I outsmarted the sun at the beach this time. Apply sunscreen (liberally as directed) and be ready with a shirt. The crowd was different from last weekend: less families, more couples. So we had a much smaller chance to get biffed in the head with a stray soccer ball, but the people watching was dull. I get a kick out of watching kids make sand constructions: castles, moats, mounds, sand burials. There's always a little foreman with the vision, but I haven't seen many finished products.

When I was growing up in Norridge, the Norridge pool was the center of the summer universe. The worst sections of any day at the pool were the "health breaks". For 30 minutes, every few hours, kids had to get out of the pool. Ostensibly, this was for our health in some way, but it's pretty clear to me as an adult that the break was nothing more than a nice way to say "get your wrinkly little butts out of the pool and let the adults swim." I'm now a big fan of the "health break" or adult swim time. Chase Park has a nice, uncrowded pool that I hadn't been to before today.

I really meant to get over to the Folk and Roots fest at Welles Park this weekend, but the music lineup didn't excite me at all. They needed a Willy Porter or Michelle Shocked level headliner like they've had in years previous. Or maybe I'm just not folksy or rootsy enough anymore to recognize anyone on the bill. Entirely possible.