Chicago: They paved a fetid swamp/and put up a parking lot

Yes, given that moving to another state would require dealing with some bullshit re: bar admissions, we're staying put. Unless one of us gets a mid-six figure job offer doing something awesome. Then I might reconsider.

But not if WmC is coming with meatloaf and mustard greens and fried okra.

Sigh. Food is about the only thing I miss about living in the south.

I think Jeff would like and be annoyed by Portland in equal measure.

If I had the right job or right something to do, I'd be happy in L.A., Toronto, back in the Twin Cities.

It's funny how my memories of Minneapolis/St. Paul are so different from reality. I remember it being a swirling megalopolis of skyscrapers, freeways, and hustle and bustle. Street View makes it clear that I was more easily impressed when I was 9 years old than I am today. Now I look at it and go - Where is all the STUFF???

I was up there weekend before last (my ma and pa were there for their 75th birthdays) and really loved it. Scale doesn't matter so much as quality--great design, great stuff, decent freeway system, good people.

seeing as most of my insane high school friends still live in the Twin Cities, I don't think I would ever be bored living there

Do they have a rail system?

They do. It's light rail.

it's also expanding; work is happening right now to connect downtown Minneapolis to downtown Saint Paul

one big lol I had trying to navigate around was how directions going anywhere always went back to an interstate highway; 20 years of Boston living has completely trained me away from even considering that to be an option

Having grown up in rural Nowheresville (ha iPhone auto-capitalized that) and lived in college towns and small, often boring cities as an adult, I have a pretty low tolerance for civic boredom.

Also, God help me, I really like you people (and ppl I know who do not post on ILX. I haven't been this satisfied with a peer group in like, maybe ever.

xp oh duh, I knew that and have actually ridden on it.

DJP reminded me -

Did anybody else who grew up rural learn directions as left-right-straight as opposed to NSWE? It fucked me up having to shift my thinking to cardinal directions (especially given my absolute lack of an internal compass).

Maybe? (though I didn't grow up rural). I think NSWE only kind of makes sense in someplace with a grid system like Chicago? Unless we're talking about interstates.

Nope. My dad was very firm about using cardinal directions. Once we lived in a house that faced just slightly off due north and it bugged the shit out of him.

I was actually daydreaming yesterday about a weekend trip to the Twin Cities this summer.

I'm seriously not sure how people would know which direction is which w/out the grid system. Unless you're Jesse's dad.

My dad was also devoted to highway numbers as opposed to common regional names. I think Chicago's freeway naming system would have given him a shit fit. One time a couple asked him for directions and he said "take Highway 6 to Highway 2," to which the people responded "Is that Ball Club Road?" (or something like that) and he didn't appreciate their not knowing the roads' rightful names.

xp - I have a pretty reliable internal compass. In New Orleans (which has a roads system based on spirals) I tried to use the cardinal directions, but realized that no one there has a clue where N, S, E or W are ever at all.

In Chicago, prep under way for wet, steamy future: http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/illinois/article_bf5e0168-84d5-11e0-ad1e-001a4bcf6878.html

This is fascinating and scary and sad.

Did anybody else who grew up rural learn directions as left-right-straight as opposed to NSWE?

Yes! But the transition to NWSE was kind of seamless and unconscious. I don't know exactly when I made the switch. It was a few years after I started driving.

l-r-s makes so much more sense when you only have like 3 roads to deal with (ie driving out to my parents' house)

I'm going up for a wedding in Mpls weekend after next, if anyone wants to split a room and have their own adventures.

xp yes

Never used NSEW.

The post office at Division and Ashland is really one of the more delightful places in this fair city of ours. All joking aside. I don't know what they put in the water, but they're so very attentive it makes me feel like I'm at the elite spa of postal offices. You walk in and are immediately greeted by someone, who then offers to help you and will often take you out of line to assist you in using the automated machines or pointing out forms you might need. Then they check on you multiple times, and when you leave they thank you profusely.

I was also complimented on my attire today, and asked where I was headed looking so pretty.

It's weird, but delightful. I plan on hanging out there regularly.

