It was amazing the effect just the presence of a few Bootribers could have — thanks to the The Great Midwest Meetup of 2006, Chicago had spectacularly beautiful weekend weather and the Bears slammed the Bills.
Five of us went on a Chicago Architecture Foundation cruise down the Chicago River where we were introduced to a century of fascinating buildings. The weather was glorious as were the views. And we were treated to a very unusual occurrence of having several drawbridges raised along our route.
We then segued to our picnic at Millennium Park.
blueneck joined up with us at the park easily winning the prize as the most southern “Midwesterner”.
Millennium Park is a charming place with charming green spaces, fanciful sculptures, a striking concert venue, and a beautifully designed garden.
After the park we relaxed over drinks until we headed off for a great dinner at the re-opened Berghoff, now called 17 West (but the creamed spinach was just as great as it always was).
And even though I was told that pictures of the participants were forbidden, I gave into the demands of the folks the Froggy Bottom Cafe (and my own evil nature) and took a group portrait.
(left to right: Kidspeak, MaryB, AndiF, Blueneck, Teach313, JimF
not pictured: poemless)
Special thanks to Mary who did all the hard work of figuring out what, when, and where.
I can remember going to Chicago for a conference in the late 70’s. I was eating lunch and had a view of the river. I was fascinated by the sight of sailboats coming down the river as the drawbridges all came up!
It is a sight to see. I wish you could have joined us!
Yay! Thanks for sharing the beautiful pictures of my former home-town. It sounds like you all had a wonderful time. I’m so happy for you all.
Chicago looks so beautiful on a sunny day. On days like that I wish I lived there. But then I visit in February ….
The most I’ve ever seen of Chicago is flying into O’Hare. The pictures made up a little for never seeing all of it. 🙂
I’m glad everyone had a good time.
You all are even hotter and sexier than I ever imagined! I’m so sorry I missed it.
What you can’t tell from that picture is that Teach313 really is! ;P
three BooTrib men had nice facial hair.
CG will be sorry she didn’t make it 🙂
Maybe it’s best I didn’t come then…I would have messed up the pattern.
:::sob:::
Those photos are gorgeous. You could not have picked a more pleasant weekend to visit. … It is supposed to snow this coming Thursday!
I had a great time at dinner & am really glad I got to meet you all. Wonderful people. 🙂
It was great to meet you, too, poemless, and put a face to the name. Lots of fun to talk with you!
It was a wonderful weekend and your coming to dinner was certainly a fine finish to it. Forgive the cliche but it was a pleasure to meet you.
Dinner really WAS fun. I’m so glad you made it.
You mean Chicago doesn’t always have such glorious weather 😉
Thanks Andi. I’d seen Chicago, but never like that. And it being October, I’d say you were definitely cool. Glad you had a good time.
I told ’em you called ‘bs’ on the no-picture rule abut they said you were too far away to make it stick. 🙂
(BTW, I can’t recommend the CAF river tour enough — I’ve being gone to Chicago hundreds of times for over 50 years and this is one of the top things I’ve ever done.)
threaten us? We don’t threaten easily 😉
Finally a picture of MaryB! ;o)
Sorry Mary. I don’t mean to sound obsessive. Just playing :o)
Great pictures Andi, and a beautiful day to take them.
Aren’t meetups the best?
Sound obsessive about this? You? Why would I think that? 😉
But we do need you at the next meetup.
Cool! Great photos! It looks like this was a great time.
You’ll be even more amazed by the pictures when I tell you that Andi and Jim just basically point and click. And presto — perfect pictures. sigh
Everyone looks exactly as I thought they would. 🙂
Blueneck came all the way from Jackson Miss.
What was your excuse again?
I actually didn’t know if I could take the overwhelming beauty and glory of the other boo tribers.
Yeah that’s it. Overwhelming beauty and glory. 🙂
You don’t have to lie. Just say that you were too lazy. I’m sure everyone here wouldn’t be surprised. 😛
Me to lazy to meet other boo tribers? Never!!!!
Of course all that travel would have cut into my nap times. 😛
Just what I thought: It was amazing the effect just the presence of a few Bootribers could have —
I love the “Cloud Gate” – sculpture one is allowed to touch. Thanks for the marvelous photos.
The locals have nicknamed it the “Bean”.
Looks like a beautiful day, with beautiful people. Why no group shots though? Unless you all didn’t want your pics posted here it is not a nono. We had group pics from our meetup here and so have the Crawford and DC people.
Anyway, glad you all got together. YearlyKos is in Chicago next year you know. I am going to try and make that. I grew up just north of Chitown. GO BEars…5-0!
and they wouldn’t let me take their pictures so I had to be sneaky.
Poemless told us that we could ALL stay at her place for YearlyKos.
At least I’m pretty sure that’s what she said 😉
Bwahahahaha!
You might be happy to hear that I told Jerome your opinion of things (my front paging for ET, him treating me to drinks…) and it worked! You’re like a charm. 🙂
Izzy says Hi, btw. I told her you were a man. LOL. Just kidding.
Groovy. I’m so glad you all had a nice meetup and safe trips!
Next meetup in Dayton?
Thought about you Tribbers all day Saturday. What a glorious day, indeed. The drawbridges come up in October as the marinas prepare to close for the winter. My last CAF architectural boat tour was on a Marathon weekend, but the weather was cold, rainy and abysmal! You’re so lucky.
I’m sorry I had arranged something that I couldn’t reschedule; I would have liked to meet you all. Thanks for the heads-up on the new name for the Berghoff.
Being there on a day when the drawbridges were being raised was an unexpected treat. And much better being on the river watching them than stuck in traffic. 🙂
Looks like you guys had a great time. I wish I could have made it. As it turns out, I worked Saturday up until the start of the Tigers’ game, then headed to Greek Town in Detroit to catch the game with some friends.
Detroit was hopping on Saturday night. We walked by the stadium a couple hours after the game, and got to see a bunch of the Tigers players as they left their parking garage. It was a good time.
So at least I got to watch both the Tigers and the Wolverines triumph on Saturday, though it’s a poor substitute for spending a day with some fellow Tribbers.
We missed you ej. And you’re right, we’re much MUCH better than the Tigers.
And thanks for letting the Braves put my team into the playoffs. 😉
And now it is your team’s turn to do their part to ensure that the Big Apple goes without a World Series trophy for yet another year 🙂
Hi ejmw, thanks for the help with the last minute contact info for Andi!
Yes, let’s pull for anybody but the Mets now! Detroit beating the Yankees was SCHWEEET! I’ve adopted them to go to the series and lose to the Cards. I actually like the Tigers better, but they play in the Bogus League, where the pitchers are afraid to hit. It’s a longstanding policy I have to root against the purveyors of and players of Bogus ‘baseball’.
The Tigers are not available for adoption on your terms. If we are going to recreate 1968, we’re going all the way again. Unless Carpenter channels Bob Gibson, the Cards won’t be there anyway. Besides, we didn’t make the lame DH rule, and we rarely have a DH worth his salt, so don’t blame the Tabbies for MLB’s stupid decisions. (Hey, this is our first winning Tigers team since ’93, so we’re pretty protective of the lads.)
Real Men would refuse contracts to play Bogus Baseball. 😉
The Bogus League is where one-skill players go and where old farts go to try to pad their career hitting numbers so they can make it into the HoF unfairly. I have no sympathy for any of them. Not to mention half-ass managers like Joe Torre who couldn’t manage his way out of a wet paper bag in the Real Baseball League….
However, I do usually adopt a Bogus League team that I would prefer to see in the Series – so, Tigers it is, because they whooped the Yanks, which is a Great Thing. And they caught my imagination and admiration in the process.
Anyways, in the scheme of things, baseball is pretty low on my list, so please enjoy it as you like…. It won’t hurt my feelings if the Tigers win, cuz like I said, I like the team a lot, I just have to root against ’em in the end on Principle.
I sure did enjoy meeting you and I hope we will meet again soon! We should make another attempt at South+Midwest meetup in the future, like maybe in St. Louis or Louisville..??!!
I forgive your mossbacked attitudes to the DH and the AL asI completely agree with them. Kidspeak’s mother lives in Paduch, KY and she has a brother in Cape Giradeau, MO, so we are down that way often. A South+Midwest meet up would be great fun. If we go to St.Louis, may be we can con MaryB into doing all the organizing again. AFTER ALL, SHE WAS SO WONDERFUL WITH THE CHICAGO ARRANGEMENTS, I CAN’T IMAGINE ANYONE ELSE DOING SUCH AN ASTOUNDING JOB! (The previous sentence was capitalized to ensure sincerity.)
I’d love to visit St. Louis, and I’m sure MaryB would be WONDERFUL and AWESOME at making some INCREDIBLE arrangements for us there! (Notice the additional sincerity (following your example!))
However, a day at the races could be fun, too, no?
Oh my heavens, you guys are just great! I so had wanted to come too, but just could not put it together. I hope you know that Illinois is my home state. I am so very pleased that you all had a great time. Thanks for bring us the sites of the city to enjoy with you. hugs to all………
Thanks Brenda. BooTrib meetings are always a good time. Maybe someday you and I will end up at the same one!
Looks like you all had a great time, with perfect weather. I wish I had been there!
We wish you could have been there too. Maybe next time …
Oh my gosh! What great photographs!
So glad you all were able to get together. Like so many others, wish I could have been there too. I know you all had a great time, and can relate to how neat it is to meet the “whole” person beyond the screen name.
Next time. . .I hope to be there.
Thanks for sharing with us.
Hugs to all,
Shirl
Wow — you’ve done a wonderful job capturing it! Those blue skies are unbelievable, and those flowers too. And I love your sneaky self taking that group photo … lol, but I didn’t realize that BTers were such short folk … 😉
What great shots! I wish that I could have joined you. Maybe next time.
I missed out on getting tickets for the cruise, so I went to the Art Institute of Chicago while the rest of the gang cruised architecture.
This is a shot from inside “the bean”, after our picnic lunch.
When we broke up after dinner, I walked back through Millenium Park and got a few slightly blurry nighttime shots. (dang the little camera, I shoulda brought the fifty pounds of SLR gear for some real photos, but these’ll hafta do!)
This is the Crown Fountain, the two towers display 1000 different faces of Chicagoans (one at a time)with water pouring down all around and through them!
I don’t know the name of this building, but the lights at the top say “THINK PINK” !!!!!
Here’s ‘The Bean’, or “Cloud Gate” at night. You can even see the full moon in the upper left along with the skyline of Chicago!
On my way home from Chicago the next day, I stopped in Memphis around sunset to visit a friend. These are two shots from the roof of the Madison Hotel in downtown Memphis.
This one is at almost the exact instant of sunset, looking over the Mississippi River. Notice the barge on the river going upstream.
Here’s the barge about ten minutes later when it finally makes it underneath the Mississippi River Bridge(I-40).
I had a great trip and I enjoyed meeting everyone who came. Thanks, ya’ll, for a fun and interesting time!
The Bean is really neat for taking funky photos … 🙂
Love the night one w/ the moon!
Thanks! It was the group consensus that “Cloud Gate” (aka the bean) has to be the most successful public sculpture ever made. People of all ages were constantly thrilled by it! I’ve never seen anything quite like it. The fountains are also quite engaging. There were always children of all ages stomping around in the water pooled between the towers and folks were fascinated by the changing face pictures and changing water patterns.
For the particular photo you commented on, I had to set my little HP camera on a railing to steady it for the half second or so it took to get a good exposure. I don’t like being limited to the little HP that I had with me, but it will take the proper exposure (sort of, anyway) in low light, IF you can find some way to hold it steady long enough! That’s probably my favorite also.
I was surprised to know that the Art Institute allows photos (NO FLASH ALLOWED!) to be made in the galleries of their permanent collection. I took a few ‘remembrance’ photos while I was their, but the lighting wasn’t bright enough and there was no place to set the camera for a steady shot, so most of those came out badly. I had to heavily process the “American Gothic” shot to make it look good enough at low-res to post. At higher res, you can really see the blur even after I refocused and sharpened it in Photoshop.
I am a Monet fanatic, and they have lots of them on display, but I think they have three of his real masterpieces, and I spent about an hour just looking at those three! I was disappointed in the Dutch Masters collection, but there was a famous Rembrandt, though it’s not really a one of his ‘masterpieces’ if you ask me. There was a Rembrandt self portrait etching that I had not seen before that I thought was exceptional, as were most of his many self-portraits.
As we walked through the Lurie Gardens, from which AndiF’s photo above was taken, you were there, in spirit, with us. 🙂
Glad to know you got home.
I really like your night shot of the Bean!
Thanks Andi, I like your photos, too. The one of the “ugly tall white building” bent completely over and around by the bean is my fave, I think.
Yeah, it looks pretty good bent — straight up, not so much.
handling the low light settings and being crafty w/ the camera set-up. 🙂
Which three pieces did they have? I love Monet as well, and can easily imagine spending an hour on just three … 🙂
“Still Life with Apples and Grapes, 1880”
“The Petite Creuse River, 1889”
Branch of the Seine Near Giverny (Mist) from the “Mornings on the Seine” series, 1897
These three are my picks. Compositionally, they are without flaw. As a photographer, I see composition more clearly and judge it more harshly when I see a painting, where the artist has total and complete control over all the elements. A photographer has to wrestle with what is before them, and cannot add or subtract at will. When I take the time to compose a photo that I want to be proud of, rather than a mere snapshot of a place and time, I view the scene from many angles before deciding on a composition for the scene. It seems that the painter has it easier and harder, simultaneously, being able to place anything anywhere and being fully responsible for the placement of each and every element.
