The Steve Pederson Progression, in The Roots Room

I discovered a tiny and wonderful club on Chicago's north side while seeking refuge from a particularly frigid night: The Roots Room. The entertainment schedule is heavy on reggae acts, but on this particular evening, the performers were Steve Pederson and his friends, The Steve Pederson Progression.

Small? Cozy? Intimate? I just call it cool.

The Progression is Steve's gathering of other guitarists, a couple of vocalists, and a couple of flute players.

Alcohol unneeded: The Roots Room's bar features the flavors of the Caribbean, which are all one needs to warm up in cold Chicago.

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The yellow boot descends upon the furry purple throat

A flock of Jayhawks from the Chicago chapter of the Kansas Alumni Association gathered Jan. 30 at Kincade's to watch our basketball team flush our hated rival's dream down the toilet.

The result was one of the greatest games in Kansas/Kansas State basketball history, an overtime thriller in which the superior team (KU) scraped out a tooth-and-nail victory by only 2 points.

When KU goes to Manhattan and crushes a weak KSU team, it's amusing. This year, KU went to Manhattan and came from behind to steal one from a strong KSU team that will likely be a factor in March...and it was fulfilling.

"I think Cole Aldrich just killed that guy!"

One of the many great traditions we Kansas alumni enjoy: waving the wheat when our team wins.
Made even more enjoyable by watching dejected K-State players ponder what could have been!

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David and Gretchen: Linked by a sausage link

They were trying to go swimming, but they were 50 feet out from the shore and only knee-deep in the water. They laughed hysterically at their predicament, and David and Gretchen were falling in love before they made it back to land.

On Jan. 2, they took the plunge together, before an intimate audience of family and friends in Lowell, Mass.

Their story begins in the summer of 2005, and it involves sausage from the start. The sausage link on David's dinner plate, that is.

One night that summer, Gretchen's friend L.J. invited her to a party at another friend's house in Fall River, Mass. Gretchen was mildly interested in going, but Fall River is 45 minutes from her job in Worcester — a job that she can get paged back to at any time, day or night. She worked at a funeral home, and when she got the call, she had to pick up the new "customers" right away.

L.J. twisted her arm with the promises of great food, including a clam boil, and of a cute Army guy just out of boot camp being there. Gretchen decided to chance it.

(A couple in the audience, so enamored by the beauty of the scene, starts nibbling on each other.)

The "Army guy just out of boot camp" was David — who at this point would like to clarify that he serves in the Massachusetts National Guard, and had just finished phase one of Advanced Infantry Training. He was at the party just to hang out with old friends, and among the appetizers on his plate, he had picked out a few sausage links.

Then, from out of nowhere, this girl comes over and starts demanding that he give her one of his links. David obliged, and a conversation began.

The sausage-crazed girl was Gretchen — who at this point asserts that she did not demand anything. The clam boil had been delicious, and she was merely wondering if "Army guy" recommended the Portuguese links. She agrees that this is where the conversation began.

During that conversation, though, Gretchen got paged — a new client had rang. David walked her to her car, and they parted with plans for a first date.

That led to the second date, dinner at Thai Cha Da in Worcester. David started telling stories about swimming with his buddies in local lakes. Gretchen told him there was a lake near her house that was pretty deep.

Barefoot in the dark, the two discovered that this lake was home to a gander of geese. They stepped on lump after squishy lump of poop to get to the shore. Then they found out that it was more of a gigantic spill than a lake.

"It was so anti-climactic," Gretchen lamented.

"It was like swamp water," David added.

But in the knee-deep muck that was supposed to be a romantic adventure, the two started to see things they were looking for in each other.

"You gotta scout this out a little bit," David recalled telling his date — and Gretchen was attracted to his appreciation of forethought.

But David knew that if she had, they would never have experienced that unique moment.

"He liked my impulsiveness," Gretchen said.

(David's best man, Josh, is engaged to LJ, Gretchen's maid of honor.)

And with time, they forged a unique bond.

"We realized that our strengths and weaknesses complimented each other," she said.

Now, their future surely holds more adventures and more bizarre stories — but probably a few more feet of water. And less poop.

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Christmas portrait: simplicity

I have a tremendous fondness for good, hard simplicity. Things that just work. So do the Gawrons. So I have a tremendous fondness for this family now.

Our shoot was short and to the point. They only wanted one location — the couch. I tried to talk them off of it and into their nice backyard or somewhere else (simplicity is the joy of my life, but variety is the spice of it), to no avail. They knew what they wanted — and they were kind enough to tell me I delivered it. Merry Christmas, Gawrons.

