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sparrI moved because of a job offer. I accidentally applied for a job in Chicago, thinking it was in San Francisco due to some website filtering shenanigans. Fast forward a few days and I get an email asking "are you willing to relocate to Chicago", to which I respond with a cautions affirmative. A few phone interviews and some negotiation later and I discovered I'd be moving on a week's notice.
I moved by plane and started the new job the day after I laneded. The timeline was tight because I needed as much overlap time as possible with the person whose duties I was taking over. The job is at SK Intertainment, and my first day was the day of their 15th anniversary company party. It was pretty crazy, for reasons you might guess if you look the company up. The first month at work has involved a lot of learning my way around the systems that run the company. My predecessor spent 10 years setting up a very effective but deep system that I'm now almost entirely responsible for. I'll be spending a lot of the next 6 months continuing that trend, every day adding one more thing to the list of problems I can solve on short notice.
I spent a week staying at hotels, hostels, and with my girlfriend's parents. I haven't been homeless in a while, and that was an interesting experience. I could stand to do that again in the future, carrying just my backpack for a week or a month of traveling. That's definitely on my to-do list, hopefully with a travel partner or two.
I got an apartment in Logan Square, a neighborhood on the northwest side of Chicago. It's a lot like Somerville, with plenty of small businesses and younger folks. I'm in the predominantly Hispanic part of the neighborhood, and I'm perfectly fine with the friendlier neighbors and lower housing prices that come from living somewhere devoid of white people who are afraid to live near brown people. While hunting for a rental I discovered that real estate prices are astonishlingly low around here. My apartment is similarly located to the house I had in Boston (1 block from the bus, 1 mile from the train, 5 miles from city center), 1200sqft with three bedrooms and two baths, freshly renovated, and it's listed for sale for $180k, which I already know is negotiable. There is a not-insignificant chance that I will attempt to buy it at some point in the next year.
I've spent one or two nights a week so far exploring various social scenes, including maker, gamer, and kink venues and events.
There are a couple of notable hackerspaces here, and I've been spending some time at Pumping Station One. It's better equipped than Freeside Atlanta and much less so than Artisan's Asylum. I suspect it's close to what A2 looked like in a previous location when it was much smaller. Unlike A2's less-community-oriented more-tech-shop model, PS1 is a real hackerspace, with a more involved and cooperative membership along with a lower budget and more personal involvement and investment in the shops and workspaces. The shops are as well equipped as I need for the majority of my upcoming projects, and certification on the various sets of tools is free, as opposed to the hundreds to thousands of dollars that I never could convince myself to spend at A2. In a month here I've gotten authorized to use their wood shop, shopbot, laser cutter, 3d printers, and vinyl cutter. In the near future I'll get certified on their electronics lab and metal shop equipment, and probably the sewing lab and knitting machines as well. There are meetups and "office hours" for shops and project groups almost every night. I look forward to a fun and productive time participating in PS1.
Before describing the gaming scene, I should tangent for a moment and mention that Meetup.com is based in Chicago. They have more market penetration here than every city I've lived before combined. There are more social events advertised on Meetup here than on FB and G+ and EventBrite combined. There might even be more sex/kink events on Meetup here than there are on Fetlife; it's close if not. And, to their credit, Meetup is by far the better platform for groups that exist specifically to promote events, and for events that recur. If I'm ever bored, I can just check Meetup for a dozens of events within transit distance that I might check out.
Every night there are multiple 10+ person gaming meetups around Chicago. There's one in my neighborhood at a comic/game store every week, and another near work also every week. I've found varying levels of openness to newcomers, none negative but some more positive than others. The groups range from social gamers to hard core strategy gamers, and I've enjoyed the variety. I will definitely be hosting game nights here, and/or dragging parts of my collection across the city with some frequency.
Kink in Chicago has some new twists for me. I haven't thoroughly explored the community at all, and it will be months before I start seeing any of the truly private parties, but I've checked out some of the public-ish clubs and am ready to report on them. First of all, I do not at all miss Boston's lack of a public kink scene. Chicago, like Atlanta, has multiple play venues that are attended by a large number of people with frequency. One distinction here is their nature as membership clubs. Clubs in other cities pay lip service to the idea, but in Chicago they take it seriously. If you haven't gotten a membership well in advance, you aren't getting into the venue (unless you're a guest of a member). The result of this is that the clubs really are organized more like social clubs. Members pay a higher monthly membership fee than elsewhere, but there are no door charges. Once you've paid your $XX for the month, you can attend as frequently as you like. This leads to the clubs actually being social hangouts for kinky people, which is something that you only get at munches elsewhere. In terms of scale, all three clubs in Chicago that I know of are larger and better equipped than any play space I've seen before outside of a convention. I think I'm going to enjoy further exploring the kink scene here.