I wouldn't be surprised if they start offering tea and water when I walk in.

xps I didn't use cardinal directions until I moved here.

I have to stop at that post office today! I'd better be wowed. I demand wowing.

We had the Atlantic ocean as a cardinal navigation point, but as soon as I was out of sight of landmarks that told me where the ocean was, I was lost.

The twisty backroads throughout the swamps of southwestern DE are a particularly nightmarish for me. My mother still gets surprised/annoyed that I don't know where things are out there. "You know, the gas station on route 9 right past Heron's Landing, out by the fire tower!"

(She's also starting to do the "You know Tammy Brittingham who worked at the bank? Her daughter graduated from (a totally different) high school six years before you. Well, she has cancer" thing, but that's a different story.)

Every time I call my mom I get a new story about the death of some redneck moron I went to school with. Last night it was some absolute douchebag who pissed someone off and got stabbed. My only memory of him is calling me a faggot in 10th grade and trying to start a fight for no reason.

The Division/Ashland post office used to be hell on earth--terrible service and the rest--so someone must've kicked the bums out and turned it around. Same thing happened years ago with the 60640 post office in Uptown after 60 Minutes filmed them, like, throwing mail into a bonfire or something like that.

I was just about to say that the only place I have received that level of service is at the Uptown USPS. Didn't know about the bonfire.

hahaha I just got a text from R that reads "I am fed up + disgusted with the Chicago USPS"

Loop post office is horrible.

Eazy-this is the place in the strip mall off of Ashland--not the post office that got shut down on Division (a couple blocks west of Ashland). Not sure if it's a reincarnation or what, but the one on Division was shi-tty.

Tell her to go to Ashland! That said, I had a letter returned to me the other week with an "invalid" address notation. Nevermind that the address was 100% correct, and that I could address a letter to "Ted Fredrickson, the Tech Bank thing, Houghton, MI 49931" and the post office in Houghton would figure out to deliver it to the Michigan Tech Credit Union. The only explanation is that the thing never even left Chicago.

Yeah, I like that strip-mall PO on Ashland. Quick, easy, friendly.

A friend of mine wrote a nice little thing on Chicago beaches.

Are you sure that Ted Fred is OK w/ having his full name and adequate address on the internet?

The thing about the beaches is only that paragraph, right?

Tina Fey said of Chicago that it's great that we have beaches right in the middle of everything, and you can even use them like 10 whole days out of the year.

Yeah, it's just that paragraph, no big thing.

No, it's cool. It's just that I was trying to click on things. And I got confused and gave up.

Every time I call my mom I get a new story about the death of some redneck moron I went to school with. Last night it was some absolute douchebag who pissed someone off and got stabbed. My only memory of him is calling me a faggot in 10th grade and trying to start a fight for no reason.

Car accidents
Hunting accidents
Four-wheeler accidents

I'm LOLing at Chicago USPS ppl throwing mail in a bonfire. You know it happens! JRTC PO is okay, not great.

Bad life decisions in general.

Jess and I have a running joke that everyone we dislike/has been an asshole to us eventually dies.

Well, tbf, everybody who is nice to you eventually dies, too.

It's too hot for accuracy.

The girl who bullied me on my teeball team was arrested for selling narcotics out of the pharmacy where she worked. My mom sent me the clipping. That was a quality update from mom.

An interesting question, Jesse. I could see about having it removed. On the other hand, both his name and address can be found through the business website.

It's too hot for accuracy.

OTM

i am going to be in minneapolis next week! and iowa city! (i'm going to play a couple of shows with the band i've been playing with, hence the sleeping bag query).

sarah and i went to the twin cities for a long weekend and my impression was that it was kind of a boring place to visit (we felt like we ran out of stuff to do before the trip was over but that might have been our fault for being boring) but probably a very nice place to live. i like midwestern cities a lot.

i could probably be happy living most place but i don't think i would choose to live in san francisco. it never seemed to get really warm and there were too many hills.

The hills might get old, but the weather seems ideal.

The hills are already old.

ZING.