Last Sunday when the Lions won and the Bears lost, the book was shut on any Super Bowl hopes for the Bears.  Scenarios in which the Bears enter the playoffs are now so improbable, that Sam Hurd is more likely to get into the Hall of Fame than the Bears are to get into the playoffs.

The season came to its climax in a series of spectacular failures.  With the playoffs out of reach, the last few games left in the season are only footnotes. It’s time to write the story of the season. No, the patient is not in the coffin yet, but it’s time to prepare the eulogy.

Expectations (Prologue)

After such an abysmal game against the lackluster Seahawks team, it can be hard to remember that this season wasn’t always a disappointment.

In the pre-season, the Bears were nobody’s Cinderella pick.  Still, most of Las Vegas, Grantland and I, myself, all picked the Bears to finish somewhere around 8-8.  They had a murderous first quarter of the season, an unhappy running back, coming off of a season that, by his standards, was below average. People also worried about the rule changes limiting the Bears on special teams, what’s more, the division seemed to be getting better all around them.

After the Bears went 7-3, expectations rose considerably, thanks to the continued success of an aging defense and the excellent play of that, as yet un-contracted, running back.

The First Ten Games (Acts 1 and 2)

The Bears worked their way into the front position for the NFC Wild Card with a record of 7-3.  While their rivals in Green Bay won the initial tilt and maintained a stranglehold on the Division lead, the Bears were able to beat the teams they were supposed to beat and rack up a 4-1 record against teams under .500.

The Losing Streak (Act 3)

The Bears season took a turn during the November 27^th game against the Oakland Raiders, when Jay Cutler succumbed to a shoulder injury.  This marked the first of a series of injuries to key offensive players including Matt Forte and Johnny Knox.

At first pundits argued that with a relatively weak upcoming schedule, the injuries were happening at the best possible time.  That did not prove to be the case and with the Sunday’s loss to Seattle, the Bears all but sealed their fate.

The Next two games (Epilogue)

Is it possible to have a good season after a series of crushing defeats that knock them out of the playoffs? No.  But, as Lovie Smith and other Bears players and personnel were eager to point out after the game, the Bears have the Packers next week.  And they always get up for their rivals, playoffs or no playoffs. Maybe, maybe not.

No one had to ask Lovie if he was disappointed after the game, the emotion showed on his face and in his voice.  Whatever joy the Bears might take in winning a largely meaningless game against Green Bay, will disappear the first time they have to watch the Packers play in the playoffs.

Cutler’s break-out season (Appendix)

Before the year began two sentiments were unavoidable:

1. If the Colts go 0-16, Peyton Manning should get the MVP by default

2. This was Cutler’s year to break out with the Bears.

After the Colts’ victory this Sunday, Peyton won’t be getting the MVP in absentia that he may deserve, but few players’ reputations can have benefited more from their injuries and the teams resulting incompetence than Jay Cutler’s.

Cutler played well this season (though not transcendently), his injury was the turning point in the narrative of the Bear’s season.  For better or worse, the story of the 2011 Bears season will split into “pre-injury” and “post-injury. “ Cutler’s ability will be remembered as the key component to the Bears success.  At least somebody gets a happy ending.

The Bears came into Sunday’s game against the Seattle Seahawks as the 4.5-point favorite.  A few weeks ago that would have seemed an insult to Chicago but with injuries to Bears quarterback, Jay Cutler and running back, Matt Forte, as well as one-sided losses to the Chiefs and Broncos, the situation had changed dramatically.  As it turned out, by making them favorites at all, the odds-makers were still overestimating the Bears.

On the other side of the field, Seattle came into Chicago on an upswing.  They had won four of their last five games and running back, Marshawn Lynch, scored a touchdown in every one of their last nine games.  Their winning ways would continue in Soldier Field.

The Bears offense got to work first on Sunday’s game, winning the coin toss and electing to receive, but they failed to score on their opening drive.  After a short gain on a running play by Marion Barber, Caleb Hanie missed badly on his first two passing attempts and the Bears were forced to punt. This drive would be indicative of the offense performance the rest of the game.

Later in the first quarter the Seahawks would take the lead on a running touchdown by Marshawn Lynch.

The Bears got back into the game by scoring a defensive touchdown after a Tavaris Jackson fumble caused by Julius Peppers.  Chicago went on to take the lead when Kahlil Bell made a touchdown catch (the Bears heavily featured Bell after Marion Barber’s gaffe-filled performance last week against the Broncos).  The Bears took this 14-7 lead into halftime.

