.

Unknown Chicago: The Blizzard of 1979 (1-14-1979)

Traffic snarl from Unknown Chicago

Believe it or not in one of my albums there are plenty of pictures of my parents cleaning snow from this blizzard. Thanks to the Unknown Chicago blog I know more about this blizzard. Politically this snowstorm meant the different between incumbent Mayor Michael Bilandic and the eventual Mayor Jane Byrne. There is a comparison between two snowstorms approximately 12 years apart the 1967 & then 1979. I found this quote telling:

Okay--so in 1979, the city had three days to clean up.  And by Tuesday, everything was back to normal.

No, it wasn't.  As soon as the snow started coming down, Mayor Michael Bilandic was all over TV, talking about the heroic job his administration was doing in this weather emergency.  But the public could see he was wrong.  The snow was not getting cleared.

The City That Works wasn't working.  Mike Royko, the newspaper columnist, put the blame squarely on the mayor.  According to Royko, city crews didn't know how to deal with the snow because their skills were too specialized--specialized in cranking out votes at election time.  That was the real job of Chicago payrollers.

Bilandic was running for re-election.  He was being challenged in the Democrat primary by Jane Byrne.  Now Byrne began hammering Bilandic about snow removal.  In one of her commercials, she was filmed with snowflakes falling around her.

Byrne's message connected with the voters.  Six weeks after the blizzard, she beat Bilandic in the primary, then went on to win the general election.

In 1979 Chicago's Democratic Machine didn't serve the city very well. Royko earned his pay back then, that line in bold was priceless. Needless to say though the Machine couldn't save Bilandic back in 1979 as he didn't serve his own full term as mayor.

115th & Michigan back in 1934...

And at this intersection the only building that remains is the one with the drugs sign on the northeast corner. That building is still there. I never thought I would see such an old picture from the Roseland neighborhood courtesy of Unknown Chicago. That other nice building on the southeast corner, well that building was torn down, the property is currently vacant.

As a bonus check out my post about Englewood at The Sixth Ward. Also using historical photographs from Unknown Chicago.