Ravinia

For the past 100 years, the Chicago Symphony has held summer concerts at it's outdoor pavilion and gathering spot called Ravinia a beautiful location located in Highland Park. It really is quite an operation. People gather hours before hand (and these are serious listeners of music unlike the rather rookie crowd in Madison) who bring lawn chairs and these amazingly elaborate picnics. I saw more crab salad than I have ever seen in one place. The lawn dwellers can hear the symphony, but can't see it. I chose to take a seat in the pavilion, which holds some 3,000 people.

The pavilion at Ravinia

I got seats in the sixth row. I don't actually think these are premium seats.

The view from my seat

The reason I wanted to hear this specific concert was that the Chicago Symphony was playing Dvorak's New World Symphony, in honor of the 100 year anniversary of his death. The performance was magical and I was totally moved by this piece. We can thank Dad for being such a classical music buff that it rubbed off on me. I was totally engrossed. The two opening pieces was some modern horn thing by a living composer and a piece by Mozart that I actually didn't recognize. It was New World that was unbelievable.

Chicago Symphony Conductor James Conlon

A magical evening!

Econ Camp is Over

The teacher participants and professors upon commencement

Two words: Coco Crisp

A group of us from Econ camp decided to go see the Chicago White Sox play the Cleveland Indians tonight. The ballpark, known now as US Cellular Field, but formerly known as New Comiskey Park, sits on Chicago's South Side. As with areas with two teams, Chicago, NYC, LA and SF, there is the glamour team (Cubs, Yankees, Dodgers and Giants) and then their more blue collar counterparts (White Sox, Mets, Angels and Athletics).

US Cellular Field (New Comiskey Park), home of the Chicago White Sox

White Sox on the field in the first inning

The glamour teams play in beloved, historical or boutique ballparks (Wrigley Field, Yankee Stadium, Dodger Stadium and Pac Bell Park) whereas the "second class" teams play in parks that are serviceable but really don't inspire much love (US Cellular Field, Shea Stadium, Edison Field and Network Associates Coliseum). In the case of all the less beloved teams, just going to the ballpark on the day of the game and buying a legally purchased ticket is not an issue. I did just that. I have to say that I was surprised at the cost of an Upper Deck ticket, $16. That's significantly more than you would find at the Network Associates Coliseum.

The score: Cleveland over the White Sox 3-2.

The most exciting, and ultimately game deciding play, occurred in the second inning. Right after the shock of finding out that a player on the Indians is actually named.......

Yes, you are reading that correctly

Coco Crisp. He hit a three run homerun and that's all the Indians needed to beat the White Sox. The rest of the game was completely uneventful.

It was nice to see an old Mariner favorite, Omar Vizquel still playing well.

Omar Vizquel still the man at Shortstop

But the big surprise was finding out that JOEY CORA, yes, that JOEY CORA from the 1995 Miracle Mariners is now the 3rd base coach for the White Sox. Here's the coaches page from the White Sox web site to show you that I didn't hear it wrong. Glad to see Joey is still involved in baseball.


Parting Observations:
1) My Italian Sausage was excellent, the bun however fell apart in my hands and therefore ruined the eating of the Sausage experience.
2) The find the ball under the hat game was quite a step below in difficulty than what is provided at Safeco Field.
3) The kiss cam guy (the cameraman zooms in on couples and they are expected to kiss) did a LOUSY job of actually finding people would kiss. More than once he zoomed in on a couple and they actually weren't a couple.
4) The diamondvision screen was EXCELLENT. I noticed that it was significantly sharper than ones I have seen at other ballparks.
5) PAUL KONERKO

Econ Camp Field Trip

One of the morning lectures talked about externalities and why it is difficult to hold people accountable for them. It comes down to the simple concept that where there exists ambigious private property rights, there is little incentive for those who produce externalities to deal with them. The second lecture talked about the difference between accounting costs and economic costs (you add the loss of potential income) when talking about entrepreneurship.

The simulation today was a totally enlightening game dealing with cartels and the idea of market power. It's hard to explain in a few sentences, but you'll have to trust me that I thought it was great.

Usually, the afternoon is a three hour session working with the two professors and Smokey. Today, however, we took advantage of the fact that this conference is being held in Chicago. We took a field trip to the Loop and had tours of both the Chicago Board of Trade and the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago

Amish in the city, a sight we saw as we walked to the CBOT

Boeing's corporate headquarters now here in Chicago

Looking north along Lasalle Street

So the Chicago Board of Trade building is one of the most architecturally celebrated buildings in a town that has more than it's share of notable buildings. It stands at the intersection of Jackson and Lasalle and is noted for its Art Deco style. They continue the Art Deco theme inside the building as well.

The Chicago Board of Trade Building

Hey, if you've forgotten what I look like

Now some of you may be wondering what happens at the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) and why is it important. Chicago being the major metropolitan city of the Midwest and it's vast agricultural production is where the majority of the countries agricultural commodites are bought and sold. Remember I said earlier that when there are numerous buyers and sellers, a near perfect market is formed and price discovery (the amount a commodity such as corn) is efficiently determined. What is being traded here at the CBOT are futures contracts and options on major agricultural commodities. This is all done in person and the floor traders have their very strict system of communication with hand signals and nods of the head.

