A Day in the Life....

I often imagine that people often wonder what a typical day might be like for me in Chicago, even though I only got here last week and people could probably care less. Nevertheless, if you decide to continue, I will subject you to just that. Except I haven't taken pictures of my apartment yet because there are still boxes everywhere, and it is, in general, a huge mess. So we'll start with me walking out the front door:

This is Ye Olde Apartment Building, better known as Linden Crest Apartments. It was built in 1924, which makes it old (my apologies if you were born around that time but my perspective on time is pretty limited). I would say which one of those windows is my apartment but I'd hate for someone to come by and try to rob me. However, I will say that the local, one woman neighborhood watch is located in the right bottom window in the center. This lady is perched by the window at nearly all times, eyeballing you as you walk into and out of the area.

This leads out to the street from the courtyard. You have to watch out for those steps there. They're very treacherous. From here you turn left toward Linden Avenue. The rich people live across the street in those million dollar homes I'll never be able to afford.

When you cross Linden which is right on the corner, you turn left toward work and this is what you see. In the distance to the left you have the Baha'i House of Worship, which I get to see every morning and evening as I enter and leave work. There's also a grocery store across the street to the left. In fact, I pretty much never have to leave a two block radius of my apartment. There's a grocery store, two cleaners, a hardware store, my insurance agent, my work place, my apartment, two Chinese restaurants, the EL stop, and the bus stop.

This is the door to the office. We're not located in the main Baha'i National Center, which is sometimes a good thing. For instance, there's a new dress code that's been implemented, which states that men must wear ties (which necessitates a dress shirt). Since we're a satellite office away from the prying eyes of the National Assembly we manage to get away with having our top button on the dress shirt unbuttoned. Such lackadaisical behavior wouldn't be tolerated over at the main office! Sure it seems minor but trust me when I say that the increase in comfort has resulted in at least a 5% increase in productivity.

This is my cubicle. I know it looks uninhabited except for the papers everywhere, but I've only had it a week. My co-worker, Sonia, shares the space to the right. Hopefully those bookshelves will be full of books soon and I'm sure I'll soon have so many papers spread out that you won't even be able to see the desktop.

Where are pictures of my co-workers, you ask? Well, you can't fault me for not making an effort but every time I tried to take a picture of one of them they vanished faster than the speed of light. Maybe with some time I'll be able to sneak up on them and catch them in their natural environment, hunched over a desk peering into the computer screen.

One of the nice things about living in Chicago is the presence of a major international airport. Of course this presents wonderful opportunities for travel so I've been watching some of the airfares online. Today I noticed that I could purchase a ticket to Montego Bay, Jamaica ($125) for less money than a ticket back to Little Rock ($199). Of course I guess that's little surprise given how important of an airport O'Hare is. It's the second busiest in the world, and it used to be the first before 2005 when Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson took over the top spot. More than 76 million passengers passed through O'Hare last year - imagine!

Things at work aren't quite in full swing yet since so much of the operation is still based in Atlanta, so I've had quite a few opportunities to read through the news. There's been plenty of interesting stuff but the most ridiculous has been from everyone's favorite crazy South American leader, "President" Hugo Chavez of Venezuela. Apparently he's gotten into a spat with the leader of Colombia, who happens to be fairly pro-American in sharp contrast to President Chavez's very anti-American stance. This has led him to question whether or not the remains of Simon Bolivar, returned to Venezuela from Colombia in 1842, are authentic. "Are those really Bolivar's remains in the National Pantheon? We're going to verify this."

That's exactly the sort of nonsense you expect to see in an African paper. It always amazed me how simple-minded politicians there would be and how they would use cheap ploys like this to strum up support among the uneducated masses. What's worse is that people eat it up. However, what's more hilarious is a goof on CNN's part. Apparently their Spanish-language channel ran an image of President Chavez with the caption "Who killed him?", which led Chavez to declare that CNN was trying to incite an assassination attempt against him. CNN apologized and said the caption was meant for a picture of Sean Taylor, a football star who was shot and killed.

These are the people who are running the world.