DadTalk

Outing for Kids On Track

As a surprise for our track-obsessed son, we took our kids this weekend to National Train Day, which was sponsored by Amtrak at Chicago’s Union Station.

Success was guaranteed, even though there were some hiccups. The worst moment came when Lael, who had been hanging onto the model train table, disappeared when I glanced at some of the freebies my wife collected. (Note the hats and whistles the kids have on the jump.)

One minute our little girl was there, and the next she was gone. I didn’t take my eyes off her for more than 20 seconds.

Anne and Seth found her in the care of a police officer. The whole incident took less than a few minutes, but it felt like hours. Lael recovered quickly though, as you can see in the picture.

The other hiccup was construction on the Elevated. While we were able to take the train in, repairs meant it was near impossible to take it back home, so we took the bus.

The kids seemed okay with that. All in all, a great day.

Dad Is on the Right Track at Least During This Outing

Like many boys, Seth has a deep love of trains. For more than a year now, he’s been begging us for an electric set.

We’ve said not until we move into a larger space. Our current apartment is just too small.

As consolation, I took our boy to a train demo at the Deerfield Library a couple of weeks ago. Apparently, the train club goes to libraries to show off their trains while the library benefits from the influx of visitors.

One of the train club members gave us every catalog known to man save one: Lego Trains. (I showed that stuff to Seth when we came home.)

At one point during the exhibit, Seth started to melt down. “I want a train set now,” he cried. I explained to Seth he had a choice: Enjoy the moment or we could go home. He snapped out of it and had a great time right until the exhibit closed.

Chicago Transit Is a Rip Off

Last week my Chicago Transit Card started to die. The card, which automatically deducts $1.75 from my credit card for every bus ride, was refusing to register without 3-4 swipes.

Actually, Chicago Transit makes interest off the $60 it deducts from my credit card whenever the balance drops below a few bucks. Then the agency takes $1.75 a trip from an interest-bearing account that benefits Chicago Transit.

Gee, $1.75 to ride on buses that pump diesel directly into the cabin. I’m paying to get lung cancer.

So I ordered a replacement card and Chicago Transit, in all it’s rip-off splendor, CHARGED me $5 for the new one. I paid that same amount for the original less than a year ago.

It’s not my fault those things are JUNK. Worse, Chicago Transit deactivated my card immediately. In other words, BEFORE the new one arrives. I guess I’ll be walking home. Oh wait, it’s 8 degrees outside.

Double bonus: it’s $2 for cash payers. Meanwhile, Chicago-Transit continues to make interest on the $60 they pulled out of my credit card the other day.

It’s hard to understand why the transit agency continually threatens to cancel bus routes; is it really running out of money? (Yeah, probably.)

Still, this is the third or fourth time Chicago Transit has scared the heck out of commuters since the summer. Talk about customer service.

If it didn’t cost $32 a day to park in the Loop, I’d drive to work and say to heck with the environment. My Toyota Echo, which is still in storage, puts out fewer fumes anyway.

Recalls Almost 1 Million Products Are Cited During Two-Day Frenzy

I hardly know where to begin, there have been so many recalls in the last two days. It’s overwhelming.

Before I get started, you might want to read this article by David Lazarus in the Los Angeles Times about how that city’s toy district is struggling with a huge drop in demand for Chinese-made products. Perhaps reduced business will finally win the attention of manufacturers and retailers.

On the other hand, Lazarus confirms what I feared:

While the nation’s big toy-related firms are retesting their products, the vast majority of unnamed companies are not:

Since the 1970s, the 12-block Toy District has been the city’s central bazaar for imported toy cars, action figures and other knick-knacks. Its wholesale outlets funnel goods to stores near and far.

Yet in a year that has seen millions of toys recalled for lead paint and other potentially dangerous defects, the Toy District highlights the difficulty, if not impossibility, of preventing unsafe goods from reaching kids under our current system of relying on overseas manufacturers to meet U.S. safety standards.

If anything, the Toy District speaks to a need for U.S. authorities to be more aggressive in inspecting the goods arriving on our shores – through increased random checks, if no other way – and for U.S. manufacturers and importers to be held accountable for any safety violations.

And now, the most recent round of recalls.

The death of a 19-month old child triggered the recall of about 138,000 Ameriwood entertainment centers, reports the Consumer Product Safety Commission.  The furniture can collapse if a back panel is not secured. Ameriwood Industries reports three other minor injuries related to the entertainment centers.  The American-made centers were sold from June 2000 through May 2005 at K-Mart stores nationwide. See the link for information on how to receive a free repair kit.

Overheard

“Excuse me,” the Chicago Transit bus driver said as we barreled down Lake Shore Drive. “My mirror fell off. Can you look down the right side of my bus so I can change lanes?”

Satire ‘Ninth Circle of Hell:’ Flying in the Modern Age

No food. No leg room. No service. As Americans already know, flying coach these days is not a pleasant experience, writes The New York Times.

