My newer blog may be found here.

I am a public transit advocate. I take my fat butt on the "L" to work every day. The other day, I took the bus just to get some real Mexican food. At first, I thought to myself I should be walking. But the fact that a very cool bus driver sung Christmas carols all the way confirmed to me I made a good choice on ridding the CTA.

CTA Chicago Transit Authority has it's problems. But well, at least we are still running. Unlike New Yorkers, who are currently walking themselves due to the labor strike situation--how terrible.

Let's look on the bright side.. no wait, let's look at the underside--the derriere. Many New Yorkers will get some badly needed exercise. On the flip side, Chicago Tribune writer Virginia Groark writes in Does this bus seat make me look fat? that the CTA has recently ordered seats enlarged from 17 1/2 inches to 18 inches.

As for you hard working Transit workers, I know your job is no piece of cake. I really do appreciate the many years you have taken my fat butt everywhere I've needed to go.

My 'me' photo college (above) is a tribute to Andy Warhol.

My personal connection with Warhol is a strange one--as if there would be any other type of connection with Warhol. I first saw his work in traveling exhibit on a locomotive that passed through my rural town of Kokomo Indiana many years ago, like 1985, if I recall. He died three years later. If I recall, it was a sole Campbell's soap can next to a Jasper Johns America flag.

Later, I was to move to Pittsburgh, Warhol's childhood home town. I worked in the office and watched (literally) the renovation of an old building into the Andy Warhol Museum--the second largest museum dedicated to one person in the world. Once opened, I enjoyed the museum to the fullest.

When I was an art student at Wabash College, I wrote a controversial pro-Warhol paper. I compared Warhol to JMW Turner. Although, my point of view was not a popular one, the professor gave be a decent grade.

'So send it to them!', was my response to my parents comments regarding eating all the food on my plate because there are starving children across the world. Here is my big chance...

Heifer Gift Catalog is a sponsor for the Family Farmed Expo at Navy Pier here in Chicago this weekend. Yep, you got it, I can buy a farm animal for a small villages across the world! Some of the animals offered are:

• heifer for $500 USD
• goat for $120 USD
• bees for $30 USD
• sheep for $120 USD
• geese for $20 USD
• rabbits for $60 USD
• pig for $120 USD
• ducks for $20 USD
• llama for $150 USD
• chicks for $20 USD
• buffalo for $250 USD

In my own mind, I have always juggled the idea of giving food to the impoverished. Whenever someone, namely the US, gives a lot of food to a friend in need, it seems the population increases and the problem gets worse. However in the case where we buy someone a heifer, maybe there will be an change in attitude due to the work associated with care of the animal.

Personally, I do know taking care of a calve can change ones attitude. Several years ago on my semester off from college, I landed in a resort camp in Seattle WA where I was charged with the task of raising two newborn calves for the first three months of their lives. After this, I never looked at a steak the same way again. I still eat meat, however I do recall how the taking care of these animals somehow made me more aware of taking care of myself.