Wed, June 30, 2004

This weekend, my office sent me to a conference held by the wonderful people at 37signals. I learned a tremendous amount about designing web-based applications, but that's not why you called. In between the flying and the taxi rides and the seminars, I managed to take a tour of Chicago, and it was a great time.

I've been to Chicago twice before. Once at around 21 months of age, and once in 1996 when I first met Arksie. I don't remember a lot from the first trip, but on the second one, my family and I toured the city and managed to take in some Michigan Avenue shopping and other things. Also, I tested out of two semesters of college Spanish.

This time, I managed to set it up so that I would have most of Saturday free to explore the city, only to realize later that this obligated me to come up with something to do. I've tried the solo vacation thing once before, in Laguna Beach, California, and it was more or less a train wreck. Enjoyable, but highly disorganized. I ended up spending most of my time tidepooling because it's what I'd have done if I were on vacation with my parents, and I didn't know what else to do. It was kind of fun, taking pictures to show them so they could pretend they were there – or just to prove that I really did go outside – but it was a memorable lesson in the difficulty of planning a vacation agenda.

So, this time, I called for help. As soon as I knew I'd have a day in Chicago on my hands, I tasked my father with the preparation of a list of things to do. First of all, he and my mom were thoughtful enough to buy me Access Chicago, a guide book from the Access series by renowned architect and information designer Richard Saul Wurman. Also, Dad took the time to compose a three-page written list of activities and points of interest. Sure, it was an architectural tour, but that's all I've ever known. To change the plan now would just be weird. This was perfect. (Plus, according to the video at the Sears Tower, Chicago is the birthplace of modern architecture in America.)

So, I landed in Chicago on Thursday evening – you can tell how pleasant my trip was by the fact that I almost completely skipped over the 45-minute wait on the runway at LAX due to thunderstorms in Illinois – and checked into the Millennium Knickerbocker, which turns out to be positioned right atop the famed Magnificent Mile shopping district. Just a block or so from the lake shore, right across from the prominent Drake Hotel ("Those damn Gideons." –Jon Voight, Mission: Impossible), and adjacent to the former Playboy Building. Also, nestled between Michigan Avenue and Mies Van Der Rohe Way. Mies! How's that for your birthplace of modern architecture! Anyway, the Knickerbocker was cozy and lovely, but I was starving. Having studied my Access Chicago, I knew that a short stroll down Michigan Avenue would get me very close to Harry Caray's Restaurant, which had come highly recommended by Arksie. I did my best to put aside any anxiety at eating all alone in a crowded restaurant – something I never do (eat alone or put aside anxiety) – and had a delightful dish of toasted ravioli, one of my favorite appetizers at Italian restaurants, and a steak that can only be described as groin-grabbingly transcendent. Expertly seasoned, perfectly prepared, and just filling enough to make the walk back to the hotel feel good. I took a last look at Michigan Avenue, unaware that the next time I'd see it, it would be overrun with shoppers. On my way back, I found a charming cafe on Mies Van Der Rohe Way where I would enjoy breakfast for the next two mornings.

![Harry Caray's][3]

I really thought I'd sleep in, considering the late evening and the time difference. I had to be at the conference at ten on Friday morning, which would be like eight L.A. time, which would mean getting up early. I set the alarm for something like 7:30, but I woke up promptly at 6:15 for no reason whatsoever. This gave me time for a leisurely shower even after ten or twenty minutes of attempting to fall back asleep, with enough time left over to wander down towards the lake after my french toast and sausage and take a few pictures. I even read some "USA Today" during breakfast and back at the hotel. (Some Michael Moore and a story about AOL employees getting busted for colluding with spammers.) Then I put on my nice shirt and headed west for a day of Basecamp. I'll skip over the technical details, but Basecamp is an online project management tool that enables team members to collaborate by posting messages and "milestones" (to-do's and such); clients can also login and view details on the progress of the project. It's intended for smallish service firms like web design companies, etc. (it was originally developed for internal use at 37signals, a smallish web design firm), but people have reportedly used it for all sorts of things, even planning weddings. 37signals is a really excellent design group, one of my favorites, and I'm a big fan of what they do. Also, I wanted to learn about the process of Basecamp's creation (this was the topic of the conference) because, with a great deal of help from Andy, I had developed a similar tool about two years before 37signals did. Eerily similar, in fact. So much so that one of the features they added later (after much deliberation to try to figure out how to do it) was a feature that Andy and I built into our application right from the start. It was enlightening and satisfying to see that although I'm not in a sexy Chicago converted loft dot-com office, I'm as innovative as those who are. Also, the developer on the project, David Heinemeier Hansson, turned out to be a really cool and funny guy (unique for us web geeks) and was absolutely the belle of the ball as far as the conference was concerned. It was really great to meet him and talk with him.