The floor of the CBOT just before the closing bell

Trading of futures and options of agricultural commodities has been done in this manner since the 1800's. In 1975, the CBOT began the trade of futures and options on certain financial instruments, such as Federal Funds, Treasury Bonds, 10 year notes and 2/5 year notes just to name a few. There is a separate trading pit in the same building for the financials. As we watched the trading floor from a perch above the floor, it looked as though sometimes the trading got heated and that brawls were breaking out. But we were told that those dust-ups are all in the name of sealing the deal.

Our second tour of the afternoon was at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.

The Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago

In 1913, Congress passed the federal reserve bill establishing 12 regional banks that would serve as the "bank to the banks". The Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago (region 7) covers Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan and Wisconsin. The Fed serves many purposes. It stores all currency and distributes it to banks in its region as needed. It processes about one-third of all checks written, although as more people use electronic transfers, this job is becoming less an integral part of the Feds services. The Fed develops, writes and oversees banking rules. But most important, the Fed sets monetary policy, with the goals of a) having stable prices, b) full employment and c) maximum economic growth. This is where Alan Greenspan comes in. He and the 12 board presidents meet 8 times a year as the Federal Open Market Committee to determine interest rates. There was actually little to see at the Fed. We saw a short film and had a very nice extensive question and answer session with a Fed employee.

In the display area there was a video quiz where you were presented with a certain economic newsclip and then you had to predict what Mr. Greenspan would do.

Set the course of the economy

I agreed with Alan three out of three.

A whopper of a storm...

So, there have been warnings all night about this storm that is now rolling across the city of Chicago. Here are a couple pictures. I sure wish I had the ability to take shots capturing the lightning bolts hitting the Sears Tower right here as I look out the window.

The night sky

The night sky all light up

Scarcity, Markets and Allocation

Two days of "Econ" camp down and I've already re-learned so much of the Economics that I supposedly learned back in college. We spent the first couple days talking about scarcity of resources, opportunity cost, the magic of the market place and deriving the supply and demand curves.

The day begins with one of the Economics professors, in this case Mike Salemi of the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, presenting for an hour about an economic topic. The second hour has our mentor teacher, Smokey Murphy, running a simulation that teaches an economic concept and then debriefing the simulation. Today, we played a market game in which there were buyers and sellers and from that we learned that when there is voluntary trade of goods and services, creates wealth. In addition, when there are many buyers and sellers there is perfect market competition. The third hour there is a presentation from our other professor, Eric Eschker, from Humboldt State University.

The classroom and some of the students

Mentor teacher, Smokey Murphy, doing his thing

During these morning three hours, the students are the learning as we teachers are watching and learning ourselves. In the afternoon, we get three hours one on one with the two professors and Smokey to ask questions and to pick their brains on how to teach different concepts. It's a great set-up and I am psyched to get back to Head-Royce and begin teaching. Tomorrow we get a special treat. We have had tours set up to visit the Chicago Board of Trade as well as the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. As long as the terror threat doesn't rise to orange, we're going. I'm crossing my fingers.

I leave you with some of the topics that we are dealing with.....

What are ways that we as consumers and producers allocate scarce resources?

What are some of the issues that we must address in selecting an allocation method?

"Econ Camp"

For those of you who have been briefed about my teaching situation next year, I have been drafted to teach a one semester Economics course for our seniors. Even though I was an Economics major in college, I really have no idea what I'll be doing. Therefore, for my second professional development conference of the summer I am attending a weeklong seminar run by the Foundation for Teaching Economics being held here on the campus of the University of Illinois-Chicago.

Here's how much my life is charmed:

My half-mile walk from the loft to the conference

Yes, Leah and Rich's loft is a mere one half mile walk from where the conference is being held. I could not have asked for a better location to be staying. Here's a part of my walk:

I cross over I-290, aka the Eisenhower Expressway. On the left side of the photo is my local "El" stop, UIC-Halsted. I also love that the two signs to the right point to Wisconsin (take the left to the Kennedy Expressway) or Indiana (take the right to the Dan Ryan Expressway). I don't why that tickles me, but it does.

I must, however, have one not so great thing and so here it is:

The 60's architecture of the campus

More uninspired architecture from UI-C

So the conference started this afternoon at 4PM. The format of the conference has college professors and a mentor high school teacher teaching economics to the students in the morning using hands-on activities and simulations. Then in the afternoon, we teachers get further training with the professors and mentor teacher. We actually had a lesson today, that being "opportunity cost". What did each conference attendee give up to be here this week?

My binder of knowledge

I'm psyched for this conference. One note, this is the organization that I used to work for, but now I'm actually a participant. It was nice to reconnect with old friends that I used to work with, Linwood P. and Smokey M.. You'll be seeing photos of them in blog posts to come.