Author Archives: Donncha

And an expensive one..

1. Payed the car insurance for a year.
2. Booked and payed for flights from Chicago to Boston and New York to Chicago for next month

I could have saved money on the car insurance but I’m far away from home and organising past insurance details and policy numbers would be a pain from here.
Oh yeah, I’m heading to Boston on August 20th and New York on the 24th. Back to Chicago on the 27th. If you’re in those two cities around then I’d love to get in touch!

J1 visa applicants in the USA are having a lot of trouble finding work because they haven’t got a Social Security Number. Apparently, employers can hire and pay students who have applied for an SSN but I haven’t seen it happen. This online.ie story has more, and here’s a realaudio interview with Seana MacReamoinn, spokesperson for USIT explaining the situation for students.

hehe.. Safari isn’t too bad.. posting this from the Apple Store on Michigan Avenue. It’s nice. 🙂

Yes, yes, I’m here in the office at my PC, but it’s not very nice outside right now (thunderstorm this morning, more rain expected later!) so I don’t mind too much.
The official fireworks in Chicago were on July 3rd in Grant Park (not sure why it’s a day early but who am I to argue with tradition?) When we got down there the place was thronged with people. Estimates of last year’s attendance are around 1.5 million people! I’d believe it. Here’s a pic of people leaving – all we could see in front of us was a sea of humanity, the same if we turned around!

I took a lot of photos of the fireworks but unfortunately I only had a small tripod, and some guy decided to stand up right in front of us after we had been sitting, and waiting patiently for an hour.. *grrr* When I swapped places I had to contend with a woman sitting on a collapsible chair.
Here’s what the final fireworks display was like. You’ll also get an idea of how close we were. For photography I should have been further back a bit maybe.

Despite the crowds we got onto the L and off home within 20 minutes. If you didn’t have a transit card ready you were in for a wait though as there were long queues at the vending machines.

Here’s a few of the fireworks from July 3rd.

I saw the fireworks last night at Navy Pier too. The show was shorter but better – the fireworks were mostly synchronised to music, and the shapes such as smiley faces and stars appeared in the sky which I’d never seen before! Unfortunately I didn’t have my camera, so no pics from that night.
Going home was mostly uneventful. There was a huge crowd at the Red Line Grand Station, but as half the vending machines broke down they left everyone through without paying. That was a big bonus for me as my 7 day pass expired 4 hours previously!

I may not post again until next Monday, certainly there won’t be any pictures posted as tomorrow is a holiday here in the USA.
Look out for some fireworks photographs next week hopefully!