![Coudal Partners/37signals stairway][4]

That night, I had to choose between dining out on the town or enjoying room service naked in my hotel room with Terminator 3 on HBO. Let's pretend that I stayed in because I was hot and tired from sitting in an uncomfortable folding chair in a poorly ventilated loft space for eight hours. Yeah, that's the ticket. As a result I was well rested for my Saturday adventure. (I even got a "late" 1pm checkout, so I'd have more time to play before I had to pack up my toothbrush and say goodbye to my private haven.) I managed to sleep until around 8:30 on Saturday, then bounced downstairs to enjoy an omelette and toast while working out the route I'd take later that morning. Since the main sights I wanted to see divided into two areas of the city (sadly, I had to cut out the Frank Lloyd Wright bonanza in Oak Park because of its distance), I decided I would take a cab down into the Loop in the morning, do everything there, then return and check out before exploring the Magnificent Mile area around the hotel in the afternoon. That way, as my flight time approached, I could always just hike back to the Knickerbocker, collect my belongings, and jump in a cab.

![Millennium Knickerbocker][5]

And, off I went! I Xeroxed the Loop map out of Access Chicago so I might look a tad less touristy, and made my way by taxi across the river. I started in the northeast corner of the Loop at the Illinois Center (a large project that Mies contributed to), from which I would make a large arc south then west through the city streets to the Sears Tower. (I figured that would be a good ending destination since cabs should be pretty easy to find there.) Illinois Center confused me; apparently it's more of a designation for a complex than a particular building or set of buildings. More like "San Diego" than "Empire State Building." So, I snapped a few shots of anything that looked Mies-ish (for Dad; must have proof!) and wandered towards Grant Park. The park is actually several outdoor venues linked together, like Richard M. Daley Bicentennial Plaza and the Clarence Buckingham Fountain and Millennium Park. Technically, it even includes the Art Intitute of Chicago. If I'd had more time, I'd have liked to see the fountain, because it's the really famous one, best known (lamentably) for opening Married: With Children. But I saw it in '96, so no huge loss. I focused most of my time on Millennium Park, because they're nearing completion of a big, whooshy Frank Gehry building there, which resembles the art museum in Bilbao or the new Walt Disney Concert Hall here in L.A. It starts with a sort of band shell type thing at the north end of the park and then sprawls out with these tubular tentacles southward down the lawn. There's also a very shiny pedestrian bridge made out of more curvy metal panels; I'm surprised they let him keep putting those things in cities after all the fuss over the Disney hall heating up nearby apartments as much as 15 degrees due to its reflectivity in the heat of the day.

![Millennium Park][6] ![Millennium Park][7]

After that, I made my way into the concrete jungle, which became noticeably cooler very quickly. All that shade and wind tunnel effect – delightful! The next few architectural highlights on my tour were less recognizable, but interesting and historical in their way. Unfortunately, a couple were undergoing some sort of renovation/restoration, so they had that first-floor scaffolding cave thing going on that you get in big cities a lot. Sadly, the Chicago Board of Trade was closed; that was one I had really wanted to go into because of the really interesting atrium illustrated in Access Chicago. No photologue of Chicago would be complete, however, without at least one picture of an "El" train. I really liked the interplay of light and shadow created by the buildings and tracks here, which sadly I managed to capture more effectively when the train wasn't there. Part of my ambition with carrying the new camera around (still ensplotched, by the way – Canon will get another go at it once I'm back from my trip next week) and snapping more pictures is that as many as possible will say something or at least show some creative or artistic merit. I took a photography class; I graduated film school; I work in design. I'm told I have a good "eye" (Robert Wuhl would say I have two), so it shouldn't be too hard to take "good" pictures. Just something that is more interesting than "this is a photographic document of that thing." Of course, I've really challenged myself right out of the gate by focusing on architecture and sightseeing as my first major project. (And simultaneously!) Overall, I'd say the results are okay. A few shots really make me happy, a few others are interesting, many more are recognizably creative if you'd been there and seen what the obvious choices would have been, but on their own they look sort of blah. And plenty are just photographic documents of places. By necessity, most of the ones featured here are the latter type, because I'm describing the trip and they serve that purpose best. But I picked the "artistic" one of the 37signals staircase because I like it a lot, and I'm featuring two pictures of the El track, one "Hey! An El train!" and one "Oooh, interplay of light and shadow."

![Hey! An El train!][8] ![Oooh, interplay of light and shadow.][9]

Next was the Sears Tower, which of course defies description and needs no introduction. There's really no way to get artsy about taking sky-high photos of a beautiful American city, but I gave it a try. (Of course, I have a few dozen shots looking out the windows at vistas and various specific landmarks, too.) I was fortunate enough to get a relatively light wait time; which resulted, in my guess, from the fact that the annual Taste of Chicago festival had started the same day, so tourists had someplace else to be. (I actually turned left from the park onto Monroe right at the start of the Taste of Chicago area, partly due to time constraints and partly due to not needing to watch a bunch of people squinting and eating kielbasa in the hot sun. The elevator ride up and down is indeed a surreal experience. Since there was a line to get back on the elevator to come down again, I used the restroom on the 99th floor, which was fun because it reminds me of the fact that they have curves in the pipes every few floors in order to prevent sewage from plummeting that entire distance uninterrupted and slamming into street level at about the speed of sound.