This weekend I had my first exposure to the local burner community, at a decompression event a couple of hours from Chicago. I got to show off my rope skills, electrified a number of people, had some engaging conversations about high and low technology, and contributed some know-how and enthusiasm to some others' projects. Hopefully I avoided the "one trick pony" pigeonhole I've found myself stuck in occasionally in the past. I met more likeminded Chicago locals there than I've met in a month in the city. However, the event had a distinctly festival-y feel, with very obvious widespread ignorance of the ten principles. What I've seen so far makes me think the community is less active here than in Boston or Atlanta, and closer to Atlanta in terms of raver/festivalgoer/burner crossover, where Boston had a much "burnier" flavor. This, more than anything, is something I need to investigate further.
Romantically, Chicago is, so far, about as slow as any other city for someone like me. I don't really do bars or night clubs, and I'm not pretty enough to have much success with online dating, so the first month has been pretty empty. I've arranged two meetings through fetlife and reddit, one of which led to an enjoyable afternoon at an art expo that isn't likely to lead to anything else, and the other being the first time I've ever been stood up for a first date with a stranger. I expect that, like Boston and Atlanta and Nashville, my romantic prospects will pick up as my social circles widen and I find myself in the company of acquaintances and friends with shared interests and outlooks.
Aside from all the community and social aspects of my interpersonal experience in Chicago, there are a lot of features of the city itself that are notable.
24 hour food. Atlanta has some specific chains open 24 hours. Boston has effectively none. Chicago fast food chains, sit down chains, breakfast restaurants, diners, and every other category, all with some 24 hour locations. I don't think I've been anywhere at 4AM yet that wasn't within a mile of a couple of open restaurants.
Transit. Since I moved to Nashville, every time I've moved (-> Nashville -> Atlanta -> Boston) I've upgraded to a better transit system. Chicago contiues this trend. After this I think my choices might be limited to New York, London, and a few cities in Asia. The city trains (CTA) run frequently, go more places than anywhere I've lived before, and run 24 hours. The city buses are more predictable (see below) and regular than anywhere I've seen, and some of them are 24 hour as well. The commuter trains (Metra) have stations in the city and stretch for 30+ miles in far more directions than the Boston commuter rail. They are suffering growing pains while switching to a combined payment system (Ventra), but it's bearable.
The city is flat. Flatter than you think Kansas is. In a recent 15 mile bike ride I might have had a maximum altitude variation of 40 feet, and most of that was an underpass. As a lazy cyclist, this has really helped me stay motivated to get out and bike more often. I never have to plan my routes to avoid hills, or work up an extra heavy sweat on a tough part of the ride. I can just have a ride at the speed and energy level of my choice from point A to point B.
The street grid. I fell in love the moment I discovered it, and it's only gotten better since then. To start, there's a street grid, period. I've seen them in cities I've visited, but never lived with one bigger than a downtown area. Chicago's grid stretches 5-10 miles from the city center in every direction (except into the lake). You can get on many north/south streets and drive for 10+ miles straight north. Next, the grid is regular. There are major streets every half mile, with decreasing size and priority streets at quarter and eighth miles. 95% of the "blocks" in the city are one of a few specific sizes that are multiples of a 1/16th mile square. Unlike Boston's "square" system where there are islands of commerce and infrastructure in a sea of residential area, Chicago has square islands of residences separated by grid lines of commerce. Next, the grid is regularly *numbered*, with a few explicit exceptions. One mile is 800 street numbers, and all of the same number are aligned, so 2700 N Kedzie and 2700 N Damen are due east/west of each other, while 1500 N Damen and 2700 N Damen are 1.5 miles apart. The buses also mostly follow the grid. If you need to get somewhere northwest of where you are, you get on a bus going north then transfer to a bus going west, or vice versa. I'd been here a week before I mostly stopped needing my GPS for large scale city navigation. Incidentally, the grid combines with the flatness to produce insanely long sight lines.
The alleys. Almost every block in the city, and many in the suburbs, has an alley running down its long axis, behind the houses on both sides. This alley is where you will find garage entrances, most driveways, trash cans and dumpsters, "curb shopping" items, etc. This means there are few driveway-vs-street traffic problems, and rarely do you see a garbage truck stopping on a throughfare.
The lake. There's a freshwater lake a few miles from my house that's so big you can't across it in the narrow direction, let along the long one. I don't yet know how that might be important, but it seems worth noting.
The weather. Chicago is the most extreme place I've lived so far, with hotter summers and colder winters than Boston. Lake effect snow storms are no joke. I've seen Chicago winters while traveling, and lived through northern Ohio winters, so I think I'm prepared. My housemate isn't, so we might just wrap her in a blanket burrito for the whole winter.
