The Chicago Machine is still alive!

I went in person to register to vote at 69 West Washington before the original deadline. The lady at the office looked at my application, which I had downloaded and filled out ahead of time, and asked for my driver's license. She took my license, copied down the number, made a photocopy, and told me to check for my voter card in the mail. I was in and out in a matter of seconds. Wow! There must be a catch!

Heh...indeed, there was.

This past Friday, I received an envelope in the mail from the board of elections. Was it my voter card? Noooooooooooooo. It was a letter informing me that my registration did not go through because my application was missing some information, specifically my driver's license number.

Okay, now go back and read that first paragraph again.

What's wrong with this picture? One of my coworkers suggested that perhaps I voted against Daley at some point in my life. Well, that's not true, because I never voted in Chicago...partly because the city wouldn't LET me vote.

Oh...and what's more...the letter, which I received on Friday, January 18. And I work full-time, which means I didn't get the letter until after all the offices had closed. And the letter informed me that I had until January 22 to register.

Guess what I spent my lunch break doing.

I love Chicago, but if the entire government went up in flames, I'd be a very happy man.

CTA isn't all that bad.

Well, it's that time of month again: time for the Chicago Transit Authority to threaten to cut service, fire people, and increase fares. Yeah, we've heard this all before on more than one occasion, and it gets old. And yes, as recently as, oh...today...I had a train door shut in my face when I was trying to board the Brown Line. But you know what? The CTA does have a good side. The following pictures from the past holiday season are proof. (The timestamps are an hour off -- my camera didn't subtract an hour when we went back to standard time.)

On December 20, 2007, the CTA Holiday Train was doing the Red Line route northbound at about 6:30pm from where I work. I happen to get off work at 6:00, so I stayed late for a few minutes to ride the Holiday Train. It's really a nice thing. Here it is arriving at the Harrison stop:


Here's a bit of what the inside looked like:


Another angle of the inside of the car...


Windows are frosted with winter designs...


The usual ads you see near the ceiling were replaced by fake ads, including this one for "Northstar Bucks Coffee."


More fake advertisements...


The Holiday Train is completely decked out in Christmas. Christmas lights everywhere, Christmas music piped in over the PA...even the seats had Christmas-themed upholstery.


Due to switching or signaling problems, we were delayed at Belmont, so Santa stepped off his car to pose for pictures with customers.


Really, if this isn't enough reason to give CTA a pat on the back, then I don't know what is.