Things are so awful, that today’s fliers “now view getting on a plane as roughly akin to entering the ninth circle of hell.” Hell, by the way, is multiplied by the number of children you have in tow.

Here’s what the Spirit Airlines’ chief executive e-mailed an employee who was complaining about a delayed flight:

“Please respond, Pasquale, but we owe him nothing as far as I’m concerned. Let him tell the world how bad we are. He’s never flown us before anyway and will be back when we save him a penny.”

As bad as flying is today, I started wondering what it might be like in 20 years, starting with boarding the plane:

I Passed on the Bus of Doom

The much-vaunted Chicago Transit system is actually more like a decaying, bug-infested chunk of wood in a rain forest. But often you can’t tell anything is wrong with that piece of wood until you lift it up to see what’s going on underneath.

It’s much the same with a bus or train – you don’t know what you’re getting into until you climb onboard. The bus may have trouble accelerating beyond 25 miles per hour; the engine is only one mile from crapping out altogether; the electrical system is shorting out on the Elevated; or diesel fumes – this is the worst for me – may be getting pumped directly into the bus cabin.

Every now and then, the Bus of Doom advertises itself. Consider the Route 136 bus that rolled up on Tuesday. It was already 15 minutes late. There were so many buses following that I suspected another bus from the same route was just out of eyesight. (It’s impossible to read route numbers on Chicago buses – if the old displays are working at all – until they’re inches from view.)

The Bus of Doom arrived, and as I suspected there was standing-room only. With 40+ people waiting to get on, I was not inclined to do so. As people started boarding, I hear a loud HIIIISSSS noise coming from the rear wheel well, which had been scraped open.

The hiss was coming from an exposed hydraulic cable that snaked out of a hole. Was it a brake cable? At the same time. I noticed that a chunk of metal, hanging on the other side of the same wheel well, was touching street and tire.

No way was I getting on this bus. Why was it even on the road? But more than half the people waiting did. By the time everyone was aboard, the cattle stood from bow to stern. Was the hiss starting to sound more like a “Moo?”

The doors closed. Doom rolled about a bus-length forward before hissing to a stop. The driver raced his engine. Did the hydraulic sensors finally warn him something was wrong?

Within two minutes I was on the next 136. One-third of the seats were empty.

While boarding, I mentioned to the driver what was happening on the other 136. She could care less and was not about to help her co-worker. Another passenger who boarded behind me said with a strong, old-style Chicago accent “f--- them.”

We drove off while Doom crept another few inches. I imagined it making a final hiss, like a dying breath, while the cattle inside began braying. Of course, it could have been much worse had the cattle car made it out onto Lake Shore Drive. What if the brakes failed at 55 miles per hour?

During my relatively pleasant ride into work, I wondered what self-respecting maintenance crew would let such a piece of sh—onto the road? Don’t bus drivers inspect their buses before hitting the road? How can Chicago hope to host the Olympics with such a disastrous transit system?

I don’t know. But if you ever wondered why people choose not to commute, just read this post again.

The Bus System of Doom

There is no nice way of saying this, but the Chicago Transit System sucks. Big time. Like, really bad. Consider this week:

• Bus breaks down on Lake Shore Drive. Our particular route, 136, gets the oldest buses on the planet. I suspect my grandma rode the same buses in the 1960s.
• We have to get off bus on busy highway and get onto another that thankfully stopped. You might think that a bus driver would always help his comrade, but previous breakdowns have failed to bear this out. Fortunately, the bus that stopped for us travels the same route I usually take.
• The engine craps out on our rescue bus. Perhaps fearing his increasingly vocal passengers, the driver gets the engine going again.
• On the way home, bus has exhaust system hooked directly into the cabin. I try to hold my breath for the next 45 minutes. Opening windows make the situation worse. Several days later, my lungs still burn, and all food tastes like diesel.
• Next Day: Bus going home is late showing up. As is often the case, we’re sardines packed in virgin olive oil.
• On the way to work today, we stop for a broken down bus on Lake Shore Drive. One incredibly clueless passenger screams at our bus driver, blaming her for his ruined morning. Stupid passenger’s outburst delays our own bus by 10 minutes. I suspect next time, this NICE bus driver will pass me up the next time I’m stuck on Lake Shore Drive.

In case you had any doubts, I HATE THE CTA and that stupid passenger.

The Battle to Get Our Illinois Licenses, Plates

Although we moved to Chicago in late August, we didn’t get our driver’s licenses until (cough) last week. Or plates, for that matter.

Yes, we dragged our feet. Maybe we were fearful of the test. Or maybe we were fearful of facing the famed Chicago bureaucracy with two kids in tow. We even flirted with the idea of driving 30 miles into the suburbs in hopes of finding a “quieter” place to register and take the written exam.

I was particularly put off after picking up the handbook at this driver facility near my work. The staff was cranky and the clientele crankier. The downtown location also necessitated a $20 parking fee. Ouch.

Instead, we went to a facility close to our apartment; a closer one is closed on Mondays. It didn’t look good when we first arrived. There were literally hundreds of people sitting in chairs waiting for their ticket to be called.

