June 5 Thornton Quarry Tour

It was kind of like getting tickets for the old Bozo's circus, you have to plan years ahead. I was on the waiting list for two years and today I finally got to the bottom of the Thornton Quarry. Everyone that lives on Chicago's South Side has driven over the quarry on I-80 between the Halsted and Torrence exits. Here's a few of the facts I learned on the tour. It is one of the largest stone quarries in the world. It is over 400 feet deep. The western section which is not visible from the highway is part of the Deep Tunnel Project that has been under construction in Chicagoland for over 30 years. It can be used as a reservoir to temporarily store sewer water during storms. The biggest surprise was discovering that over 400 million years ago, this area was an inland tropical sea. So the quarry is full of fossils from the Silurian reefs that existed back then. 

The tour is run by the Thornton Historical Society. It begins with a short video about the history of the quarry. Then we stopped at an overlook on the southeast corner of the quarry.

Then the fun begins. A school bus takes us into the quarry while an employee from Material Services, who run the quarry, takes over the tour. He explains the day to day operations and answers questions.

Every piece of equipment down here is huge. This mechanical arm is part of the eight story high crusher building. It is used to move big pieces of rock into the crusher.

Due to the slow economy, the crusher isn't running today. There is no work happening anywhere in the quarry on this Saturday.

This is the western side which is part of the Deep Tunnel project. If needed they could pump overflow sewer water into this side by opening some valves during storms. It can hold over three billion gallons.

As I already said, there are really big pieces of equipment down here. I wondered how the hell they change a tire on these things.

This is used to drill holes for the dynamite used to break apart new sections of the rock.

Again, really big equipment.

The tour group searching for fossils. 

I originally did not care about searching for fossils. Then Jimmy, who went with me, showed me some rocks filled with fossils. It was pretty amazing to see. Click on the picture to see it full size, there are a lot of shells and and other unknown to me fossils.

This is where they take giant pieces of rock and break them into very large pieces which are usually used along shorelines for erosion protection.

Smaller processed rocks are moved out of the quarry by conveyor belts.

Back at street level, there are mountains of crushed limestone. Some piles have been there so long that birds dig out little cave like nests at the top. 

Here's the end of the line for the conveyor belts and our tour. You can check out this link for info about the tour, Village Of Thornton.

June 2 Catching Up

I have fallen behind updating this blog so today will be a compilation of pictures from the past month that I haven't written about yet. 

May 5th Member Preview of The Great Bear Wilderness at Brookfield Zoo

Brookfield Zoo's latest addition allows visitors to see the bears up close

so close you are face to face with a Alaskan Brown Bear

or a polar bear

here's a rare shot of Chrissy smiling. she is very excited about the new exhibit and she should be because it is a great way to see the bears

now you won't get to see the bears from this angle, but I got to go up on the roof because I give a zookeeper that doesn't smile often half of all my paychecks

May 16th Mountain Biking at Brownell Woods

I finally got a chance to go biking today and chose Brownell Woods because the trails are easier than Sweet Woods. I really need to get back into shape because I love biking through the woods. I took this picture at the Skywalker ramp built along a fallen tree. In case you are wondering, the answer is no. I haven't attempted riding along this fallen tree. There is a deep ravine if you fall off to the left. I hope to someday but not today. Yes I am a pussy. But at least I'm out here riding, you are sitting at a computer.

May 22 The Fog & The Dogs

We took the dogs for an early morning walk at Marquette Park in Gary. As you can see, there was a heavy fog. This added a little something extra to the hike.

Chrissy took the youngsters, Oslo & Roxy. I walked along with the old girl, Fluff, so I could take pictures.

Fluff is the only dog I trust off leash for two reasons. One, she will listen to me. Two, I can out run her.

While Chrissy took Oslo & Roxy down the beach....

Fluffy & I relaxed enjoying the cool damp morning in solitude on the beach.

May 22 Mountain Biking at Waterfall Glen

I have heard about Waterfall Glen for a long time and finally decided to drive out to Darien to check it out. It was worth the drive. There are no legal single track trails but the crushed rock main path has plenty of ups & downs to keep my fat ass huffing & puffing over the 10 mile loop. The scenery adds immensely to the ride.