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On the border with the Taco Bell Caroling Crew

I never thought I'd be happy to stand in line for 10 minutes at a Taco Bell.

I eat too much fast food, but everybody has a vice. I know from experience that working fast food is a lame job, nobody likes it, and nobody wants to work there...except, apparently, for this crew at the Ogilvie Transportation Center.

I was just sitting at one of the tables, munching on the day's fast food of choice, Burrito Beach, shuffling some e-mails around on the handheld and waiting for the train. I heard this really annoying jingling sound, joined quickly by an equally annoying horn...and then caroling. "Jingle Bells," if I remember right. I looked up to see who these fools were and why they were harassing people in the food court.

Well, it's because they work there. Behold, the happiest, friendliest fast food crew I've ever encountered, rocking it for the lunch crowd at Ogilvie's Taco Bell. The lady on the right was "conducting" the chorus of three on the left.

They only jingled when they had no customers, so they only got about a quarter of the way through "Jingle Bells" before some guy craving a Gordita and some Baja Blast stepped up. I wandered over and told them I had to get their picture. I then had to wait 10 minutes, because customer after customer came through.

Finally, a break came, and I got them to jump back into form again. Yes, this picture was worth the wait.

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Sitting still and performing C.P.R.

Marquette Elementary is using a new program to help its students learn positive methods of communication: The Circle of Power and Respect. Yes, the kids are performing C.P.R. on each other — and they do it mostly while seated.

Welcome to Miss Rogers' class, where the C.P.R. begins at 1 p.m. The exercise starts with the telling of knock-knock jokes...

...which the entire class, including Mark Criollo and Grisel Hernandez, seemed to enjoy.

The next activity was pairing up and sharing characteristics each looked for in a friend. Tyriek Kirkwood gave Valerie Diaz a few examples, hoping especially for someone who is "committed."

This is the class' message board, which Miss Rogers uses to convey different lessons during C.P.R.

Miss Rogers, presiding over her crew.

Another facet of C.P.R. was a game a bit like musical chairs, except that everyone had a chair. The student sitting next to the empty seat would recited the lines "I sit...in the grass...with my friend..." and then call on a classmate to cover and and sit in that chair (in this case, Joanna Mena). The student sitting next to Joanna's now-empty seat played next, and so on.

This game...I couldn't figure out what the heck was going on. It involved the class counting to 10, going around the circle, but whenever a student would say "Nine and a half," the next kid had to sit down. Here, some of the students are sorting out whether a kid is out or not...

...while Cassandra Gonzalez grins, because she's not out...yet.

After recording the final two kills, Matthew Cole broke out into dance — twice, after each elimination.

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Ben and Carrie: The rewards of patience

Ben and Carrie's wedding is an example of a business deal gone all wrong, and two longtime friends who got it right.

Carrie and Ben have been BFFs since before that term existed. They met 10 years ago through their church, and with time grew close. As with any boy/girl friendship, there were a few people on both sides telling them they would be so perfect together — in this case, those people turned out to be right, but Ben and Carrie had a good reason to doubt them.

Risk. Carrie spent years earning a Master's in Business Administration, and she will gladly tell you that the fundamental principal of economics is to maximize profit while minimizing risk. And the friendship was working status-quo, yielding a profit of enjoyment for both without the complications of romance.

But love is a merciless negotiator, and it moved on Carrie's heart and mind aggressively. She found herself attracted to Ben. And trying to remind herself of the risk.

Love cornered her, and Carrie eventually downsized logic off the payroll. The friendship started changing, and it became Ben who started thinking about risk — because Carrie was winning his heart.

He made some mental budget cuts as well. About two years ago, they started dating.

The risks turned out to be real. About a year and a half ago, they broke up.

They fell back on the old business model, and became friends again. Yes, just like how it was before — not "but we're still friends" friends or Facebook friends. They called each other, they talked, they hung out, and it wasn't all that weird. The friendship was real.

But the attraction was, too. In the time off, they didn't date anyone else. They didn't really think about anyone else.

They started thinking about each other again. The friendship started feeling like it was supposed to be a means to a more profitable end again. The risks were real, but living without each other's love got really risky too.

If they ever fell out of love the first time around, they fell back in love again. I can't say "they got back together" — even though they weren't dating, they hadn't parted in 10 years.

And for Ben, Carrie had become gold — everything else was a slush fund. On Saturday, they maximized their profit.