![Sky Deck][10]

Then it was back to the hotel to brush teeth, wash up, download pictures, check out, and entrust my bags to the bellman until later. I checked out at 1:20 due to a series of lines for the elevator on the 99th floor, the elevator on the basement floor, and the final elevator back to street level – but fortunately nobody at the Knickerbocker gave me a hard time about it. Now I had a little less than six hours to kill, so I could take a more leisurely pace. I headed over to the lake shore with Access Chicago (I still hadn't chosen a dinner spot, and I decided that the vacant gaze and camera bag had pegged me as an out-of-towner, so what harm could a well designed guidebook do?) I had a Coke left over from room service so I sat by the shore, studied my sightseeing options and chatted by cell phone with my parents, racking up enormous roaming charges for the office to pay later. After some relaxation and "sea" air, I crossed back under Lake Shore Drive and took some pretty pictures in Lake Shore Park and Seneca Park.

![Lake Shore Park][11] ![Seneca Park][12]

I was determined to have a late lunch/early dinner since I had an evening flight, which meant I still needed to kill about an hour or more. I visited the Banana Republic, designed by famed architect Robert A.M. Stern, which according to Wurman created a bit of a stir because of its contrast with the surrounding stores. (The book quotes a local critic, "At least it isn't any larger.") I thought it was interesting; I didn't pick up on the "wooden suspension bridge" appearance the staircases were intended to have, but I thought they were nice. After that, I stopped at Borders, which wasn't an architectural point of interest, but had a snack bar and a bathroom. At the cafe, I couldn't avoid overhearing a pair of young women gossiping like crazy about absolutely nothing and making plans on their cell phones with what seemed like about three dozen people. It was like some sort of U.N. Summit, although it was probably just multiple calls back and forth to the same two people. As Todd Barry will tell you, Borders loves for you to peruse their books or magazines while you're at the cafe, but I couldn't think of anything I wanted to peruse while finishing my Coke except maybe the Clinton book and I didn't have the energy to lug that up the stairs. So, I just flipped through what was left at the table, which happened to be Shipwrecked, from the "June B., First Grader" series by Barbara Park. It's another of those cute children's book series that focus on a quirky youngster and his/her adventures. Sort of like Amelia Bedelia or Superfudge, but targeted at a younger readership. Chapter Four opened like this:

That day when I got home from school, Mother was already back from work.

I like it when that happens.

I couldn't agree more.

After that it was the Water Tower Place mall (six stories, including glass elevator). It had an interesting fountain which I failed to photograph successfully, and even more hordes of shoppers. Michigan Avenue was bad enough – like the shot in Tootsie (or Elf) where Dustin Hoffman is walking down a Manhattan sidewalk in a sea of people. In fact, it was so crowded that at one fleeting moment, I thought I'd spotted Chicago's own Maggie Haskins. It wasn't her, but it's worth mentioning here, because recently an anonymous reader commented on my Maggie Haskins column. (And, from this person's comments, it's clear that he or she has no idea how true love works!) I was curious why someone would've happened upon the Maggie article, so I investigated a hunch – turns out this site is result number ten (right at the bottom of the first page) if you Google "Maggie Haskins." Hopefully, mentioning her three times here will get us up to number five. I still love you Maggie! Anyway, the streets were packed, and Water Tower Place was just more of that, vertically oriented and inside. It was really interesting shopping without wanting anything. (I had to carry everything with me for the rest of the day, so I couldn't buy anything unless I could eat it.) In general, these shoppers were my people. Most anyone can tell you, I'm a consumer of the highest order. But, watching it as an "outsider" was a very strange experience. Surely, not all of these people were on shopping sprees; most of them were strolling, some were probably mall-shopping the way I usually do – picking up one or two specific items they came for, then going home. But, without the distraction of doing any shopping myself, it blended together into a giant orgy of spending.

I had a few minutes left before dinner, so I hung out on the beach of Lake Michigan, north of Lake Shore Drive. (While walking around this park over the course of about an hour, I saw no less than three wedding parties getting pictures made. Plus another at my hotel that morning.) The thing that impressed me the most about this beach – in contrast to the beaches I've visited in Los Angeles and Florida – is that there were skyscrapers casting shadows on the beach. It was kind of an eerie thing.

![The Beach][16]

I had a magnificent dinner at Cafe Spiaggia in the One Magnificent Mile building, including some delectable sorbetti, and then I returned to the Knickerbocker, washed up, gathered my belongings, and headed for O'Hare.

The weekend, particularly Saturday, was such a thrill. I'm so glad I got my dad to help me work out a plan. As kids, we often wondered why the days had to be so packed – running from one building to the next, marking each off of Dad's "life list," but now I understand a little better. Dad was simply striving to get the maximum out of every experience. Feeling the rush of accomplishment, and the giddiness of so many things to share when I got home, I could see why that was important.

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