{"id":352,"date":"2011-03-31T13:35:57","date_gmt":"2011-03-31T17:35:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nerdhut.com\/?p=352"},"modified":"2011-06-05T00:32:13","modified_gmt":"2011-06-05T04:32:13","slug":"thoughts-from-places-my-office-window","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/nerdhut.com\/?p=352","title":{"rendered":"Thoughts from Places – My Office Window"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you don\u2019t know who John and Hank Green are, well, you should. On youtube, they\u2019re known as the Vlogbrothers (http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/user\/vlogbrothers<\/a>) and have been making fun, interesting, silly, and profound videos since ancient times. Which, in youtube terms, is like 3 or 4 years ago. \u00a0Anyway, within the last year they started a series called \u201cThoughts from Places\u201d, which is exactly what it sounds like. Go somewhere, bring along a video camera, and record your impressions. To see some of them, hit the link above and search for \u2018thoughts from places vlogbrothers\u2019. I wanted to do my own version, but I\u2019m at work and didn\u2019t have a video camera with me, so here\u2019s my textual attempt\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

——————————————-<\/em><\/p>\n

If you were me \u2013 and let\u2019s both\u00a0 be thankful that you\u2019re not \u2013 you would often get sick of staring at your computer screen, and your posted post-its, and your to-do lists and seek momentary mental escape. You\u2019d turn away from that wall of stuff, of have-to\u2019s and commitments, and rotate to your 7 o\u2019clock (Ok, fine! More like 7:30 Let\u2019s not quibble over the details.) and look out the window. This is what you\u2019d see.<\/p>\n

Right outside the window is a tree. Magnolia, I think. Or perhaps something particularly magnolia-esque. What do I know? I\u2019m no botanist. The tree stands in the courtyard between the building where my desk is and the other building that makes up our museum, an 1856 Italianate house where we keep all the exhibits. Last year I\u2019d see a lot of squirrels in the branches and they\u2019d sometimes hop onto the window ledge and look into the office as if they wished they could come inside with us. Be careful what you wish for, boys. Here there be responsibilities. This year, though, has been fairly squirrel-lite. I have seen a bright red cardinal a few times. One day he spent a good five minutes tapping away at the windowpane. I\u2019m pretty sure that\u2019s supposed to be a bad omen.<\/p>\n

Just past the courtyard is Halsted Street, which Google Maps tells me runs from Grace Street in Wrigleyville for 35 or so miles all the way south to Chicago Heights. On the way there, it passes 196th<\/sup> Street. I didn\u2019t even know the street numbers went that high. In the museum, we have a video from the 1930\u2019s (I think) that shows images of the entire route from south to north. Today it would all be an urban gumbo of residential, commercial, and industrial. Back then there was that, sure, but there was also rural. Like, horse-pulled plow rural. Amazing how much and how fast our cities grow.<\/p>\n

Across Halsted from work is the gym. This is one of the \u201cbenefits\u201d of working at a large university. The gym is right there! And it\u2019s cheap! And they\u2019ll take my membership fee right out of my paycheck! Pre-tax! But I think we\u2019re in an abusive relationship. And I\u2019m definitely the bad guy. The gym wants nothing but the best for me and usually gives me all it can. And what do I do? I ignore it, curse at it, and often tell it that I wish it didn\u2019t exist. All it wants is love and all I offer is insult. Thirty years from now, the gym will need some serious therapy.<\/p>\n

The gym abuts good old Interstate 90\/94 which might be called \u201cThe Dan Ryan\u201d or \u201cThe Edens\u201d. Maybe both? Why can\u2019t Chicago just call its freeways by their number like the rest of the free world? All I know is that that particular stretch of road is never not traffic jammed, I drive on it as little as possible, and I hate it.<\/p>\n

But that\u2019s why bridges were invented, because just across that horrible stretch of road rises the great city of Chicago. I use the term \u201cgreat\u201d here to indicate size, not any kind of emotional connection. Although, that may be coming. I\u2019ve lived here for a year and a half and, I\u2019ll confess, there was a time I was convinced I would never be a fan. But I thought that about Vermont only to wake up one morning and realize that I had fallen in love \u2013 hard \u2013 for that previously cursed place. Could the same happen here? Maybe it\u2019s happening right now, just at geologically slow speeds. All I know is that I\u2019ll find myself coming around the corner on one of the CTA lines and get a cityscape view I haven\u2019t seen before, or I\u2019ll be walking around downtown and notice some hidden and long forgotten architectural detail, or be running errands and realize what a great variety of various ethnic non-pretentious holes-in-the-wall there are, and I\u2019ll have moments of \u201cOk, yeah, I get it.\u201d Dominating the view from my office window is, of course, the Sears Tower. And yes, I know it has a different name. Tell you what; I\u2019ll start calling it the Willis Tower just as soon as whatever the Willis Company is does something as awesome as selling khakis, lawnmowers, video games, and Craftsman tools all under one roof. At the top of the tower is the observation level which now features plexiglass pods so you can stand out away from the side of the building and look down 103 floors to the street. I think about that, and I remember being up there, looking out at three states and 10 million people and feeling very small.<\/p>\n

Of course, just past the buildings great and small that make up the city is the lake. Lake Michigan. No, I can\u2019t see it from my desk, but I know it\u2019s there. I can feel it. The lake is that unbroken connection between here and there. Yeah, I know we have roads, and trains, and airplanes. But the lake, and the rivers, and the ocean\u2026 they were there before all that and they will be there after. The lake makes me feel connected to those that I am far from. Fievel may have found comfort in the pale moonlight, but I find comfort in knowing that the same water I\u2019m next to touches, in some fashion, the waters of my loved ones.<\/p>\n

And the window itself? The window is on the second floor of a building built in 1907 as the dining hall for a group of social reformers. They tried to make life better for those less fortunate. Today, we tell their stories and try to work within the spirit of what was started here so many years ago. The window is a reminder that the real work isn\u2019t at my desk at all, but out there. <\/em>Telling stories, creating context, fostering connections.<\/p>\n

Making the world better.<\/p>\n

\"Tree,<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you don\u2019t know who John and Hank Green are, well, you should. On youtube, they\u2019re known as the Vlogbrothers (http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/user\/vlogbrothers) and have been making fun, interesting, silly, and profound videos since ancient times. Which, in youtube terms, is like … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[23],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nerdhut.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/nerdhut.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/nerdhut.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nerdhut.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nerdhut.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=352"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/nerdhut.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":388,"href":"http:\/\/nerdhut.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352\/revisions\/388"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nerdhut.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nerdhut.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nerdhut.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}