Events

Want frequent-flyer miles? Try this: At least several hundred mile-junkies discovered that a free shipping offer on presidential and Native American $1 coins, sold at face value by the U.S. Mint, amounted to printing free frequent-flier miles. Mileage lovers ordered more than $1 million in coins until the Mint started identifying them and cutting them off. Coin buyers charged the purchases, sold in boxes of 250 coins, to a credit card that offers frequent-flier mile awards, then took the shipments...

A bunch of people went over to Ruckus Pizza on Wednesday for their weekly trivia contest. I do much better at College Bowl-type quizzes, and this one was all pop culture, but that didn't diminish the company and the pizza. All good. The second round featured advertising slogans. See if you can find one product for which all these slogans work beautifully: "The quicker picker-upper" Two for me, none for you Get up to four hours longer Makes mouth happy Stress stinks, ____ works Any time's a good time for...

I tried to get out ahead of the weather on Tuesday, but it found me. The trip started out at just past 7am with the car in this condition: By mid-Indiana Parker had had enough: And on the arrival end, the residents have still not fully accepted their houseguest: Parker and the cats have had words. Barks, growls, and hisses, actually. We're still trying to get them to stay in the same room together without either freaking out. This means, in practice, one of us coaxing the cats from behind the sofa while...

Via Strange Maps comes a field outside Minden, Neb., shaped like...well, like Nebraska: Strange Maps writes: Is Nebraska Field a coincidence, then? When not being centrally irrigated, each of the mile-by-mile blocks is often divided into smaller fields, mostly rectangular but not really symmetrical. That sort of describes the shape of Nebraska – but still, chances of a field mimicking it so perfectly seem very remote indeed. Nebraska is rectangular in an oblong sort of way, with straight borders...

We got to Raleigh in one piece through a billion liters of rain, it seemed. Then this morning we got right back in the car to rescue one of our hosts after her radiator blew a hose: We also got out of Chicago just ahead of the bone-chilling cold and snow that has started to make living there a true test of character. I love Chicago, but you know, sometimes, it's not bad to skip out for a little while.

One of Chicago's largest real-estate companies has defaulted on $1.72 bn in loans: The portfolio, which also includes 161 N. Clark St., 30 N. LaSalle St. and 1 N. Franklin St., already illustrates several recent real estate trends, such as rapidly falling property values after prices peaked thanks to large amounts of cheap debt. With credit now virtually gone, defaults on downtown buildings are likely to rise, forcing them into foreclosure or onto the market at big discounts that will put more downward...

Or, why anyone who cares about America—left or right—should be concerned: [The argument] really isn't about Palin. Or about [Levi] Johnston. It's about our democracy's apparent lack of interest any more in what is true and what is false. It's about the mainstream media's willful decision not to tackle a story that was integral to a major candidate's core integrity; it's about the Republican party elite's cynicism and condescension to millions of voters; it's about the decision of Harper Collins, Adam...

Chicago woke up to 25 mm or snow of fluffy snow this morning, our first measurable snowfall of the year: We don't mind this kind of snow. It took about 30 seconds to brush it off my car, the streets got cleared before sunrise—nothing heinous. No, "heinous" describes the forecast starting tomorrow night: Tuesday Night: Snow before midnight, then rain, snow, and sleet. Low around -1°C. Breezy, with an east wind 30 to 35 km/h becoming southwest. Winds could gust as high as 45 km/h. Chance of precipitation...

If she can't see you, then you can't see her...

The slide scanning project is almost done. I'm right now scanning the end of 1998, right around when I switched to digital cameras. Here are three from the mid-1990s showing bits of Chicago that no longer exist. First, in this view from the Sears Tower from April 1993, you can see Meigs Field and Soldier Field, both since destroyed: This April 1995 photo shows the view from the Michigan Avenue Bridge that now would encompass Trump Tower: The sun, however, still rises above Lake Michigan: