a walk through the neighborhoods

I walked to downtown last weekend. It’s about an eleven mile walk. Not really a far distance when you can drive or even bike. But, when you walk – yeah it’s a long distance. It was a nice sunny Saturday morning and afternoon. The temperature was probably around the mid 80s. A little hot, especially since it has been such a cold summer. We were going to walk the lakeshore to downtown but then decided that we walk downtown under the shade of the trees and we could keep cooler that way. It worked. Couldn’t have done that in the ‘burbs. We packed lightly for the walk – two water bottles and some granola bars and headed out the door.

We went east for a little bit and then followed streets going south until we arrived downtown. We followed mainly residential streets and stayed away from the main thoroughfares with all the loud traffic. We were able to do this for most of the way. We got to see several neighborhoods this way and got an eclectic feel of Chicago that few people ever get in at one time. It was great to see all the different houses, apartments, and condos, and to take in the different personality of each neighborhood.

We were able to walk that far without getting too tired. Well, at least until we got home and realized we had major blisters and aches in our legs. It was well worth the experience of being able to walk downtown and really see what Chicago is for one last time.

hummers

The hummingbird is really small – like really small. And their nest? It’s small, too. In a recent discussion over the weekend over how big a hummingbird feeder is, no one could quite figure out how big the nest was. Well, YouTube comes through. Below is a (lengthy) video of a hummingbird (and babies) and its nest. Quite fascinating. Take a minute to watch a little bit.

i'm not so sure about silver suits and flying cars

Have you ever seen a futuristic movie? I’m not talking about Star Wars or Star Trek. That’s like really future where Earth is no longer inhabitable because of all the trash so everyone had to leave for space. No, I’m just talking about the near future where everyone has a flying car and wears a silver suit.

It’s kind of funny to imagine the world in the future. To think that what we think as progression is flying cars and silver jump suits. The only thing though is that I don’t think in the future everyone is going to be wearing silver jumps suits. And I’m really not keen on everyone having a flying car.

Silver jump suits, really? That’s a step back in the fashion world. That would be like men going back to the short-shorts of the 1980’s. It’s just not going to happen. Has silver ever been a color of choice for clothing? I mean it works for jewelry and cars, but not clothing. Plus, when did everyone start wanting to wear the same exact thing as everyone else? Even if people did have to go to space suits that happen to be silver (which does not seem too far a stretch when you think about what astronauts wear) you’d think Nike or someone would create a line for people to have different suits.

What about flying cars? Sure it would be great for the economy. I mean car companies would have to create new plants and be able to put out a whole new product that everyone would want. Think of the job possibilities. It’s similar to the whole green energy market that is right now trying to be created. Besides it being good for the economy (or at least I imagine it would be), it would just be really cool to fly everywhere. Instead of being restricted by roads you could fly in a direct path to your destination. It would be faster, easier, and there would be no traffic jams. Right?

I’m not so sure flying cars should ever be a possibility, at least for everyone. Driving is already dangerous enough: road rage, people driving drunk, traffic jams, city traffic, etcetera. Imagine adding flying into the mix. I don’t want to know what a drunk person driving a flying car could do to the world. I don’t want to know what cars going every which way over houses and buildings and so on would do. And that’s how it would be, right? No more roads, no more restrictions. People could fly over whatever they wanted. It could try to be restricted, but why would someone sit behind another flying car when they can just go above them, below them, or any which way to their destination. Imagine what commuting would look like. Without roads, flying would be chaos. The roads would looks less like a go-cart track and more like bumper cars.
But, what if flying was only restricted to a few - say emergency vehicles. Fire trucks could arrive at fires faster. Ambulances could get to a crash faster. And police could get to a robbery faster. In a world with flying cars I am not sure if is safe enough for this world to handle, but it could be a great resource for helping others.

travel anyone?