A short, kind of boring video of our home is now on Flickr!

Hello! It’s a lovely, warm saturday afternoon in Chicago. We just returned from the Lillstreet open house. It was a very nice event; artists were giving demonstrations of their different art-making processes, like wheel throwing and metalsmithing, while the kids were doing collage workshops, and there was an especially beautiful display of various artists work in the gallery.

For the next few hours, my glass of iced Tejava will continuously be replenished while I attempt to organize the house, especially my desk, to be ready for school…

I’ve just posted a short, and kind of boring video of our apartment…check it out on my flickr site–>

Oh, I must say some very important “thank yous” now: Thank you mom and dad, for the incredibly helpful and generous b-day gift that allowed us to decorate our house in such an awesome way! All the new, beautiful things you’ll see in the video are from you! (Also, see the picture below to get an idea of one of the many and long hours spent assembling Ikea furniture)
And thank you, my wonderfully cool and hip San Fran Uncles! Casey and I were able to use the Weber Grill gift card last night, and man was it delicious! I especially loved the shrimp…2 of my new Erikson buddies even met us for an excellent whiskey sour! They say “thank you” as well…
Love to you all from,
Quinn

Fall ‘08 School Semester Begins!

Here we go!! Students in Chicago at last! Casey started today with his first photography course (this is just one class out of many, which meets every Thursday from 9am to 4pm, wow).
I have my first orientation with Erikson tomorrow (Friday), which includes picking up all the necessary paperwork, getting a student ID, and even a bowling social at night.
I’ve posted a few images on my Flickr account that you might be interested in…they’re of my new job location!!! A wonderful building full of adult and children artists, working diligently side-by-side…earlier today we did everything from wheel throwing to spray painting and sewing…
Case and I are in the process of organizing and cleaning up our apartment so I can make a little video of our new and improved place-walls painted and all! So, stay tuned…

Good afternoon from the public library

If we had our promised internet connection already, I wouldn’t have had to bike to the library to use theirs…ah, well, it was a very nice ride nonetheless. The weather’s been PERFECT! I can’t believe it… Although, my beloved friend Marcia who lived here for years while attending school, says just wait, the humidity will return soon and last through September.

We’re getting our apartment together, slowly but surely…we’ve painted the bedroom, and the plan is to paint the living room this evening…we’re thinking two tones of greenish on the four walls…
Then all we’ll need before school starts is another desk, and a place in the apartment to put it…

Yesterday, around 5pm, we stopped by the wonderful Irish pub again (so far my favorite!) to have a pint and listen to the live music. Started chatting with a nice Frenchman who is a big fan of Chicago…he’s lived here almost 16 years, and says it’s better than LA because it’s not full of earthquakes and fires.

Biking around the city has been INCREDIBLE!!! There’s such a sense of freedom to riding (even while wearing a helmut) versus driving or commuting on the train or bus. You have complete control, you can go as fast as possible, and it’s an excellent workout…my calves are very sore; a good sign.
Thank you grandpa for the b-day gift that allowed me to buy this amazing Japanese road bike! Thank you thank you thank you! Even though it cost more, it was worth it to get all the safe accessories as well-front and back lights for night riding, helmut, and a very sturdy lock.

I forgot the cord to import all the new pix from my camera…but I’ll send images and a video clip when I can! I can’t wait to show you all our new green vintage couch, and the Java bedroom, and soon, the newly painted other rooms…

Much love,
Quinn

Pinché Internets

I really want the Internet. We’ve been waiting 5 days longer than they said it would take. The first time I called AT&T I was on hold 15 minutes and decided to hang up. The next day I called them back and waited on hold for 45 minutes before giving up. Yesterday I called again and waited for 3 hours before the call got dropped. At this point I just want to cancel the order as they’ve given me a clear example of what kind of service to expect, but I can’t get through to do that even. How is this possible? Three hours on hold? Someone help!

First week in Chicago

Today is our 8th day here. It’s been quite a week, everyday taking care of business. Lots of errands. It feels nice though to be getting stuff done. Today we painted our bedroom “Java Float”… It’s more of a warm grey 10U but I like it. Yesterday I got a job at SAIC as a chemist in the photo lab which I’m very happy about, get to mix chemicals and look after the kreonite processor.

Today was Quinns birthday, we went and found a bitchin orange miyata road bike for her, I’m very jealous. It has a late 70s Japanese design sensibilty that I’m quite fond of. Riding a bike here in Chicago seems like much more of a practical decision than it did back in LA. There’s a bike shop on every block and the land is all perfectly level. Today when we bought the bike the owner of the shop insisted on taking us next door to tour his country western bar. They had wall installations made of Mad dog 2020 and thunderbird bottles. The DJ booth was a giant horseshoe. Pretty rad. He was a nice guy.

This past sunday I had the opportunity to march in the “Bud Billiken Parade” in south Chicago with the local SGI members. That was a wonderful experience, we had a float promoting the victory over violence movement with dancers and a couple of guys mcing. It was something I will never forget.

Hopefully tomorrow we’ll get some Internet here. Blogging on the phone is not quite what I would like it to be.