That lead, however, did not last long. The Seahawks scored on their initial drive, moving the ball eighty yards.  The drive culminated with another Lynch touchdown.  On the ensuing possession, Caleb Hanie was intercepted by 323-pound defensive end, Red Bryant, a play which Bryant called “a fat kid’s dream.”

For the Bears, however, the nightmare was just getting started.  They were unable to score again, while Seattle went on to notch up 17 more points, six of which came from another interception that was returned for a touchdown.  The Bears ended the half with 31 unanswered points, for a final score of Seattle 38, Chicago 14.

At the post-game press conference, quarterback, Caleb Hanie, was asked to describe what was going through his head while throwing the Pick 6’s that sealed the Bears loss.  He quickly described the two plays and then joked “That’s it… seemed like more, huh?” It did indeed.

With Chicago’s loss on Sunday and Detroit’s win, it became almost impossible for the Bears to go into the playoffs.  Lovie Smith was noncommittal when asked what quarterback he would start next Sunday against Green Bay.  Considering the Bears’ play this Sunday, it’s difficult to imagine any of the active quarterbacks achieving success.

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Originally published at Chicago-Latino.com

I remember feeling trapped at grandma’s house, 13-year-old Casey, trying to figure out how to play Uno by myself. Columbus Nebraska has never been a playground for the rich and famous, but when I was 6 it was great fun. I remember my pre-puberty self digging through dusty crates of old toys, finding my fathers discarded army men or walking around in a “little backyard” that could have fit my house twice over.  But all of the sudden, at 14, this little town wasn’t exciting anymore.

It’s an awkward age. At middle school in the interval between being a kid and a full on teenager, it’s hard to know which childhood things will still be fun and which will feel remedial. Being stuck in the middle can be particularly confusing when traveling.

When you’re a tween, a lot of culture is pointed above or below you. Children’s museums are generally for children a little younger than you, more adult museums can be hard to access, or boring. Historical sites are as interesting as you are interested in them, concerts are often 18 or 21 and over and (in this country) they won’t let you into a bar.

For adults traveling with a kid (or a tween) can have unexpected perks. A kid with a good attitude can lead you to do things you wouldn’t think to do otherwise. Going to a zoo, a carnival or a toy store, but these stops can be the most fun part of a trip.

Adults often forget the things that liked so much as children. And it is during those years between 12-15 that they do that forgetting. As adults, we don’t deal with bullies or peers who would make fun of us.

This week I have the pleasure of hosting my girlfriends little brother who’s in Chicago for Thanksgiving.  He’s staying in an apartment with his mother for most of the trip, but she has a couple of things to do in Chicago and I am the closest thing to a responsible adult that they can find. Trying to think of what to do with him I remembered all the things I loved to do when I was in eighth grade: hanging out at the zoo, the beach, the comic shop, or the conservatory. I was so excited. There are some things I grew out of. I don’t think I will want to sit in the massage chairs at the Sharper Image for an hour like I once did, but for the most part the thought of doing the things I did when I was 14 excited me.

I suppose the trick to traveling as a tween is not getting to caught up with trying to be an adult, the trick to traveling with a tween is to get as caught up as possible with trying to be a tween.

This article was originally published by Extra and is also available on their website. 

This feature originally appeared on the cover of Extra Newspaper. 

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Brewer Randy Mosher is a partner at the new 5 Rabbit Cerveceria but he has been known in homebrewing and “Beer Nerd” circles for years.   Mostly because Mosher  wrote and designed the eye-catching and popular home brewing guide “Radical Brewing” and “The Brewer’s Companion.”  He recently sat down with Extra to talk about brewing beers with a Latin theme here in Chicago, Aztec Gods and why craft beer has grown so much in the last few years. 

…

Extra: For people not familiar with 5 Rabbits what’s the elevator pitch or short summary of what you’re doing.

RM: We are bringing the fun and excitement of Latin cuisine and culture to the fabulous world of craft beer.

Extra: So what are the 5 Rabbits, does that tie into the Latin theme?

RM: First of all, it is not a quantity its 5 Rabbit singular, and this is based on Aztec mythology.  It’s very common for pre-Columbian personal names to have numbers in them.  So, the numbers usually refer to some kind of calendrical name (having to do with the birthday) they were really involved with all the cycles of time: The earth and Venus and the moon and everything.

Five in particular is a number that was associated with days that represented a loss of control.   What the five are well there are actually five gods of excess of which 5 Rabbit is one.  There is 5 Rabbit, 5 Lizard, 5 Vulture, 5 Flower, 5 Grass, and each one of those represents a different type of excess. I suppose you could say they are like the seven deadly sins in Christian mythos.

