I recently built my own bookcase. Not from a kit, not from a box, but from real lumber, screws, and work. The bookcase took only 3 1⁄2 hours to complete. The full photo gallery can be found here. I’ve divided this article up into several sections, listed below: The materials bill for this project came in at right around $100. I used pine, a soft wood, for the shelves and sides.

Perhaps one day we will have a chance to swim in such an interesting place:

Just one of the many reasons I love Chipotle:

Finally, Chipotle gets online! Now Chipotle, my favorite purveyor of fajita burrito calorie bombs, has created a new way to order your Southwestern fix. Go to http://www.chipotle.com/dsl and place your order online! By the way, the “DSL” part means “Don’t Stand in Line!”

I am in the middle of a site redesign this week so bear with me as pages might have the occasional funny look. Also, if you have any feedback on the new look, feel free to drop me a line. Thanks!

In our modern goal-driven society, it seems to be a common tasks for one to create a list of “things to do before you die”. There are quite a few of these lists on the Internet these days. I have created an index of these for reference. I may also share my list at some point. These lists are really, really interesting. Most of the items in the list are experiential as opposed to achievement-oriented.

UPDATED! Since the launch of Google Maps a few months ago, a lot of people have been inspired to create websites dedicated to exploring the world through these map. Additionally, a few innovative websites have been created which combine the mapping functionality with useful data from other sources. There seem to be so many, actually, that I decided to create my own list of them to keep track: Been Mapped new www.

It’s a strangely pleasant feeling having a bowl of cereal for breakfast in the morning as an adult. After years of having “breakfast bars” and similar fare, it’s nice to get a good bowl of oatmeal to start the day. Cereality is a recent culinary addition to downtown Chicago breakfast options. They specialize in breakfast cereal. The place is truly a throwback to childhood. They have large plasma screen TVs on the wall which play cartoons all day long.

I had the pleasure of dining at Nayeb’s in Schaumburg this weekend. Ahu and I love having dinner at Reza’s in Chicago but hardly have a chance to go there now that we live in the ‘burbs. Nayeb’s is as close as you get to Reza’s without driving into the city. I found out about Nayeb’s through Deepak, who highly recommended it for its excellent kabobs. When I go to Reza’s, I always get two skewers of filet mignon steak with a bed of aromatic white rice and charred onions.

Mountaineer Ed Viesturs became the first American to summit all 8,000+ meter peaks in the world without supplemental oxygen. It’s taken 16 years but he finally pulled it off. Annapurna was his last peak, one that has taken him three attempts to conquer. There’s a great story on this in the August 2005 issue of Men’s Journal magazine.