#Chiberia in downtown Chicago...

The top picture was at Madison St. and the bottom picture was on Michigan Ave. While this isn't exactly the first time I've seen ice on the Chicago River, it never occurred to be how frozen the river can get. Almost looks good enough to skate on although I'm not sure it's recommended.

BTW, this is a pic I saw taken during the recent "polar vortex" cold snap. That pic looks thawed compared to this one. This was shared with Chicago's ABC affiliate.

Post by ABC 7 Chicago.

Detroit's Mayoral home rebranded

Manoogian Mansion Residence - Detroit by yrvelouria

Over at Curbed Detroit we've learned that the new Mayor of the Motor City - one Mike Duggan - has sold his home and is moving into the city's mayoral mansion. Not only that he's electing to rebrand the home.

While that move could be seen as PR move, as the writers of Curbed stated "the house simply isn't very big". The home is only about 4,000 square feet apparently big, but not mansion big. And at that Curbed further states Mayor Duggan would "lose a third of his living space compared to his old house".

In doing this post I also thought, how much is this residence worth to Detroit? Why isn't this one of those assets that could be sold to get Detroit out of bankruptcy? I'm sure it has been looked at as other city-owned assets were.

So there's a documentary about Mitt Romney...

In 2012, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney was the GOP nominee for President. I'm sure many Americans believe he should've been president but sadly 2012 wasn't the year to make a change. Indeed depending on whom you read it could be said that "the incumbent was uninspiring and the challenger wasn't very inspiring".

Well I may not have gotten that quite correct, but I'm sure there were many voters who weren't very happy about the choices that they had almost two years ago. Now we know a bit more about the man. Perhaps he's much happier about being out of the spotlight now that the 2012 elections are over.

We know he has a grandson, who just so happens to be Black. He's happy about that I'm sure although unfortunately many have decided to point this out and make jokes about it.

All the same I got wind of a documentary via Instapundit on Mr. Romney - entitled Mitt - and it seems really interesting. Perhaps a portrait of a man who seeks to be a future leader of the "Free World". It premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and Romney himself went to the premiere.

You know I used to say that Romney probably didn't have a prayer because he was a wealthy man. Some of the comments he made on the campaign trail were certainly blown-up as if to say this man is out of touch with everyday Americans. Also these comments were certainly blown-up by President Obama's re-election campaign. Without a doubt it had been brutal!

Now it seems, Romney beat himself up a lot. He felt like he couldn't measure up to his father former Michigan Governor George Romney. While Mitt himself was wealthy it was noted that daddy Romney himself made good and well provided very well for his family. Also Romney apparently was intimidated by the President and if you want your seat in the Oval Office as as leader of the free world, should you be intimidated by the one who already serving a term and running for re-election?

Who knows, what if Romney wasn't down on himself in 2012? Could he have made a difference where many may say Obama couldn't have? And supposing that Romney really didn't want to job considering how difficult the current political environment is?

I felt the bite of a "polar vortex" this week...

Temp on Monday

Had myself an interesting week. The weather has finally warmed up earlier this week the temperature was as low at 16 degrees below zero. I still had to work that day which was Monday and I was feeling the cold for certain.

It was not long after the snow had ended and because I had to work not enough time to really dig out which I eventually did on my day off. And at that school was out for the last two days in light of the weather although at first it seemed CPS was willing to stay open and force students to get out here in the elements.

Well, there are no complaints on my end, I stayed as warm as I could getting outside. I survived and hopefully many others did. And for Chicagoans - polar vortex or no polar vortex - weather like this is nothing new. Thankfully while we have at least two more months to go for winter, we should remember that spring is just around the corner.

It seemed that one or two days of very low temperatures was only temporary and it was. It seemed in spite of all the concerned, things got back to normal quickly. Even better the weather will warm and and all this snow and ice that accumulated will melt in the future.

BTW, sometimes I just get lazy to shave it coincided at the right time with the weather. The fuzz on my face kept it warm because once I had shaved and my face felt the bite of the cold. Though thankfully on that day it wasn't as cold as it had been on Monday. Still now, I'm glad to have shaven it off! :)