So the rabbit for example represents excess of pride.  The big ears are symbolic that we should listen more for messages from the community and our inner selves theirs a beautiful story behind all of this

Extra: I see you also work in design did you also design all the packaging?

RM: Yes I did

Extra: Did you take Aztec images and other images from the past?

RM: Well, we looked at all of that.   You know it’s our goal to not be too fussy about the past.  We’ll take inspiration from it but we really intend to be very much a 21^st century project, very much a kind of a fusion thing.

Extra: Where else does that Latin influence touch the beer, besides the name?  Is there also an influence on the beer itself?

RM: Well, we have three beers.  In our portfolio right now although one of them is on vacation for the summer. But the 5 Rabbit is a golden ale that is a beery beer.  Really in Latin cultures the most popular beer that’s drunk really the only beer that’s drunk (with a few exceptions) is that yellow beer that has that golden color that was influenced in some way by pilsner.  So we felt that it was important for us to have a beer that had that look.  But we didn’t want make something timid or do something that we thought would be boring and easy.

The other beer that we have out this summer is the 5 Lizard and this one is a little more obvious in its relationship to Latin culture and cuisine especially.  We are calling it a Latin style wit beer.  So Wit is that really delicious wheat beer from Belgium that is usually spiced and so we used some coriander with a really crisp character to it and instead of the traditional orange peel we used lime peel.  We use about 60 limes per batch of beer.

The beer is very light in alcohol 4.2 % it’s very light very crisp then we spike it with passion fruit pulp during fermentation. It’s very well integrated, and its super super dry.  We’re calling it a fruit beer for grown ups.

Extra: In describing these both it seems like there’s this dichotomy between doing a way out there novelty beer and a boring timid beer.  How do you keep that balance?

RM: Well that’s the trick.  All along for me that has been one of the more interesting things.  How do we express the Latin culture in a beer and do it in a way that’s not just a novelty or gimmicky that really creates things of beauty that have depth and drink ability, beer that you can have 2 or 3 pints of and don’t wear out your pallet.

Extra: What do you think is fueling the popularity of craft beer.  Do you think we are in a growing trend, is this a fad or the height of something that is always going to be around?

RM:  It’s a huge question and no one can totally predict the future.  But here’s how I see it. I think this is a kind of hundred-year-long pendulum swing.  If you go back to the early 19th century breweries were all local.  People knew their brewers they went to church with him or went to the bar with him. They were there in their community.  And in the 19^th century with the scaling up of all kind of industries we developed a very different relationship with our suppliers and the idea of nationally branded products really took hold.

They served in the USA anyway a way to kind of hold people together in a funny way.  If you think of people as coming from Poland and Mexico and Ireland, Germany and every where else they became real Americans through a lot of different ways but one of the things that they did was they shared this real kind of progressive modern industrialized brands like Heinz ketchup, Campbell’s soup, and eventually Budweiser bee things like that.  People were really looking for modernness in their product: efficiency and economy and canned beer.

We have this phrase the greatest thing since sliced bread.  For them it really was great you didn’t have to slice that old bread and it didn’t go stale as fast.  But when you look at what you have to do to make sliced bread you get bread that’s not really all that bread like.  Garret Oliver has a great statement “You look at a loaf of wonder bread and it looks like bread and it has a crust it has an interior and its kind of spongy but it’s not bread.   It’s a chemical system that is held together in a way that makes it possible to package it, cut it up, put it on the shelf and have it last for two or three weeks.  Its very different from what our great grandfathers had for example.

Extra: Being on both sides of brewing as both a home brewer and a pro brewer what do you see as the relationship between growth of home brewing and the growth of craft beer?

RM: They’re two sides of the same coin.  The forces that drive people to home brew are the same forces that drive them to take it a little bit further to take it into the commercial realm.

It’s a bit of an obsession to be an honest.  For a lot of people it kind of takes over there life and makes them question things.  Maybe you take a look at that job as a computer programmer and its not as interesting as it used to be.  When you’re a brewer it’s very easy to see what your doing is making people happy

Extra: How many iterations do you go through to get to the finished recipe that you actually bring to market?

RM: for us that really wasn’t a difficult process.  My partners are beer enthusiasts but not necessarily super beer knowledgeable.  So what I did we sat down at my dining room table and I blended commercial beers and spiked them with different flavorings to try to put them in a glass so we could all taste and discuss.  We tried different fruits we tried the chilli ancho that we have in the 5 Vulture.  And so in a couple of hours we were able to go through a dozen or more beers and once we got to the point where we had something that we all liked and agreed on then it was up to me to cook up a recipe.

For some it took one or two to get it right.  But then we were able to scale up.  We are still doing some tinkering but the changes are on the order of 10% more or less.  In a range that most consumers aren’t going to notice.  But we want the beers to be as good as  we possibly can so we see something that could use some improvement were going to do it.

