Cool Video Overview

Pretty good overview of the whole Downtown Elgin area.  Note the segment on DuPage Court with the trees still there, and how nice it looked.

The Importance of Coffee

My addiction is coffee.  I always loved it.  However, when my oldest daughter lived in Seattle, Birthplace of the Holy Grail of Coffee (Starbucks), where there are drive-thru coffee kiosks on virtually every corner, I became hooked.


There are Starbucks and Caribou outlets within the city, but there are two independent shops downtown:  Domani and Ravenheart.  Both are fantastic - excellent coffee, friendly service, great atmosphere.



Domani is a small shop.  Its owner, Leo, and his staff, are terrific people and dedicated to their clientele.  You could never ask for better and more personal service.  Their sandwiches are without question the best in town.

It provides cafe-style seating, and is very intimate.

The Italian sandwich is my favorite food in town.

http://www.facebook.com/DomaniCafe

Ravenheart is a larger place.  It is staffed by a great core of three people who always provide great service.  Any caffeine, any style, any way you want it, it's there.

After I retired, I started spending an inordinate amount of time here, largely due to the wifi (recently upgraded) and the more comfortable seating.  It's virtually become a part of my daily existence.

It was looking out the window of the place every day that really inspired me to start this blog. The changing weather, the people walking and driving by, the activity up and down the street, unavoidably overheard conversations, interesting customers, local news articles - they all played a role into this.  I started getting a sense of the pulse of Downtown Elgin in here, so a lot of my stuff here is going to be sown here.

http://www.facebook.com/RavenheartElgin

For starters...

I love this town.  There are things I get really annoyed with, but for the most part, there is and always has been something about Elgin that has always appealed to me.  When I was a child growing up in nearby Hoffman Estates, Elgin was the closest place to go to do any real shopping and recreational activities.  It was a satellite city of Chicago, a larger city out to the northwest.  Eventually, it became wrapped into suburbia due to the urban sprawl, but it managed to retain its unique character.

I longed to move here, and finally managed to do so 25 years ago, a period in which Elgin, due to changing times, had sunk to its lowest point of existence.  The city suffered from a lack of progressive vision, mired in its past and letting its institutions go without thought of planning and adapting for the future.  Major industries left.  The Downtown area became a ghost town.  The older housing began to decay.  It was suffering from severe culture shock with new populations moving in due to the low housing costs.

It was not an attractive place to be anymore, but I saw something here.  I saw the glorious ghosts of the past, and I saw the potential of the future.  Since I've been here, I have seen a renaissance occur.  The city lagged behind others in its urban renewal ideas, but it finally came around.  It's been a slow struggle due to the timing of the collapse of the economy, but the city is inching its way forward.  There is an excitement I see and feel all the time.

My intent, now, is to chronicle things as they strike me, as I see them.  I only hope I can make it interesting.