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I posted this on another thread, but it's applicable here too:

"Can you believe 3" of snow tonight?"
Uh...in Chicago? When does it start geting warm?"

Never. If we are lucky it may stop being cold after Memorial Day, that's if we are really lucky. I've known many a cold Memorial Day weekend here. Well, at least this article about the videotaping of the Sears Tower and Boeing Hdqtrs momentarily has taken my mind off the fact that once again snow has struck just to let us know that we aren't anywhere near home free yet weatherwise.

I used to work in the Sears Tower years ago, not that long after it was built. It was a great place to work when the Chicago Air Show was on, as the planes would come right past our windows (I worked on the 74th floor). You felt like you could reach your hand out and touch the pilots. Especially cool when the flying wedge would come by, the big Stealth one (new at that time). Only problem was, we were up so high up in the building that it was very noticeable when the building would sway. (The sway is built into the architectural design so you don't just snap off in a breeze and fly away). Some people would literally get seasick, as it could sway a foot or so back and forth. If the Sears Tower would have been hit on 9/11, it would have been the same scenario as the Trade Towers, as you had to go down embankments of elevators; you'd go down one series and then switch over to another series in order to get all the way down. Sure wouldn't want to be a worker there now. I understand they were having trouble getting tenants to rent the highest floors; don't know if that is still the case or not.

Chicago has a large Muslim population, and there are quite a few large Universities in the city where Muslim student radicals are enrolled, especially Palestinian students. I worked at UIC (Univ. of IL at Chicago), right next to the loop (downtown) area, and there were always Pali or Muslim demonstrations going on at the campus. One particularly disturbing experience, involving two Iranian grad students was, the day after 9/11 they were walking out of our building at the same time 2 of our Department employees (from my Dept.) were walking out. Both of the Iranians were grad students in our Dept. One of them said to the other, let's take a picture of the Sears Tower while it is still there, and a bit more along the same lines. Our Dept. employees overheard this and came to report it to me (I was Ass't to the Dept. Head) and wanted the Head to know what had been said. The Iranian students were confronted about it, and apologized, saying it had been a joke; however, the 2 Dept. employees who overheard them said the Iranian students did not say it in a joking manner at all.

The targeting of the Sears Tower by Al Qaeda was found out about when our troops in Afghanistan came across videotapes and computer info in one of the caves, showing the Sears Tower as a potential target. Ok, now back to watching it snow, ugh.