Extra:  Is there anything big coming up for 5 Rabbit?

RM: We will be brewing up the 5 Vulture that was previewed and put on vacation for the summer.  That’s a 6.4 % dark beer spiked with a small amount of chile ancho which is that really dark leathery smoky chili that you see in a lot of Mexican especially Oaxacan cuisine.  We’re calling it a Oaxacan Ale.

We are also working on a beer for Dia de los Muertos, something along the lines of a bent October-fest.  We’re not sure its gonna work, but it probably will so that’ll be something to look forward to maybe second week of October.

Extra: It’s appropriate that a Dia de los Muertos beer be shrouded in mystery?

RM: I think that’s appropriate.  We are gonna have some fun around it.

Josh Locks is the coach of the boys sophmore baseball team and a teacher at Whitney Young High school.  In the wake of Chicago Public Schools considering cutting all Sophmore sports for boys and girl across the city I caught up with Josh to get his take on the situation and ask what could be done to help.

To contact the Public School system directly to let them know that you value Sports you can write them through this link.

Wrote this post on December 28^th, but didn’t have the gall to put it up.  Then I saw my blog buddy Josh Hanagarne’s post on goals for 2009 and the success he has had with his list.  So I decided, what the hell.  Also, I am hoping the added pressure of putting this list in public will give me a little more resolve.

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I have not done a lot of new years resolutions in my life because I am pretty ok with where I am and generally don’t like throwing down the gauntlet before a year is even started.

But, there is so much that I want to get done. I think if I write down some goals and orient myself toward that list it may be easier for me to do the things I want in the year that’s coming (already here).  Also, with a blog I have a few more witnesses to hold me to it.

Finance

• Be less broke (in terms of liquid assets) at the end of the year than at the beginning

Fitness

• Bench my weight
• Do 12 clean pull-ups
• Bike a century (100 miles)

Blog

• 120 posts
• 40 interviews

Music

• New Set (12 – 14 new original songs)
• Play 4+ gigs
• Learn basic piano composition

If you live in Illinois, today is the deadline to register to vote in the primaries.

If you live in Illinois and want to vote but don’t want to go to some horrible bureaucratic hellhole simply print of the form you can get here and send it in today.

Voting in primaries is especially important in states like Illinois and Texas where one party dominates, so if you share my interest in complaining about local politics please register.

That goes for: liberals and conservatives, democrats and republicans, ninjas and pirates.

Also: socialists, libertarians, Unitarians, librarians and septuagenarians.

Last week I outlined some rough ideas for generating more money for the CTA, this week I take those ideas more in depth.

Coinstar and the CTA Card

Coinstar is a great partner to grocery stores.  They have machines that take change and (for a small percentage) return paper bills.  It’s a device with low upkeep costs and a simple purpose that generates them income at all hours of the day.  It’s a logical partner for the CTA.

The CTA card creates a system where money is taken out of the general economy and turned into a resource that can only be redeemed at one place.  Any time the CTA can get someone to put money on a CTA card they have done a good thing.  If a customer puts money for fares on a card and doesn’t use the service they have already collected the payment, if through some enticement the customer puts money on a card uses the service when they might not have otherwise this is also good because taking on extra passengers doesn’t generally increase cost.  The CTA could modify the machines they already have or partner with Coinstar to make the machines for them.

Unlike a gas station or a car dealer there is no added cost for usage of the CTA’s service.  If people use the CTA more there is more profit.  Why not make it easier for riders to give the CTA their money?

Smart Phones and Bus Tracker

The CTA’s bus tracker is so useful and it’s one of the greatest things a smart phone does. But, I think this is just one of a couple ways the CTA can be using emerging technologies to improve its service and make more money.

One concern when riding the CTA is having correct change.  Especially now that the fair is 2.25 it is a particularly unlikely amount of money for a person to have.  There are a couple ways to get around this: a person can always have a well stocked CTA card or always have a pocket full of quarters.  Neither of these solutions appeals to me. I don’t want to take my money and put it in a position where it can only purchase one thing or get holes in my pants pockets from carrying around quarters.

What if you could with a credit card instantly purchase a bus fair over your phone? People already use their phones to make purchases online, why couldn’t those purchases be bus and train rides? If people are already on the CTA’s website checking on their bus it would only be logical for them to buy their tickets there.