It has rained a lot lately which is why I decided to ride here on the rock trail instead of the extremely muddy single track trails back home. The rains flooded a section of the trail here. 

So I took a detour along the train tracks and decided to take a rest and have a drink of water.

I had a map but still managed to get lost on an access road that dead ended, no pun intended, at an old graveyard. I stopped by to pay my respects and noticed it was filled with mostly Irish surnames. I may be strange, but I enjoy cemeteries. It was a very muggy day, so I relaxed with my fellow Irishmen for a few minutes.

I took a bunch of pictures here at St. Patrick's Cemetery. With that name, no wonder it was filled with dead Irish.

May 29th Biking with Mikey

I was slacking off at the house thinking I should go biking but feeling unmotivated. Then Mike called and said let's go riding. We rode the Rails to Trails path from Highland to Crown Point and back through to Downtown Highland. It was probably just enough riding to burn off the calories from the hot dog & root beer float I had at a rest stop along the trail.

May 31st Fresh Strawberries

AAAAHHHH! Fresh home grown strawberries from our little garden behind the garage. The squirrels and rabbits have already enjoyed these tasty treats and today I finally got to try them. They were damn tasty.

June 1 Garden Ornaments

I always goof on people that put lawn ornaments like the cutout of an old lady bent over with her bloomers showing while tending to her flowers. Well another sign that I am getting closer & closer to that long dirt nap, I bought one today. But not a cheap plywood cut out, a realistic looking one. I was so impressed with the advancements in this type of lawn decoration I couldn't resist buying one.

May 30th The Indianapolis 500

I am not a big racing fan. I do enjoy going to the Indy 500 every year with one of my best friends, Jimmy Drescher. He is a big fan of racing. So once again, we head down I-65 toward Indianapolis. This is not an exciting drive, let's face it, Indiana is not an exciting state. This is a great time to catch up with each other and enjoy some good music. But wait just a corn growing minute...what do I see across the horizon for as far as the eye can see...which is pretty fucking far in this flat state.

It is hundreds of electricity generating wind turbines. I'm very impressed by this recent development. Hell, most of this state just got indoor plumbing and now they are attempting to generate power without using coal. I might have to rethink my opinion of this state. I looked this up online and found that farmers get between $4000-$8000 a year per turbine on their land. So another benefit for the local farmers. This was a good start to my day.

Jimmy wants to get some souvenirs so I sit on my cooler to eat my fried breaded pork sandwich. Sure it is barely 10am, so what, I only eat this sandwich once a year. Across from me is Danica Patrick's trailer, she never wins a race but might be the most famous driver here. I'll admit she's pretty cute for a race car driver. Big deal, there really isn't much competition in that category. I guess she got booed here during time trials for ripping her pit crew. She also got booed today when they announced her. I guess being cute doesn't impress race fans.

Here's a shot from our seats. We sit on the infield side of the track not far from the finish line. Once again we got Sarah Fisher's pit in front of us. We never have any good driver's pit in front of us.

It was getting very hot early in the day. It ended up being 95 degrees and 130 degrees on the track. It was the hottest temperatures of any race day in Indy history. By 1:30 pm I was asking the 10 guys in kilts sitting in front of us where I could buy one right now. Thank God I powdered myself with Anti-Monkey Butt powder this morning.

Since it is Memorial Day weekend, there is always a big military presence and tribute. These soldiers got a standing ovation from everybody in the stands.

The annual fly by was impressive but nothing has ever come close to the year the Harrier Jet stopped over the grandstand and rotated 360 degrees while hovering above us. We could feel the powerful jets blowing down on us. That was the greatest fly by in my 25 years at Indy.

Here's the parade lap at the start of the race. I have no idea why the loser wearing a mood ring in front of me stuck his hand in the air. 

Here's Jimmy listening to the drivers talk to their pit crews. After looking at that face, I needed something else to look at....

....now this is much better, a hot red head wearing short shorts and cowboy boots. 

Here's Sarah Fisher's pit crew in action. It is kind of cool to watch these guys in action up close.