If not for all the people I left behind in Boston, including the person I love most, I'd call Chicago the clear winner. After 2.5 years in Boston I had finally managed to establish some long lasting friendships and other relationships. Hopefully those will persist despite the distance, and I can convince people to visit me, and I'll be able to find more good people in Chicago. As with all things, time will tell.
I moved by plane and started the new job the day after I laneded. The timeline was tight because I needed as much overlap time as possible with the person whose duties I was taking over. The job is at SK Intertainment, and my first day was the day of their 15th anniversary company party. It was pretty crazy, for reasons you might guess if you look the company up. The first month at work has involved a lot of learning my way around the systems that run the company. My predecessor spent 10 years setting up a very effective but deep system that I'm now almost entirely responsible for. I'll be spending a lot of the next 6 months continuing that trend, every day adding one more thing to the list of problems I can solve on short notice.
I spent a week staying at hotels, hostels, and with my girlfriend's parents. I haven't been homeless in a while, and that was an interesting experience. I could stand to do that again in the future, carrying just my backpack for a week or a month of traveling. That's definitely on my to-do list, hopefully with a travel partner or two.
I got an apartment in Logan Square, a neighborhood on the northwest side of Chicago. It's a lot like Somerville, with plenty of small businesses and younger folks. I'm in the predominantly Hispanic part of the neighborhood, and I'm perfectly fine with the friendlier neighbors and lower housing prices that come from living somewhere devoid of white people who are afraid to live near brown people. While hunting for a rental I discovered that real estate prices are astonishlingly low around here. My apartment is similarly located to the house I had in Boston (1 block from the bus, 1 mile from the train, 5 miles from city center), 1200sqft with three bedrooms and two baths, freshly renovated, and it's listed for sale for $180k, which I already know is negotiable. There is a not-insignificant chance that I will attempt to buy it at some point in the next year.
I've spent one or two nights a week so far exploring various social scenes, including maker, gamer, and kink venues and events.
There are a couple of notable hackerspaces here, and I've been spending some time at Pumping Station One. It's better equipped than Freeside Atlanta and much less so than Artisan's Asylum. I suspect it's close to what A2 looked like in a previous location when it was much smaller. Unlike A2's less-community-oriented more-tech-shop model, PS1 is a real hackerspace, with a more involved and cooperative membership along with a lower budget and more personal involvement and investment in the shops and workspaces. The shops are as well equipped as I need for the majority of my upcoming projects, and certification on the various sets of tools is free, as opposed to the hundreds to thousands of dollars that I never could convince myself to spend at A2. In a month here I've gotten authorized to use their wood shop, shopbot, laser cutter, 3d printers, and vinyl cutter. In the near future I'll get certified on their electronics lab and metal shop equipment, and probably the sewing lab and knitting machines as well. There are meetups and "office hours" for shops and project groups almost every night. I look forward to a fun and productive time participating in PS1.
Before describing the gaming scene, I should tangent for a moment and mention that Meetup.com is based in Chicago. They have more market penetration here than every city I've lived before combined. There are more social events advertised on Meetup here than on FB and G+ and EventBrite combined. There might even be more sex/kink events on Meetup here than there are on Fetlife; it's close if not. And, to their credit, Meetup is by far the better platform for groups that exist specifically to promote events, and for events that recur. If I'm ever bored, I can just check Meetup for a dozens of events within transit distance that I might check out.
Every night there are multiple 10+ person gaming meetups around Chicago. There's one in my neighborhood at a comic/game store every week, and another near work also every week. I've found varying levels of openness to newcomers, none negative but some more positive than others. The groups range from social gamers to hard core strategy gamers, and I've enjoyed the variety. I will definitely be hosting game nights here, and/or dragging parts of my collection across the city with some frequency.
Kink in Chicago has some new twists for me. I haven't thoroughly explored the community at all, and it will be months before I start seeing any of the truly private parties, but I've checked out some of the public-ish clubs and am ready to report on them. First of all, I do not at all miss Boston's lack of a public kink scene. Chicago, like Atlanta, has multiple play venues that are attended by a large number of people with frequency. One distinction here is their nature as membership clubs. Clubs in other cities pay lip service to the idea, but in Chicago they take it seriously. If you haven't gotten a membership well in advance, you aren't getting into the venue (unless you're a guest of a member). The result of this is that the clubs really are organized more like social clubs. Members pay a higher monthly membership fee than elsewhere, but there are no door charges. Once you've paid your $XX for the month, you can attend as frequently as you like. This leads to the clubs actually being social hangouts for kinky people, which is something that you only get at munches elsewhere. In terms of scale, all three clubs in Chicago that I know of are larger and better equipped than any play space I've seen before outside of a convention. I think I'm going to enjoy further exploring the kink scene here.