I think Bus Tracker could also be made better, both in its utility to the customer and in its profitability for the CTA.  Anything that can improve Bus Tracker has the potential to make more people ride the CTA.  Bus Tracker could send a text message every time your bus passed your stop.  It would be easy enough to write an iphone app that would notify a person through text message every time a bus was passing (or even better when there was one in five minutes) so that if you were at a lunch you could wrap up early to get on the right bus or if it was cold outside you would not have to spend a minute extra waiting in the cold.  Unlike Bus Tracker where you would have to actively watch you could just relax and wait for your phone to ring.

Vending Machines

The Dunkin Donuts at the Davis street station does a brisk business.  While it is great that the franchises of that store pay rent to the CTA it would be better if all the money spent on coffee went directly to the Transit authority.  I am not suggesting that the CTA try to administer coffee shops or bake donuts, but I think that there is plenty of money to be made by taking advantage of vending machines.  It would be easy to sell coffee and snacks at CTA stations.  If they wanted to take the system one step further they could adopt something from the technology used at gaming places like Dave and Busters where by anyone who plays video games first puts money on a card. The CTA already has tens of thousands of cards in circulation why not create machines that could take those cards and provide coffee, snacks or newspapers.

Advertising

There is plenty of advertising in CTA buses and trains, but they could be monitized more effectively

The value of the advertising space the CTA already has was illustrated when a private company put up a number of bus shelters around the city for the sold the ad space on them.  There is enough money from potential advertisers that this company put up the money to build and maintain these shelters.  Meanwhile, I know from being at the Francisco stop last night that there are a number of shelters that the city has already built that don’t even facilitate advertising.

It’s difficult for any agency with ties to the government to be as dynamic and innovative as other companies in the private sector.  The post office has long had trouble competing with federal express and the CTA has survived for generations.  But that doesn’t mean it can’t be improved, and its too important that it keeps surviving for our generation to ignore it or take it for granted.

Chicago needs the CTA. A big part of what is good about this city has to do with how much of the city is always within reach. Besides the grid and size of the streets there is nothing that has as much to do with that as the public transportation. The city’s economy depends heavily on how get around it and there is also the issue of air pollution and carbon output.

As I griped about here (link) the increase in fares out paces rises in transportation costs and inflation. While fares seem to be stable for the moment and rumors about the jump to three-dollar were overheated, I think that fare hikes are inevitable. The problem is if the CTA gets too expensive it will lose its utility as public transport. Hikes need to be avoided however possible. There are two ways for a company to slow down its thirst for cash flow it can address costs or revenue.  Because it is hard for me to speculate about the CTA’s costs I would like to focus on ways for the CTA generate new revenue without raising fares.

The CTA gets money from several sources the two principle ones are fares and government funding.  But, those are not the only sources of income the CTA also gets secondary income from advertisers retail tenants.  Any money coming from secondary sources is keeping the fares down or keeping money in tax payers pockets (if it can get through the bureaucracy in tact).

Examples of sources of ad revenue can be found in the advertisements on every bus and train most of them have ads both inside and outside of the vehicles.  In the stations themselves there are ads on walls.  Some stations such as the Davis stop on the Purple Line even have television screens showing ads.  There are also train stops that have businesses operating inside of train stations like the Dunkin Donuts in the Davis station.

Starting with the premise that any way of supporting the trains without increasing the tax or raising the fares is a good thing, I tried to think of ways the train system could improve and expand its secondary revenue generators. Tomorrow I am going to look at a few ways to do this by taking more coins, working more closely with smart phones, vending machines, and improving advertising.

The World Cup is being drawn right now.  There has been much fuss about rankings and groups, so I decided to make my own rankings.  Admittedly, I am just a casual fan, and I know a good deal more about the top ten and those teams that play here in the Americas than the bottom 22 so feel free to let me know where I am way off or full of crap.

My ranking for teams in the world cup:

1)    Brazil
2)    Germany
3)    Italy
4)    Spain
5)    Portugal
6)    Argentina
7)    England
8)    France
9)    Netherlands
10)  Greece
11)  USA
12)  Mexico
13)  Algeria
14)  Serbia
15)  Cote d’ivoire
16)  Switzerland
17)  Denmark
18)  Slovakia
19)  Slovenia
20)  Chile
21)  Australia
22)  Cameroon
23)  Paraguay
24)  Nigeria
25)  Ghana
26)  Japan
27)  Uruguay
28)  South Africa
29)  New Zealand
30)  Honduras
31)  Korea Republic
32)  Korea DPR

Update

Groups have been selected.  It looks like the USA has been reasonably fortunate with in group C with:

• USA
• England
• Algeria
• Slovenia

Meanwhile the Group of Death looks to be Group G with:

• Brazil
• North Korea
• Portugal
• Cote d’Ivoire

For full ranks you can follow yahoo’s coverage here