CHICAGO NAMING CONVENTION

I posted two new pictures on the foto page. One is of a bar called the Belford. It's at Pulaski and Belmont in the city. Seems like a nothing name until you recollect that Pulaski was called Crawford in Chicago until the 1950s (or 1960s, pending the litigation). The second picture is of the El-Mont (telephone MULberry-1666) at Elston and Montrose.

This is actually a pretty common naming convention on the North Side of Chicago. I am not sure, but I assume that on the South Side the numbers make this more difficult (the Damen75th is a funny name for a bar). It is still kind of cool, and as I encounter them I intend to try to get more photos. The Lawrel (Lawrence and Elston) is on the hit parade. I also know that there are other old ones on Pulaski that use Crawford in the name.

Anyone know any others?

P.S. This is post one of the obsessions blog. We'll see

FACEBOOK THOUGHTS

Facebook is an interesting animal. I have been on for a while, and feel like I "get" how it works. A few realities: the two biggest groups of "friends" I have are family and high school friends. The third largest group is grade school friends. This is not a "normal" distribution of my friends and relations.

It turns out that even with regard to the school friends the people I am Facebook "close" to are not the people I was close to in school. That means we have all grown and evolved (I expect my appendix to disappear at any moment). Anyway, at first I regretted not having paid attention to these cool people back then. Eventually I came to realize that when we were 12 or 17 we would not have had these interactions. Still interesting though.

With regard to my family, I think Facebook has exponentially increased our communication. For good or ill. And it is not always clear which it is . . .

On balance, I have used the "hide" function to avoid more people, and now realize that some of my relatives are insane. With that in mind, Facebook has generally been positive.

ANOTHER TEST

Supposedly I can post via email now. Let's see.

TO STAY OR GO

TO STAY OR GO

That is the question. It seems like Facebook has really become the outlet for my random thoughts. That makes this less useful.

That being said, it is nice to have an outlet to write. I wonder if I should refocus the blog into something other than my random thoughts. Maybe a catalog of my current obsessions.

P.S. I am experimenting with posting using MMS. We'll see.