As always,

Casey

Quinn’s 1st BAD Day in Chicago

Ugh…yesterday just wasn’t my day…It started out by early alarm clocks, and went downhill from there (I’m only speaking for myself here, Casey had one of his best days I think!)
So, after getting ready, and heading out the door, it took us about 5 buses and almost 3 hours to get to the Department of State (Chicago-style DMV). We were on a mission to get Illinois drivers licenses…but I ended up back at home without one almost 6 hours later…I didn’t realize (or forced myself to believe it wasn’t true) that I did in fact need my social security card; being the stubborn kind girl that I can be, I felt that I would be able to show them one of the other 7 forms of ID in place of that…but no. I couldn’t get a license, couldn’t register to vote, couldn’t legally change my name, and couldn’t even take the written driving exam (Casey got 100% on that, of course).
Well, there’s a happy ending to this tale…I finally ate some food (after only having yogurt for 6 hours), realized I’ll be able to figure out a great bus route for the next time I have to go to that scary place where everyone seems pissed off…and what really made my day was receiving a care-package/birthday gift in the mail from Clare and Kai!!! It was so wonderful…full of goodies, candy, spices, and even boxed vino that didn’t explode in the mail! Thank you my friends!

…And today has been a super awesome day…Casey got a dream job at SAIC (School of the Art Institute of Chicago) in the photo department, the coffee bean grinder arrived along with the French press, I got an email contact for a woman who can give me the art teaching job of my dreams, and tonight we have plans to go back to the Irish pub (my new favorite place!) to hear more traditional Irish live music! (check out the flickr site in the Quinn section to your right for a short video clip of this Irish pub!)

I love our new home

Hello from “Beans & Bagels” in Chicago! We’re sitting in this lovely coffee shop under the Brown Line, on Montrose Street…just a few blocks from our apartment. The album “Dub Side of the Moon” is playing (reggae/dub remix of Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon.”)…so you get an idea of the semi-hippie vibe in here. They make excellent iced americano’s and jalepeno/hummus/veggie sandwich’s.

So, our new home is a very special place…here’s the entryway, from the front door entrance:

…You can see in the background an open box and one of our messes in the living room…the whole place is kind of a mess right now…and we’ve only opened 6 of the 30 boxes! AAhhhh!! The only problem is that we don’t have any place to put anything…we might have to rent another car for a day to get a table, chairs, a desk perhaps…

Here’s the living room, as of today…

…and our 1st purchases from Trader Joe’s (which is only 6 blocks away from our place!!! Such a benefit!!):

Today, our plan is to get to the bank to join our new branch close to home, then wait for our proof of this new address so we can get new licenses, a legal name change for me, finally, and formal address change. Then off to a used furniture store to, hopefully, buy things like chairs, a table, couch (if we’re lucky!), a desk…Without a car, this may prove to be a bit tricky, but I’ve heard that every business in Chicago area will deliver!

The weather’s been so incredible since we arrived (we must have brought the clear blue skies and cool breeze with us…and what a miracle barely missing that tornado by 1 day!)

Much love to you all…check out more apartment photos by clicking on the link in the Quinn section called “flickr” to your right!

We made it

After driving 3512 miles we are finally at our new apartment in Chicago. Good timing too, apparently we missed a tornando by one day. It looks like a very large tree was knocked over accross the street from our new place (see photo). It’s interesting that we happened to dodge an earthquake on the way out of LA as well. I guess that’s just how we roll…

So after unloading the rental we went to the post office to pick up our junk, only half of it has shown up so far, which is fine with me because I don’t think I can carry anything else up those stairs for a minute.

We are on the brown line right now on the way back from Midway where we dropped off the car. Just passed over the river. We need to find Quinn some coffee because she looks like she’s gonna pass out. So much to do. Anyone know where we can find a free couch?

Leaving Wisconsin, 3 1/2 hours to Chicago

Ok, we’re almost on our way out of the hotel, to our new home in Chicago! Finally showered after another camping adventure, coffeed up on Folger’s made with the coffee maker on the bathroom counter, and ready to hit the road.

Fond memories of Harry Potter and the fabulous art museum in Minneapolis still linger in my mind (see the picture below of the beautiful gallery lobby)…a bit worried about what we will do the last part of our drive without Potter on audio, oh no! I guess we’ll just have to talk to each other…hehe…

The closer we get to a new apartment, in a new city, the more excited I get about starting a new life as a graduate student, as well as growing excitment about not having to live on gooey wheat bread smeared with mustard and a thick layer of turkey…don’t get me wrong, it was a great meal the first few times, but I think I’m actually ready to cook healthy food…I want broccoli and spinach and green beans!!!

somewhere in winsconsin

much has happened since our last post, i’m trying to remember enough of it to make a blog post. we left mount rushmore 2 days ago and drove straight through south dakota… minneapolis… Then to Duluth, that’s right, now i remember. Duluth is the city in northern Minnesota where my Great, Great Grandfather, William A McGonagle was president of the D&IR railroad. We got there in the evening and hd to find a place to sleep, but we did get a chance to check out McGonagle St. which was very interesting after looking at it on google maps from over 2000 miles away.

After that we drove up the coast of lake superior hoping to camp at a place, recommended to us by some people we met from Minnesota in idaho, called Gooseberry falls, but it was full so we had to go another 30 miles north to a campsite called “Eckbeck” about 90 miles south of the canadian border. Beautiful place. Commas are a mystery to me right now.

Then this morning we went to the Duluth railroad museum & public library where we learned a lot about W.A. McGonagle. It turned out they have a memoir about him, dedicated by my Great Great grandmother, Sarah McGonagle, in the Duluth Labrary private collection. There was also a file with newspaper clippings and an actual photograph from the 1920s.

The librarian helped us find out where the house he lived in was and we were able to go see it. There was a cemetary a block away where he and other family members are buried. It was quite and experience to learn that such a close relative played such an important role in history.

So, now we are south of there at a motel somewhere in Wisconsin. Very tired from driving. We finished our Harry Potter CD so it’s time to rest. Tomorrow morning we will be at our new apartment in Chicago and our journey will be finished. Goodnight.