So, I'm supposed to be making my way right now over to Lillstreet Center, a multifunctional ceramics facility at the corner of Montrose and Ravenswood. And why am I supposed to be making my way to Lillstreet? Well, because I'm in the middle right now of trying to open up my own multifunctional arts facility here in Chicago; and one of the things I'm doing these days is meeting up with SCORE, a non-profit group of retired corporate executives, who do nothing but offer free advice to people just like me; and my liason at SCORE, who I call *Ernie here at my journal, also helped the owners of Lillstreet when they first started out; so he suggested that I go check out what it is that they're doing these days, before my next meeting with him this coming Tuesday.

But alas, it's raining as we speak, and I'm trying as much as possible not to bike while it's raining if it can be helped. (And, well, it's not really the current rain that's worrying me, but rather the giant thunderstorm we're supposed to get later this afternoon. [UPDATE, 3 PM: Yep, it's here.]) So, sigh, I guess Lillstreet will have to wait until tomorrow. Which actually works out pretty well, to tell you the truth, because I finally visited Lillstreet's website yesterday and realized that they are in fact having an open house on Saturday for the general public, with most of their staff on hand to answer questions. So maybe today's rain has worked out for the best after all.

So instead, I thought I'd finally post a report on the other field trip I made this week, which was finally getting my ass over to the fancy-schmancy year-old bicycle center in the Loop's Millennium Park, originally done this last Tuesday. A little background for those who need it:

Right now the city government of Chicago is spending just enormous amounts of money, time and effort, in an attempt to make Chicago known as "the most bike-friendly big city in America." This is a pet project of our mayor, in fact, a big bicycling nut himself (in fact, for Chicagoans who don't know, Daley actually bikes from his house to City Hall and back every single working day), which is why our biking program is as well-supported as it is. (I should explain that our mayor is a regular European traveler himself, and is always coming back from these trips with all these crazy ideas he saw over there. We're the only big city in America that I know of, for example, that's starting to plant "green roofs" on the tops of all government buildings, and also the only big city I know of that allows dogs in bars.)

So like I said, Chicago is sinking just this incredible amount of money and other resources into our bicycling program these days - we have over 10,000 city-funded bike racks, for example, over 200 miles of exclusive bike lanes on our streets, almost 70 train stations now with indoor bicycle parking, watched over 24 hours a day by CTA security. And a sort of jewel in this whole program is the city's new downtown bike center, located on the north edge of the "so popular it's legitimately scary" Millennium Park. The center actually cost $3 million to build, believe it or not, and is meant to be a very public reminder of just how seriously Chicago is taking bicycling these days.

So, here's the view of the center as you first approach it; it's actually a three-story structure, most of it underground, with you seeing the top floor of it when you first arrive. This top floor, in fact, is a fully-functioning outdoor cafe, with seating and a little courtyard off to the side. This is the tourist face of the center, pretty much the only part of it you'll need if you don't live in Chicago; among other amenities, this is where they also have a couple of dozen bikes stacked up that tourists can rent for an hour, a day, or multiple days.

To go inside, you just go around to the back of the center, and this is what you see when you first do so - a giant atrium covered in glass, where paying members of the center are allowed to store their bikes for fast access. It's pretty cool! The whole thing works on a series of levers and pulleys, so that you can actually have multiple vertical tiers of bike racks from the floor to the ceiling. There's also a free air hose in this room, for anyone who needs to fill up.

From there you head downstairs, which is where the majority of the center's resources can be found. This, for example, is a shot of yet more bike storage for members, along with lockers that both members and visitors can rent out. Around the corner, then, is a series of showers as well (which for obvious reasons I couldn't get a shot of), which can also be accessed by both members and visitors for a fee. (You can buy a ten-day pass for all these amenities for $10, which is pretty amazing; even better, an entire year's membership is only $99. But those are long past being sold out, so you'll have to get on a waiting list if you want one.) There's nothing fancy about the interior, but it's not exactly spartan either; just a nice, well-lit, comfortable-feeling space. Oh, and did I mention that there's a permanent police station in the center as well? There is! And there are cops just everywhere in the facility as well, or at least on the day I visited.

Then on top of all this, there's also a bike repair shop right inside the premises as well, along with a retail center; the general public can of course take advantage of these at full retail price, while members get a discount on all repairs and merchandise. And then there's a front desk, of course, around the corner from what you're looking at; and then in the basement (which I also didn't get a photo of) is just general secured parking for something like 300 potential bikes. And that's maybe the coolest thing of all about the new center - that it's completely free if all you want to do is park your bike in an indoor location that's being watched over by the cops. And that's a really great idea, especially considering just how many outdoor festivals take place downtown every year.

