The typewriter turned out to be broken; the carriage does NOT advance when a key is struck – you have to keep hand pressure on the thing to move it with each key.  Everything else is in good shape.

Anyone who has a good idea of where in the Chicago area I might get this thing look at / fixed and back into service?

More in a later post.  She’s still fascinated with the typer and using it constantly – WITH the hand work, but jeeze, I don’t want her to be stuck doing that.

Christmas Eve is usually the day we spend with Susan’s aunt and mom at Susan’s aunt’s house in the  northwestern suburbs of Chicago; dinner is followed by passing out the presents (a small child is usually too excited to sit through dinner in any sort of relaxed fashion, and is the elf who supervises the distribution and opening of the presents).  This is the first year that we pretty much dispensed with Santa as a gift giver, and so there were only a couple of presents to distribute under the tree at home the next morning…

Usually, Connie (my MIL) would stay overnight at her sister’s house and leave there in the morning to go see Susan’s brother Doug and his family over the Christmas-New Year’s period, but there’s a terrible blizzard in South Dakota this year – high winds and over two feet of snow – so she’s staying here until the weather clears up, probably till Monday.

The big presents had already been handed out for the household earlier in the month; the house got a new HD TV setup in the living room.   Susan had needed a new pair of boots early, so the Ugg boots I bought for her went out a few days earlier – it was a necessity, but I didn’t like passing out presents early.  (She also got a very nice pair of lambskin mittens, via her mom, and a couple of other things from me.)

Guy is away, and his friends troupe in and wrap his entire apartment for Christmas.  Including stuff in the freezer, towels on the rack, you name it. (video)

Meredith came home early today sick to her stomach and running just under 100F; the H1N1 still isn’t available out here except a trickle with the public health departments, and there’s been some deaths with teenagers (usual serious swine flu symptoms).   I can’t take the live virus nose spray, and that’s all that’s available.

Susan may have some trouble coming home on the commuter trains; there’s contradictory stories about the cops stopping trains halfway between here and downtown.

This is the article about the house fire on the block; people were stupid about an unattended grease fire on the stove.

Two prominent Cook County politicians who are black will be running in the next election for President of the Cook County Board; this article discusses how that could split the black vote in the election and let Candidate #3 in the door, a reverse of what happened when Washington beat Byrne and Daley for the Mayor’s seat in 1983.

I remember that election and the aftermath very well, as I was marrying the daughter of a prominent Chicago city official a month after the election (we’re long since divorced), and the fuss that was all around at that time.   Since then, I’ve learned a lot about Chicago area politics, and I imagine this will be a true battle of the dinosaurs.

I am singularly uninterested in the Jackson story.  I’ve seen enough oddball celebrity circuses, and the really interesting and truly weird stuff will not come out for a while for most people.   I expect more news circuses repeated endlessly on the news, and I will ignore them all.

Finally, someone sems to be doing something about rescuing Antioch College, which the alums will have to tell me if it meets their requirements.   I just love Yellow Springs, and want it to remain whole.

Sanford: there’s just no end to the dumb on this; obviously, the man forgot what the color of the sky was in the rest of our world.  Somewhere in South Carolina, a divorce lawyer is going to be very well off in the near future.

Exit question: Show of hands, ladies. How many of you would be willing to take back a guy who told you, “I’ve met this other woman and she’s totally my soulmate, but I’m going to try real hard to fall back in love with you”?

Chicago: In the past Mayor Daley has always survived his tough spots by letting his critics lose their nerve, get distracted, or simply self-destruct. The difference this time is that there are a whole lot more of them, and each day thousands are reminded of why they’re pissed off when they pull into a public parking space. No doubt.

More about Daley’s efforts to sell off city parking meters and other property, and how his idea of ‘quick money now so I can keep services going now and the heck with the future’ isn’t working so well.

Also, there’s the damage that the Olympic bid will do to the parks system, and Daley’s pledge to the Olympic committee to cover cost overages that totally counters what he told the citizens of Chicago.

Cecil Adams on Jim Butcher’s DRESDEN series (which I have not read; I saw a couple of the TV shows based on it) and how it does and doesn’t fit the realities of Chicago – and a bit on the ‘underground’ of Chicago (mostly downtown).

I’ve been wondering why the old US Post Office that surrounds the Western expressway entrance into downtown Chicago has remained intact and empty all this time.   Here’s the reason: nobody will take it.

The short end of it is that Susan, Meredith and I will be totally occupied with a Seekrit Project from about dinnertime Thursday to Friday evening (the first night of Duckon). Mike Harrington is flying in on Friday morning from Birmingham to be Duckon’s Science Guest of Honor, along with his daughter Meredith Ellen, and Susan, Mere and I are picking them up at the airport. You will see the twins, Mike, Susan and I at the con, throughout the con. But not before opening ceremonies. Don’t call up the house during the Seekrit Project period unless it’s on con business.

Yes, I’ll tell you what it is - on Saturday. Our Mere will go off with Mike and Sissy to Birmingham for a week after the con’s over with on Sunday night, and then it gets peaceful for a week, God willing!

Chicago Reader:

As for defending the deal, it’s pretty clear that the mayor’s central argument is that $1 billion in the bank today is worth more than anything 75 years down the road.

and also here:

In a damning 45-page report issued this afternoon, city inspector general David Hoffman said the Daley administration’s “hasty” consummation of the parking meter privatization deal–as well as the absence of deliberation in the City Council–cost taxpayers at least $1 billion.

“Because the deal was presented to the City Council with very limited information and because the Council scheduled its vote a very short time later, there was no meaningful public review of the decision to lease the parking-meter system,” the report says. “What is standard in the PPP [public-private partnership] ‘best practices’ model–informed deliberation, transparency, and full analysis of the public interest considerations–was not present here.