An automated woman’s voice was calling something like “A101, Window 5” and “B203, Window 11” when we sat down. Our tickets, F224 and F225 seemed a long way off.

We later learned the letters referred to why we were in line. F meant out-of-state licenses. The hour we had to wait before being called up was the toughest part of the trip as our kids were incredibly bored.

Called in succession, my wife and I went to different windows, each with a toddler in one hand and a pile of paperwork in the other.

While Lael squirmed, the gentleman helping me was friendly and easygoing. He even suggested we move into the New Trier School District, arguably the best in the state, because his kids all went to the best colleges after graduating.

Anne and I then took turns taking the test while the kids played in a sitting room. As someone who hates tests, I was amazed that I had a perfect score.

The man who scored both of our tests was immensely friendly, and confided he still owned 7 acres of orange groves adjacent to Knott’s Berry Farm in Southern California. He bought the land 50 years ago. Talk about your smart real estate investment.

While getting our licenses was pleasant, getting our plates was an ordeal. I had been searching for hours the night before for the sales receipt on our minivan, which we needed under state laws. I didn’t find the folder until minutes before leaving for the DMV.

To maker matters worse, the folks who sell the plates were the antithesis of those who helped with the driver’s licenses. Surly, grumpy, mean, vindictive comes to mind. One lady said “No scratch outs,” and made me redo the 30-40 entries in one form.

All the while, Seth was complaining about yet another invisible boo-boo and insisting on a new Band-Aid this very instant. I literally growled at him saying, “Get over it NOW.”

Then I had to wait for the cheerless clerk as she walked around the building at her leisure. First thing she did after returning to her booth was to scratch out something I wrote on the new form. Crud, I thought, I will have to do this all over. But to my amazement, she wrote something in and sent me off to the cashier.

Finally, we have our plates and driver’s licenses. What a relief.

Book Reviews Toxic Invasion Damages Everyone’s Health

Have you ever held your breath for 35 minutes? In a manner of speaking, I am right now (Feb. 7) as I ride a Chicago bus so noxious with fumes, I vacillate between not inhaling at all and being forced to take a shallow breath to avoid passing out. I’m convinced the tailpipe is connected directly to the heating system.

I wish I could say this was an occasional occurrence, but alas at least once a month my fellow commuters join me to win the jackpot: most polluted bus in the Chicago Transit Authority fleet.

I find it quite ironic, therefore, that on today’s bus ride I finished reading How Everyday Products Make People Sick by Dr. Paul D. Blanc. While the book is largely a way-back trip through the horrors of the industrial workplace, it also is revelatory as to how toxic poisons became part of our daily lives.

Blanc reveals how perfectly safe products such as animal- and plant-derived glue became a toxic substance made from coal-tar and petroleum by-products. Bleach, used in the homes pf most Americans, originally killed workers by the score. Both of these products can be as health-damaging to the consumer as the workers who first discovered the side effects of these chemicals. Bleach when mixed with other common cleaning products can cause a form of asthma.

By sifting through the historical record, Blanc exposes how politicians and industrialists repeatedly fail to learn from the side effects – brain and nerve damage, impotence, chloracne, mill fever and of course death – that befell those who made household products such as plastic, glue, rubber, cotton, fuel additives and bleach.

One would think these problems are a thing of the past, but apparently not. Blanc makes clear that there is a cycle of forgetting safety lessons and letting businesses return to their bad ways. Or industry simple exports the side effects to poorer nations.

Are we heading back into one of those periods of forgetfulness? Consider that thousands of new untested products are hitting the market everyday.

Another book that reveals how unnatural chemicals and products are infiltrating our lives is The Hundred-Year Lie by Randall Fitzgerald, which I mentioned here.

The toxic bus is the least of our problems, according to Fitzgerald, who reveals that we’re poisoning our water, food and air with pharmaceuticals, home products and cosmetics. But scientists have little understanding of how these chemicals interact once they’re in our body. Just about every aspect of our lives polluted with chlorine, pharmaceuticals, synthetic chemicals, flame retardants and other chemicals, Fitzgerald says.

No need to persuade me that the dangers are real: I’ve thrown many products away – think bathroom cleaners, shampoos and dashboard conditioners for the car – after discovering they affect my breathing or irritate my skin. We’ve had to change diaper brands numerous times for both of our kids because of horrible skin reactions. (We think it might be the bleach used to make diapers white.) The list is endless.

I’ll warn you in advance: Reading these two books will be unnerving for some and a lesson in anger management for others. While there may be a touch of alarmism in The Hundred-Year Lie, Blanc takes a very sober approach in How Everyday Products Make People Sick. Both books, though, shed light on my contention that Something Odd Is Happening to US.

It’s morning now, 12 hours after the bus ride. All night long, I could taste the industrial fumes. The off-taste is slowly fading, but my lungs are clogged and my voice has dropped an octave, which happens when I talk too much or breath bad air. After reading these books, I can only imagine what those fumes are doing to mine and everyone else’s health.