Entries Tagged as 'fire'

Logan Square Garbage Fires

September 15th, 2009 · No Comments

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Logan Square, Chicago

Some idiots keep lighting garbage bins on fire in the alleys of Logan Square. Then guess what happens? Buildings start on fire. Imagine that.

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Logan Square, Chicago

It makes me feel a little better that our garage is brick, but I know that a brick garage can can still contain quite a fire. When we lived in Roscoe Village the brick garage across the alley from us caught on fire, burning everything inside, damaging our back stairs and melting the siding off of our house. These photos were taken in our alley. A little too close to home.

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Fire in the Alley

November 26th, 2007 · 1 Comment

We’re back from Nevada and I need to go through my photos. When we arrived home, our neighbor was outside. We never really talk to him so I was kind of surprised when we got out of our cab and he said “Hey, do you guys live in the coach house? Did your landlord get in contact with you?” We said she hadn’t and he said that someone “torched” the garage across the alley from us and that our place got some damage. It seems like all of our stuff is ok, and that the back stairs are still sound, but our siding is all melted off. Must have been a really hot fire. The house across the alley is just in the end stages of being built. No one lives there yet, so I doubt anyone was injured in the fire. I called our landladies and they said it happened late on Thanksgiving night. Good thing the garage is made of brick. It seems to have contained the fire, although there were building supplies and a truck inside. I wonder how the fire started.

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Small Track Fire

March 20th, 2007 · 4 Comments

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River North, Chicago

Tonight the train stopped and some recording came on and said “sorry for the delay blah blah blah” and then we didn’t move and it came on again.. and then the driver got come on and said “sorry for the delay, there’s a small track fire ahead.” We looked out the window and could definitely see smoke and some small flames on the track next to us. Our driver (I think) got out and was bashing it with a stick or something and then went back and got a fire extinguishers and sprayed it. Two fire extinguishers. I don’t know if the first one ran out, or what. A bit later I noticed the firefighters on the ground. The woman behind me on the train said they’d been there the whole time and that they were laughing. Nice.

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Elements of User Experience at IIT

December 7th, 2004 · 6 Comments

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Elements of User Experience Workshop, River North, Chicago

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Merchandise Mart & Brown Line, River North, Chicago

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Sculpture on LaSalle Street, River North, Chicago

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Monk’s, The Loop, Chicago

Yesterday I had training with Jesse James Garrett at the Institute of Design at IIT. If you didn’t know better you’d think I was stalking him or something since I just saw him speak a couple weeks ago. That was just an hour on branding, though and this was a full day covering the elements of user experience, the visual vocabulary, the 9 pillars, and where the future is heading.

Since we were so close, at lunch I stepped into the Merchandise Mart just to see what it was like. The first two floors that are open to the public are basically a big food court and a couple of card stores. And a post office.

After training, Adaptive Path hosted drinking at Monk’s. This was a chance to network and to talk with Jesse. Also a chance to drink to many beers for free, which I did.. and now I’m hoping I didn’t say anything I’ll regret since Jesse was at our table for most of the night. I think I’m ok. Uh, I hope.

Btw, the restroom stalls at Monk’s had this weird toilet seat cleaner in them. Has anyone seen this before? It seems like something I would never do. Gross. Why not just have the paper toilet seat covers?

Coming out of the bar at about 9pm it reeked like burning rubber from the fire in the LaSalle Bank Building around the corner.

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Fire!

May 21st, 2003 · 4 Comments

Fire Engine
Tribeca, Manhattan

Fire Alarm: “BeepBeepBeepBeep”
Mysterious Voice on the PA: “Can I have your attention please!? We have received a signal.. from.. the roof.”
Mark: “The roof, the roof, the roof is on fire!”
Fire Engine: “WhooWhoop”

We did evacuate, but luckily it was a false alarm. Under an orange, high-threat security alert, it was more than a little stressful. That, and the fact that our office vending machines have been out of both Diet Pepsi and Diet Coke for more than a week, has got everyone on edge.

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