“In addition, the driving force behind the decision to lease the parking meters was the City’s short-term budgetary need. While we do not question the seriousness of the City’s budget problem that was presented in Fall 2008 because of the recession, the hasty, ‘crisis’ nature of the decision-making process meant that the short-term budget problems and the large upfront payment the City was receiving overshadowed all other legitimate, long-term, public-interest issues.”

” I know you tell us what to do, but you’re supposed to warn us when you tell us to do something that is going to get us into trouble with our constituents and the law!”

• For the people out there (hi, Mark!) who truly enjoy torture by hot peppers, Chile-Head is a good reference point.   Me, that’s overkill.
• Jeff Duntemann has a fun article about a local-to-him diner in Des Plaines, IL called the Sugar Bowl that is worth a read.
• I tried this BBQ place in a Beavercreek, OH location; it’s not bad at all, but it’s not stellar.   Central and Western Ohio sorts may want to check it out for themselves at their several locations.
• Joe Haldeman has the best martini joke I’ve heard in *years*.
• An article on the red chili sauce that calls its own self Ketjap, and isn’t made out of tomatoes, and is hot as blazes…you’ve doubtless seen it at a southeastern Asian restaurant or grocery store (my Singaporean readers can pass on their own notes about how authentic the stuff is…) - personally, the flavor of jalapeno peppers, to me (never mind the heat) is terrible.
• Places to get dumplings in Chicago; all sorts of dumplings, not just the Asian sorts.

From the Chicago Reader:  Part 1 and Part 2, along with the Easy Version,more concerns, and legal action from aldermen trying to kill the deal.

Over a year later, on December 2, 2008, Mayor Daley held a press conference to announce that after a rigorously monitored bidding process (as opposed to handing the deal to a company that employs his nephew) he was going to lease the meters to Morgan Stanley for–surprise!–about $1 billion.

It turns out to be a winning move for Mayor Daley. He gets the money–nearly 1.16 billion–up front. He’s pretty much free to spend it any way he wants. For all we know he may just want to put it in a big pile and burn it. Or spend it on the Olympics, which amounts to the same thing.

And it’s a great deal for Morgan Stanley, which quadrupled parking rates and can look forward to hauling in buckets and buckets of cash for the next 75 years.

As for the suckers who call Chicago home: sorry chumps, you lose–again. That parking rate hike Sneed alluded to was supposed to bring in about $55 million to the “cash-strapped city.” Instead, we’re only getting at most $20 million a year in interest from the portion of the $1.15 billion Mayor Daley has socked away. So that means we’re facing a $35 million a year hole in the budget where parking meter revenue used to be, which our mayor can either make up by raising fees or taxes or by cutting services, like, oh, fixing potholes.

Meanwhile, the city has informed alderman Scott Waguespack that the meters are worth considerably more than $1 billion–probably closer to $5 billion.

So Mayor Daley sells the meters for less than they’re worth and will have to raise fees or taxes to compensate for the revenue that’s going to Morgan Stanley instead of into public coffers. You pay more in parking meter fees and you get less in service. Is this a great deal or what?

..Northwestern in Chicago. Ran two nights and days of high fever and chills, up to 104 and spastic chills on Monday, 2 am. Susan went on to Ohio, and I went to the ER here. Nice room. Spent seven hours in the ER, and they’re VERY serious about odd Flu stuff here, and I’m visited only by gowned people. So far, the tests all came back with nothing. Best guess is that it’s some sort of virus. Here at least overnight for observation; my blood counts are apparently OK. If you have CLL, the docs hammer home ‘fear fever and chills’, so I contacted my Leukemia doc first thing Monday.

A local library decided to ban Cat Piss Man, for what it’s worth.   (Look through here for a copy of Paul’s orignal article on this, which is in his new book, which I told you the other day to go buy)

One of the ways that Chicago has been keeping its head above water is to sell off / privatize public money-making stuff, like parking meters and the Skyway tollway.  I frankly don’t see this ending well - partly because I don’t think that private operators will do that great of a job, and partly because there’s going to be a point in the near future where they’ll have nothing else to sell, and the poor operation of these ventures will bite them in the butt with the voters / taxpayers.   Thoughts?

From the ChiTown Daily News and Chicago Journal: on work towards rehabbing the Cafe to meet the standards laid down for re-opening, and also on on the past history of the Cafe’s health violations from a FOIA of the Chicago Health Department.

One local very right-wing and abrasive blogger, who really can’t stand the owners (mostly over their left-wing politics) did point out one good question; did the cafe owners get the proper permits for the major work done on the restaurant to get it back up to snuff?  Beats me.

The restaurant’s website says that they’re now open, and is a good deal more forthcoming about the problems there than in the past:

The inspection < that closed down the Cafe - JimR > was fair and we immediately set about to address the issues raised and some that weren’t. We basically rebuilt the joint from the inside out. Laid new kitchen and dish room floors, patched and mortared endless nooks and crannies of our 100+ year old building, scrubbed every single piece of equipment until it shone like new and generally took this crisis and turned it into an opportunity.

On the heels of our passing the city’s re-inspection yesterday, the Heartland Café family feels both relieved and blessed; relieved that we are again serving our ‘good wholesome food for mind and body ‘ and blessed bythe generosity, spirit and loyalty of our workforce, neighbors and friends from all over.

The Heartland has a big reopen-soon-better-than-ever sign out front, as they clean out the joint, and the health department sign is obscured so that passers by can’t see it and know what happened.

Other nearby similar violations at an Einstein Bagels.