This weekend I had my first exposure to the local burner community, at a decompression event a couple of hours from Chicago. I got to show off my rope skills, electrified a number of people, had some engaging conversations about high and low technology, and contributed some know-how and enthusiasm to some others' projects. Hopefully I avoided the "one trick pony" pigeonhole I've found myself stuck in occasionally in the past. I met more likeminded Chicago locals there than I've met in a month in the city. However, the event had a distinctly festival-y feel, with very obvious widespread ignorance of the ten principles. What I've seen so far makes me think the community is less active here than in Boston or Atlanta, and closer to Atlanta in terms of raver/festivalgoer/burner crossover, where Boston had a much "burnier" flavor. This, more than anything, is something I need to investigate further.
Romantically, Chicago is, so far, about as slow as any other city for someone like me. I don't really do bars or night clubs, and I'm not pretty enough to have much success with online dating, so the first month has been pretty empty. I've arranged two meetings through fetlife and reddit, one of which led to an enjoyable afternoon at an art expo that isn't likely to lead to anything else, and the other being the first time I've ever been stood up for a first date with a stranger. I expect that, like Boston and Atlanta and Nashville, my romantic prospects will pick up as my social circles widen and I find myself in the company of acquaintances and friends with shared interests and outlooks.
Aside from all the community and social aspects of my interpersonal experience in Chicago, there are a lot of features of the city itself that are notable.
24 hour food. Atlanta has some specific chains open 24 hours. Boston has effectively none. Chicago fast food chains, sit down chains, breakfast restaurants, diners, and every other category, all with some 24 hour locations. I don't think I've been anywhere at 4AM yet that wasn't within a mile of a couple of open restaurants.
Transit. Since I moved to Nashville, every time I've moved (-> Nashville -> Atlanta -> Boston) I've upgraded to a better transit system. Chicago contiues this trend. After this I think my choices might be limited to New York, London, and a few cities in Asia. The city trains (CTA) run frequently, go more places than anywhere I've lived before, and run 24 hours. The city buses are more predictable (see below) and regular than anywhere I've seen, and some of them are 24 hour as well. The commuter trains (Metra) have stations in the city and stretch for 30+ miles in far more directions than the Boston commuter rail. They are suffering growing pains while switching to a combined payment system (Ventra), but it's bearable.
The city is flat. Flatter than you think Kansas is. In a recent 15 mile bike ride I might have had a maximum altitude variation of 40 feet, and most of that was an underpass. As a lazy cyclist, this has really helped me stay motivated to get out and bike more often. I never have to plan my routes to avoid hills, or work up an extra heavy sweat on a tough part of the ride. I can just have a ride at the speed and energy level of my choice from point A to point B.
The street grid. I fell in love the moment I discovered it, and it's only gotten better since then. To start, there's a street grid, period. I've seen them in cities I've visited, but never lived with one bigger than a downtown area. Chicago's grid stretches 5-10 miles from the city center in every direction (except into the lake). You can get on many north/south streets and drive for 10+ miles straight north. Next, the grid is regular. There are major streets every half mile, with decreasing size and priority streets at quarter and eighth miles. 95% of the "blocks" in the city are one of a few specific sizes that are multiples of a 1/16th mile square. Unlike Boston's "square" system where there are islands of commerce and infrastructure in a sea of residential area, Chicago has square islands of residences separated by grid lines of commerce. Next, the grid is regularly *numbered*, with a few explicit exceptions. One mile is 800 street numbers, and all of the same number are aligned, so 2700 N Kedzie and 2700 N Damen are due east/west of each other, while 1500 N Damen and 2700 N Damen are 1.5 miles apart. The buses also mostly follow the grid. If you need to get somewhere northwest of where you are, you get on a bus going north then transfer to a bus going west, or vice versa. I'd been here a week before I mostly stopped needing my GPS for large scale city navigation. Incidentally, the grid combines with the flatness to produce insanely long sight lines.
The alleys. Almost every block in the city, and many in the suburbs, has an alley running down its long axis, behind the houses on both sides. This alley is where you will find garage entrances, most driveways, trash cans and dumpsters, "curb shopping" items, etc. This means there are few driveway-vs-street traffic problems, and rarely do you see a garbage truck stopping on a throughfare.
The lake. There's a freshwater lake a few miles from my house that's so big you can't across it in the narrow direction, let along the long one. I don't yet know how that might be important, but it seems worth noting.
The weather. Chicago is the most extreme place I've lived so far, with hotter summers and colder winters than Boston. Lake effect snow storms are no joke. I've seen Chicago winters while traveling, and lived through northern Ohio winters, so I think I'm prepared. My housemate isn't, so we might just wrap her in a blanket burrito for the whole winter.
If not for all the people I left behind in Boston, including the person I love most, I'd call Chicago the clear winner. After 2.5 years in Boston I had finally managed to establish some long lasting friendships and other relationships. Hopefully those will persist despite the distance, and I can convince people to visit me, and I'll be able to find more good people in Chicago. As with all things, time will tell.