February 26th, 2004 yoshers
Fun with Old Infrastructure
It looks like I need to amend the first line of my February advisory…the city also has to keep the gas main from cracking, especially those that run below the street in front of your house/apartment. Unfortunately, this happened on February 20th and it was quite a fun night. If you want more information about the leak, visit the University of Chicago’s newspaper article.
As for me, I had noticed some commotion and fire engine noise in front of our apartment at around 3pm. I also noticed that traffic was being diverted from the street, so I figured something was going on in or around that section of the street. However, I didn’t stand around and watch as I figure they didn’t need more spectators and that if it affects me, I will know about it without being right there. So I went back up to the apartment.
At around 5pm, Shareena walks into the apartment and tells me that we have to evacuate. In fact, they were not going to allow her to come up to the apartment since they had already evacuated the place. For some reason, I was not notified of this and had remained in the apartment. Soon thereafter, we put our cats into their travel pet carriers and went downstairs to the lobby. Here we waited awhile with others waiting for some definitive word on the progress of the work being done on the gas line. After awhile, I decided to head over to Noodles, Etc. to get some dinner so we wouldn’t starve ourselves all night. When I returned, we got more information about how they are not expecting to complete the task until midnight, so we headed over to Shareena’s supervisor’s house a block down the street to spend the night with them.
So all in all, it was really more of an inconvenience than anything else. Of course, carrying Atticus for a block was not an easy task. Hopefully, the other infrastructure around our apartment decides to stay in tack for a few months longer (things around here do look quite old and the cracked gas line was around 50 years old itself) and we won’t have to do something similar when Shareena has an essay or her thesis due. Hey, at least I have my laptop…but carrying her books around would be a killer.
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February 13th, 2004 yoshers
Instead of writing some advice for Valentine’s Day in February (I think it is more important to stay warm first in Chicago anyways), I think I would write a thought on planning your Valentine’s Day dining out experience. I know that it is probably too late for planning advice for this year’s Valentine’s Day, but remember always that Valentine’s can be very busy (especially this year as it is on a Saturday) and if you have any proficiency at cooking, then that is a very good option as well.
For some reason, when I started booking places last Wednesday, many were already completely booked. So lesson number 1 is you can never call in too early for a reservation at a restaurant. Most places don’t charge you if you cancel up to a day in advance, so really you are not losing much (as long as you remember to cancel it if you are not going! I think the place that I reserve will charge $24 if we don’t cancel a day in advance…ouch!).
If you are thinking of going to some popular, trendy restaurant, then Valentine’s is probably not the day to go. Knowing the ambiance of the restaurant is important, so either avoid the restaurant that is really loud altogether or go at some early time like 5pm and get out by the time the place gets boisterous.
Finally, if you were looking for some place new to go to for Valentine’s day, then you will have inevitably stumbled upon a couple of other restaurants that you chose not to go because of full bookings or ambiance or whatever. Remember them and go there when they are less busy (like a Monday or Tuesday night) and get really good service and avoid the crowds. Now that is more like a romantic dinner than the hectic-ness that is Valentine’s Day.
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February 3rd, 2004 yoshers
I have actually done a lot of shopping using various “Hot Deals” sites for quite some time now. Ever since I was working at Administrative Computing at UC Berkeley, I have frequented these hot deals sites whenever I was looking (and eventually becoming a daily habit) for something that I needed. Not to advertise or anything, but fatwallet.com is a pretty good place to start if you are interested in finding cheap stuff online.
I am not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing, but I consider myself pretty good fiscally, so I do not worry about it much. However, there are some people that post messages saying how they have maxed their credit cards and cannot get on the latest hot deal. I just hope their max is like $200 or something.
Since my arrival to Chicago in September, I have had the luxury of searching these hot deals site more than usual (as I have done and still am jobless). I have been fortunate to buy a 160 GB hard drive for $30 (coupon stacking mistake), get a barebones computer (no monitor, no speakers) for Shareena’s mom for about $250 (the pentium 4, 2.4 GHz chip is retailing for about $180 by itself…), and just scored a black Game Boy Advance SP plus a free game for $79.99.
So, all in all, I would say that I haven’t spent any money that I wouldn’t spend otherwise…OK, I probably don’t need the Game Boy Advance, but Shareena always wants to play Tetris when we fly, so it was worth it just for that. Also, the new Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicle plays better using the Game Boy…so some ulterior motives as well. But anyways, try it out sometimes…apparently 2004 Corvettes are selling for $10,000 less than MSRP. I am sure someone out there is itching to buy one.
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February 1st, 2004 yoshers
- If you live in an apartment managed by an agency, make sure they keep the heat on.
- Buy a space heater and lots of warm blankets.
- Don’t go outside unless you have to…and if you do, try to do everything at once.
- Even if you think you’ll only be outside for a short time, where enough clothing to keep you warm. (There were a few days where you could get frostbite in minutes if you were not dressed appropriately in Chicago.)
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