A LOOK AT THE WORLD FROM WHERE I’M STANDING
I haven't seen any evidence of the neighborhood punks in my yard for more than three weeks now (they're probably on vacation), but that doesn't mean my town has been crime-free. Here are two items from recent police blotters.
Police report images of two rabbit heads were spray-painted on a steel rooftop apron at Prairie School.
Police report that spray paint was found on the roof Prairie School, and a stencil of a bunny was found on the west side of the building.
Allow me to introduce you to some real culture.
Now that's a song you can pound on the steering wheel to.
Yes, you read that right. I went to a Mozart Festival. It happened like this: I recently created a list of things to do in the county in which I live. I tried to make it comprehensive, so of course it had to include the Woodstock Opera House.
When I looked at their web site to see what events were approaching, I saw the Mozart Festival. Now it so happens that Mozart is my favorite classical composer (his Rondo Alla Turca is one of my all-favorite pieces of music and would probably be my fallback song if it had words). But I wouldn't exactly call myself a fan.
My wife, on the other hand, listens to the stuff constantly. She buys CDs that cost, like, $80 each and plays them while she reads, while she cooks, while she sleeps … I knew the festival would be right up her alley, if you'll pardon the cliche. (I know there's suppose to be a little thingy over the "e," but the only way to get it is to cut and paste and then it comes out looking like this: cliché.) Anyway … being the wonderful husband that I am, I realized immediately that this would be a win-win situation. (Is that another chiche? And is "if you'll pardon the cliche" a cliche?) And, it made things easy for me because all I had to do was forward the link to her and she did all the arranging and ticket buying — and I still came out looking like a good husband!
The concert was on Sunday afternoon at 3:00. We brought our younger daughter along to expose her to culture. She's taken seven years of classical piano lessons and played Rondo Alla Turca at a recital. (As a matter of fact, so did my older daughter.)
The Woodstock Opera House sits on historic Woodstock Square, made famous in the movie Groundhog Day. The Opera House itself was the Pennsylvania Hotel in the movie (You can see another photo I took of it back in February, 2007.) The building was erected in 1889. Originally the Woodstock city hall, library and fire department were on the first floor with the auditorium upstairs. The other departments have long moved out, but the stage has been in continuous use since opening day. It was restored in 1977. Amazingly, whoever was responsible resisted the impulse to "improve" things, and the inside doesn't look restored — it looks like an old building that has been taken care of.
The sidewalks and entrance were crawling with elderly Mozart fans. In fact, of an audience of about 400, I counted twelve (12!) people who were indisputably younger than I am. Our seats were in the balcony, so we made our way up about six flights of creaky stairs and down another couple flights to our seats. We were in the second row, off to the side, and I could easily have spit watermelon seeds and hit the first violin, but I didn't have any. (Anyway, I'm not sure that's the sort of thing one does at a Mozart concert.) I wasn't allowed to take any photos during the concert, and after almost 
getting kicked out of Wicked (as if that would be a bad thing), I decided to not even bring (if you'll pardon the split infinitive) my camera inside. Here's a shot from the Opera House web site. It looked just like this, only in color — and with an orchestra on the stage and a lot of elderly people in the seats.
The concert lasted two hours, with an intermission so the bassoon players could replace their lips. The program consisted of:
I made up one of those names, but I bet you can't tell me which one.
I didn't think so.
For the Mozart portion, there were 10 violins, two violas, three cellos, a bass, four clarinets, one flute, two bassoons and two French horns. All those musicians returned for the second half, but there was also an additional viola, two trumpets and a percussionist. I found the trumpets somewhat amusing. I don't think they played for two minutes total, and one of the players spent a large portion of his time picking his fingernails.
The conductor was Mark Peskanov, a large Ukrainian gentleman who looked a little like Harold Ramis, which was fitting because Ramis directed Groundhog Day. See how everything fits together?
Most of the post-intermission music — all the Beethoven pieces — featured Peskanov playing his violin. My wife says he played well, but I didn't care much it. I was impressed by the way he could direct with both hands while holding his violin securely in the folds of his chin and neck.