The still life is in perfect balance, not one grape too many or too few, the colors are vibrant, and the paint stacks up on the canvas to make it three-d when you see it in real life.
In the Petite Creuse River painting, the Golden Ratio is everywhere. The frame is divided perfectly along every edge, never cut precisely in half; the masses of mountains close and far are in proportion and the colors change with distance in a not quite real, but quite realistic ‘impression’ of the effect that distance has on viewing conditions; the perfect curve of the river, the way the strokes of the brush build the waves; and the trees on the right, just perfectly placed. The artist uses a full palette and once again, layers of paint add the three-d ‘impression’ when you see it in person. This one made me smile bigtime. I know that people in the gallery thought I was nutso, standing and grinning at such an inobvious example of Monet’s greatness – everyone looked at yet another one of his “water lilies” series (which really are quite beautiful, and certainly ‘iconic’ of Monet), or one of his more highly impressionistic works, as I stood and grinned at this one.
And last, but not least, in the slightest, “Mist”. Such an absolutely abstracted impression of the river and mist, and so brightly rendered with another flawless composition, it is nothing short of stunning. Again, I stood and grinned while others wandered among Monet’s “Haystacks”….
Those sunset pictures, and the moon on the Bean are especialy nice, Blueneck. I love the Mississippi River pics, too – that’s my river.
Thanks Kidspeak! It was truly an honor to meet you all. I’m glad I could share something of my trip back home with ya’ll. I enjoyed my visits in Memphis on the way up and the way back. The sunset was truly gorgeous and I was there for the “ringing of the bell” at the top of the hotel, which is rung only at the “end of the day”, precisely at sunset.
🙂
Hey blueneck, nice photos. That one up underneath the Cloud Gate is so disorienting. I think everyone loves the sculpture because it is as accessible as a fun house mirror, but like the fountain that projects Chicagoan faces it shows the best of the town.
The shots of the Mississippi at dusk are lovely.
I’m glad that you took the shot of the building with the Think Pink lighting in the roof. I noticed several businesses with breast cancer related promotions going on.
I’m glad you liked the one inside the bean! I certainly didn’t have time or intend to to explore all the possible compositions of photos on the inside of it, as they are pretty darn near infinite, but I did grab a shot that I hoped would be disorienting, so I’m particularly pleased that you liked that about it.
The shot of the THINK PINK lights was hard to get in such low light because I had to zoom in to the limits of my little camera to get it to the size where one could read it. And then, I couldn’t get a good stable platform to hold it against at the proper angle, so it surely is a blurry snapshot to capture the time and place, but I thought it was important to share. I have a relative who fought breast cancer and won, so I’m glad to see the message in bright lights at the top of a tall building.
Blueneck, these are beautiful pics! Glad you liked the Art Institute. We have one El Greco, plus Seurat’s “Sunday Afternoon” – but the Monets are great, too.
I thought my AIA Guide to Chicago architecture would show the building with the “diamond top,” but is is only identified as the 150 N Michigan building.
With than piece of info, Wikipedia has more:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smurfit-Stone_Building
As far as Think Pink, might this be Breast Cancer month, or maybe a race along the lake front, which is a frequent event.
Those are some great pics…
Last time I was in Chicago (Mid 80s?) was for a family reunion in the suburbs there. The most fun thing we did was fill up 2 stretch limos full of 18 to 25 year old kids and hit Rush St. for some bar hopping…
Needless to say, Chicago is a really fun town.
😉
Blueneck, I recognized you right away from that great photo of Andi’s. Thanks for your mini travelogue too! Glad to hear all of you had such a good time.
HI IndianaDem! You were there with us in spirit, too! I brought the campaign button you gave me and was going to wear it for “the official group photo”, but alas, none was taken (which I completely and totally respect – certain individuals did not want to go totally public).
I don’t understand people saying there is no group picture (other than at the Bean). It is plainly there in Andi’s photo collage:
That’s us on the Segways: Andi is giving us the directions to the park, and left to right we are JimF, MaryB, Blueneck, Kidspeak, MaryB’s imaginary companion, and Teach313.
Kidspeak and I lashed together 4 Segways and made it back to Detroit (with luggage) in 6 hours. Those babies really open up on the Interstate.
Yes, and it was totally amazing how three clean-shaven men could grow such heavy stubble in time for dinner…
😉
Excellent work, Andi! Thank you for the report & incredible pictures. Glad y’all had fun!
I’m really sorry I missed you. I hope life finds you planning your return to the Catskills.
Hi WW! How have you been?
I’m so happy that you all had such great time. BooTribbers are so incredibly photogenic! Great pics, good vibes. A meetup is definetly in my future!