One advantage of our seat location is walking along the pits to take pictures. I needed to get out of the sun for awhile today. It was very hot sitting on shiny metal bleachers in the sun. I could hear my fat sizzling so I took a walk to get some shade and a pretzel. I needed the salt.

It was almost a great finish but a late yellow flag let Dario Franchitti coast to a win. That was fine with me because he was one of my drivers. I won both bets against Jimmy this year. I also had Mario Moraes who finished the lowest of both our drivers. Jimmy felt shame losing to someone who had never heard of half the drivers today.

On the walk back to the car, we passed this kid (big day for kilts I guess) playing the bagpipes for the sun drenched crowd leaving the track. I am a big fan of street musicians so I'll end with this picture.

May 29 It's Time for Criminal Charges

  




If you've read this blog in the past, you already know I despise big corporations and the power they have over our lives. I also hate every politician that allows them to have this unwarranted power. I am not an eloquent writer so I'll put this the best way I know...fuck each & every one of the soulless, motherless cocksucking CEO's that are responsible for this oil spill in the Gulf. All the oil companies have had record profits for the past few years. There is no excuse for cutting costs on safety ever. But since they decided to do it while making record profits, I want to see criminal charges brought. Let's start with 11 murder charges and then add criminal negligence for the environmental damage. I also want real prison time. The kind of prisons where they will get a daily ass-fucking that they have given to us for years. Hopefully the following will make you as mad as me.

 This is the result of corporate greed, incompetent government officials and the American people letting the corporations control their government. I want the CEO's of every big oil company swimming in this shit every day. They make billions of dollars every year at our expense. There is strong evidence that BP officials purposely bypassed safety features to expedite the drilling on the Deep Water Horizon Oil rig. Their arrogance and greed cost 11 men their lives. These men, just hard working people like most of us, do not make $50-$75 million dollars a year like these criminally liable CEO's. It is time for the average American to take back control of our government. The "by the people, for the people" has been completely eliminated from our current way of governing. So begin by calling your Congressmen and Senators and demanding that they bring real criminal charges against all responsible. If they do not and continue to allow big corporations to control their votes, then we must remove them with our votes.

A side note about my latest hero, AP Photographer Charlie Riedel. That is Charlie's photograph of a pelican struggling on a beach on Louisiana's East Grand Terre Island. The reason that I think Charlie is a hero is because he got these pictures out there for all to see. The major news outlets, newspapers, TV news etc.have long been afraid to piss off the government or potential advertisers, BP for example. So no one with a functioning brain reads or watches them. Maybe we would respect these news outlets if they actually showed us the news that matters. All we hear about is how hard BP is working to stop the flow of oil, how BP is paying for all the damage. Big fucking deal, they are responsible for all the damage. Start reporting on how and why his happened. Start showing the real effects of the spill everyday until everyone is so mad that real changes can occur that will prevent this from ever happening again. So Charlie Riedel thank you for the heart breaking but very important pictures.

May 28 A Simpler Time

I recently read Bill Bryson's "The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid". (see November 24th post). He describes his life growing up in Iowa in the 1950's in the book. The section where he describes the various toys he had as a child had me laughing out loud. I had a lot of the same toys 15 years later. He joked about how easily amused kids were back then because they could play with a Slinky all day long and never get bored. Here's an old Slinky commercial for those unfamiliar with what is essentially a big spring.



Maybe Mr. Bryson was right. The kids in that commercial look border line retarded. I can't imagine kids nowadays being excited to get a Slinky over a Nintedo Wii. I bring this up now because Chrissy gave me a New York Mets Pez dispenser recently.

I was surprised they still sold them. This candy dispenser seems so out of date nowadays that it made me feel nostalgic for the old days. Every generation longs for how things used to be and now I am old enough to feel that way...at times. Today was one of those times. So I looked around my house for things from 'the old days'.  The only thing I found after a short walk through the house was this shopping list reminder that I got from my Italian grandmother.

Here's a throwback to the days before post it notes, dry erase boards and cellphone calls on the way home to find out what needs to be picked up from the store. This is hung on the cabinets in the kitchen but we don't actually use it. I guess it is just a decoration that reminds me of my grandmother and how things always seemed simpler in the old days.