When the concert finished, everybody clapped. I tried to warn people that if they kept it up, the guy would play another song on his violin, but evidently they didn't believe me. They kept clapping and, sure enough, he came back out. He asked how many in the audience had been at the performance the day before, and when almost nobody raised their hands, he said, "Good, I'll play the same 
number." He lifted his violin and then said, "Maybe I'll change the key … Nah." And then he played some frenetic bit of disjointed music that wasn't at all to my liking.
The seats were narrow and uncomfortable and I had reached the limit of my endurance. I was ready to go. My wife took this photo of me leaving the Opera House immediately after the concert.
OK, it wasn't that bad. I recognized the first two Mozart pieces and enjoyed most of the rest. Beethoven I could do without, but two hours wasn't that long. During the concert, I made notes on some random thoughts I had. I'll share them with you tomorrow.
It looked for a while like a storm was building, but all these clouds did nothing more than lower the temperature a refreshing 15 degrees.
When we first got to our seats at U.S. Cellular Field on Tuesday night, a young woman with a camera took a couple photos of my daughter and me. She said we could view them on the web and buy copies if we so wished.
I looked them up today and this is what I found (really!).
OK, it was clearer than that, but otherwise, that's what I saw. I was able to adjust things and get the actual photo, but I still thought it was pretty funny.
They also had a feature that enabled me to move a magnifying glass thingy around and make my head big — for those who like that sort of thing.
I've gotten in the habit of checking the local police blotter to see how many windows the neighborhood thugs have broken lately. (At least 20 within five blocks of my house in the past three months — and that doesn't include ours.)
Anyway, as I was perusing the list, I happened upon this:
Michael S________, 30, of Elk Grove Village, was charged Friday, June 20, with possession of a short fish.
I had no idea that was illegal. But maybe it accounts for this — somebody was getting rid of incriminating evidence.
Awana bought a bunch of tickets to take a visiting group to a White Sox game. The group cancelled, so they offered the tickets to staff for free. We grabbed five — the four of us and my sister. We rode down on a cushy coach bus with 43 other coworkers and their family members. Traffic was light and we arrived about an hour before game time, giving me time to stroll about and take some pictures.
Our seats were just four rows up from the field down the third-base line near the foul pole. We had a fantastic view of the left fielder, but had to twist our necks quite a bit to see home plate. Here's a sample of the exciting action we saw take place right in front of us (the White Sox left fielder is Nick Swisher):
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The game wasn't very suspenseful, but it was fun for White Sox fans. Highlights included:
Here's the scoreboard celebration after Pierzynski's home run (note the moon over the scoreboard):
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Here's Ken Griffey Jr. inaction (sorry) in action.
The White Sox won 9-0. Click here to see the box score.
The front row emptied out after the eighth inning. Several of us, including my daughter and me, climbed down and enjoyed feeling like big shots. The shot on the left shows our view from those seats.
Of course you're wondering where my panorama shots are … (Click to enlarge. Click twice to enlarge twice.)
One last bit of excitement. I decided it was time I had my first funnel cake. I waited until the fifth inning to let my pre-game Polish sausage settle, then went to the concourse to a booth called The Funnel Cake Factory. I paid my $4 and returned to my seat to experience the thrill.
My reaction — It was greasy. It didn't taste awful, but mostly it was greasy. Nicole, who was sitting in front of me, told me that my life would never be the same. I thought she meant that in a good way … Anyway, we had a great time hanging around and laughing with coworkers we haven't spent much time with before.
Getting a good photo of an Indigo Bunting is a challenge. To begin with, their blue appearance is due to light reflection — they have no blue pigment in their feathers. (No birds do. Find a Blue Jay feather and look at it out of the light. It will be gray. Find a Cardinal feather and look at it out of the light. It will still be red.) So if the light isn't perfect, it's just a gray bunting.
In addition, Indigo Buntings tend to choose perches high in the trees where it's difficult to get a good angle on them. I was watching a young deer when this one came down to see what I was doing in its neighborhood. I didn't get very close, but at least these shots show what they look like in the light.