Finally, like I mentioned, this is not just a facility for Chicago citizens; there are dozens of rentable bikes as well, all stacked up outdoors on the first floor. Here's a shot, for example, of one of the bikes you can rent, which I think in this case was $38 for an entire day. (They have one-speeds, mountain bikes, kids' bikes, even two- and three-seater tandem bikes, each going for a slightly different rate.)

So that's it! And color me impressed, man! It's nice to see that all $3 million sunk into this center went to good use, and I just think it's incredibly cool that the city would find bicycling this important, to build something this impressive downtown just to encourage more people to bike. Anyway, if you want to find out more, or learn more about the incentives the city provides companies for encouraging their employees to bike to work, you can go to the bike center's website, located at chicagobikestation.com.

And some random notes, as long as I'm here...

--So as expected, I got a number of emails yesterday mocking my prediction of "customer vigilante groups," with the common argument going, "Customers will never get so angry at companies that they'd form terrorist organizations and start assassinating CEOs." Oh yeah? Would you like to say that again to, say, a former stockholder of Enron? In fact, I'll even go one better and say this - that if that Ebbers fuck hadn't gotten the massive jail sentence he did, for his role in the whole fiasco, I guarantee you that one of those former stockholders would've simply shot him in the head and gotten their justice that way. I GUARANTEE that.

Think about this - of a group of cigarette customers who all now have lung cancer, and are going to die in the next year anyway. Think about this - of a group of older insurance-company customers, who have all lost spouses in the last year because their insurance companies wouldn't approve certain procedures. If you think that customers are incapable of getting so angry at companies that they would form bloody vigilante groups, then you're lying to yourself and will undoubtedly be one of the first people killed when all this actually starts happening. Twenty years from now, when you show up for work one day and find out that your office has been torched to the ground, just remember: I warned you.

--Guilty television pleasure, part 1: That cellphone commercial with that fat dude, who's contemplating a life as a pet psychiatrist instead of the famous rapper he actually is - every time that old guy with the pigeons holds out his hands and yells, "I love you unconditionally!," I just laugh and laugh and laugh.

--Guilty television pleasure, part 2: That mouthwash commercial, featuring some old dude using the bathroom and his grandson watching him - every time he slaps on aftershave and yells, "The burn means it's working!," I laugh and laugh and laugh. Why yes, I am ashamed of myself!

--So for those who don't know, the CTA Tattler website (a watchdog organization that reports on problems with Chicago's transit system) is sponsoring a citizen-run SMS service now, where if you happen to get stuck on a train, you can send an instant message to everyone in the group, letting them instantly know that there's a problem with one of the lines, before they get on the train themselves. And I'm a member of the list too, and so far have been pretty happy with how it's worked. But there's a growing problem with the SMS list as well, that's starting to get talked about within the group - namely, there's a growing number of people who are using the list as they would a chat room, or discussion board. I mean, they're not actually having chat-style conversations, but they'll do things like send an "OK!" message after receiving a tip, or "Thanks for the heads-up!" And this is a real problem, because these messages go out to everyone in the group, just like actual alerts about delayed service do. And it's not like you can ignore them, because it's your phone - and so, a growing amount of times each day, right in the middle of trying to get something done on my Treo, I'll start getting a rash of SMSs popping up in real time, and forcing me to hit "ignore" over and over and over.

And it makes me wonder - is there a better way for doing this that already exists? It's a tricky question, because it's a tricky situation - you need something that allows for open signup, something that allows all members to post messages, in a format so that messages get sent instantaneously, while still allowing a way for off-topic messages to not go through. I'm not sure if such an option even exists; but, I know how many software developers read my journal each day (um, a lot), so thought I'd give all you nerds a really intriguing challenge for you all to chew on for awhile. Anyway, if anyone has any thoughts on the matter, please feel free to send them my way.

--So what's one of the things you can look forward to at this site next year? Well, how about audio recordings of all my old literary work, finally? The idea was of course inspired by the growing amount of MP3 audio books out there, MP3 film commentaries, MP3 museum walkthroughs, and all the other incredibly cool things people are coming up with for spreading audio information on the web; and this just makes perfect sense in my case, in that most of my old literary work was written in the first place with live performance in mind. Anyway, hopefully come a year from now I will finally have steady work again, finally have a new laptop with USB ports (I'm still on a SCSI-drive Mac running OS9, if you can believe it), and finally have a Sony Minidisc recorder, which I've been wanting for six years now, ever since getting to play with Michael Huang's MD at the 1999 National Poetry Slam. And at that point I can sit down and actually start recording audio versions of all my old poetry and stories - you know, nothing fancy, just like what you would get with a typical audio book. And that way, those who want will be able to interact with my work as they would any other audiobook, which I understand is a very popular way for a lot of people (especially suburban car commuters) to interact with literature. So anyway, that's something to look forward to.

Okay, that's it for today; as Jim from The Onion says, I'll rap with you dudes again later.