Chicago’s pretty fun. I guess any place is when you have cool people to show you around. I totally forgot to mention. The other day when we went on that bike ride, we pulled off at this giant building… I think it belongs to Chase bank. Anyways, there’s this fresco… or… what is it they call those images made out of a bunch of crushed rocks? Well.. whatever it’s called, it was by Mark Chagall . I wanted to see it, so we pulled over, walked down the stairs, and I didn’t realize it was an actual historical piece of art that was flown in and assembled there… oops. I stepped over the tiny fence, and went in for a very close look… touched it, and all of a sudden…”This is security… step away from the Chagall!” I jumped away, and all was fine. Whoops. Ahhh… thanks Wikipedia! I just looked it up- the piece is: Four Seasons, 1974, Chase Tower, Chicago, Illinois — that’s the piece I got to see AND feel.

Anyways Sunday night we went to Ana’s birthday party. She made fabulous food, and I got to meet many interesting people. One person was Michael Rosen. He is an extremely talented photographer/artist who’s work I have been following for a few years. Other people included a very intersting fellow named Matt Piunno. He is not only fun to interact with, but (surprise!) we got talking about Photography… turns out that Matt is a photographer/artist, and also colorblind. I think it’s awesome that people with a handicap go and do things people think they wouldn’t be doing. He has good stuff up- check out his page. Another person I met, which I hope I see again on Thursday, is Andrew. Andrew starts up companies. He’s made some very interesting and well timed business decisions… being an innovator in VOIP, Biotech, cell phone microprocessors, but my favorite is his current project… He has a plant that converts coal to usable fuel. Bet you didn’t know that Montana has enough coal to produce more than 3 times the amount of fuel that we could get from the middle east! And… you don’t mess up the planet nearly as much! A green technology that pulls $ away from Big Oil! I love it. I’m obviously against oil dependency. I did ask if Oil companies have been a hassle, and Andrew said that in fact they have not, but rather have helped out, work with them, and the technology is based on technology that (I believe he said) Exxon developed in the 70′s. I am looking forward to touring the plant on Thursday, when Andrew gets back in town.