City Living: The run-ins continue

I thought yesterday's edition of city living was exciting, since it's not everyday I share a cab with strangers and exchange business cards. But on just another average Wednesday (hump day!) after work, a long day of catching up on correspondence from my travels suddenly turned around.

The lesson of the day: Never underestimate where you'll run into or meet people.

• On the L: Sprinting onto the Red Line after work around 6 p.m., I looked up and right next to me  on the same car was a friend from Mizzou and one of his co-workers. We had just seen each other and caught up on the drive back to Chicago after Homecoming this past weekend, so it was a comical run-in. The train went by quickly hanging out, meeting his co-worker and realizing he went to Iowa State with my good friends Helen & Steve, and knew them from Greek life there. Small world! 

• On the street: While my roommate Hannah and I were walking to the Lakefront path for some evening exercise, I saw my high school choir teacher on the street. It was raining, but we gave each other a hug and said a quick hello! 

It's always exciting to see familiar faces in Lakeview. Up next: seeing what random adventures or run-ins will occur on Halloween.

The thrill of daily adventures

My move downtown has placed me back into a world of public transit, and with public transit comes many of stories. When public transit and Chicago's CTA/Ventra card can't transport you all the way there, you are forced to resort to cabs or Uber.

After flying a lot over the past few weeks, my standard procedure to return to the city from O'Hare airport is to take the Blue Line back in the direction of the city, then finish the journey with a 3-mile cab ride eastward. Except I've encountered a minor issue: there are virtually no cabs for hire at the train station. The area is full of buses, cars and cabs, but many are occupied since it is right near the highway exit.

Yesterday evening as I was trying to hail a cab, a man and a woman behind me in business attire caught the eye of the cab driver crossing over first. My frustration (partially from a delayed flight, partially from a competitive spirit) got the best of me and I gave them a dirty look, to which the man noticed.

Him: Oh, were you trying to catch a cab? [Not giving up his]
Me: Yup. [Clearly, why I'm in front of you in this line of people trying to catch taxis]
Him: Well where are you going? [Imagine: sense of guilt]
[We exchange our locations and realize we're going a block apart]
Him: Oh, we're close, do you want to share?
Me: Sure, why not.

So the three of us (the man, his female coworker and I) get in the cab and they even gave me the front seat. I explained to the cab driver what we were doing, and we all chatted for the 3-mile drive down Belmont that turns into 20 minutes in bumper-to-bumper traffic. The two of them moved from San Diego and Seattle respectively, both of which I've been to in the past year. They work in sales & events for a hotel by O'Hare and are new to the Chicago area. While they gave me insights into their cities and occupation, I gave them insights to mine. It was pretty fun to meet some neighbors and have some people to chat with outside of existing friends or a business setting. In fact, by the end of the ride, we exchanged business cards. 

Some of you might say "Only you would do that," but hey - I wasn't the one to offer. I'm always up for economic efficiency by sharing (meals, cabs, etc.), and this situation shows that you can even get some networking, fun conversation or just city experience doing so. After the ease and relaxed nature of an interaction like this, look out for more city living adventures on the blog (with safety and precautions considered, obviously)!

Let Instagram ads begin

Officially seen my first ad on Instagram, even if it was self-promotion and/or a test. Talk about a seamless integration, but I look forward to seeing if any advertisers using these sees a return on investment.

The offering was open to brands that already have a large following on the platform, listed in this article on CNN Money. Will you be more likely to buy a product if they post hip photos on Instagram? 

The funniest Instagram memes on the Internet

Despite having the app for less than a year, I'm a big fan of Instagram. Pictures + friends in your close community + location tagging and photo maps make for a pretty cool app. So when I see memes or articles that mock this obsession, they are typically hilarious. 

Here are a few Instagram memes I've come across that will make any avid Instagram user laugh! 

Confessions of a suburban girl moving to the city

Eight things I didn’t know about living in Chicago city limits

1. Biking on the sidewalk is illegal; you have to ride on the street. 

2. Not every street that goes east connects to the lake, so live near a street with a tunnel under Lake Shore Drive that goes to the Lakefront path. 

3. Obviously "The Loop" is called The Loop for a reason, but CTA trains looping around the path don't go the same way there as they go back. So watch out if you're taking the Brown or Purple line!

4. You only grocery shop for what you can carry with two arms. Riding a bike with $80 worth of groceries isn’t feasible....every time. 

5. It doesn’t matter if the content of the Red Eye publication is bad, you take the free copy anyway for news about entertainment, restaurant deals and upcoming events. 

6. It's fairly normal to see rats in the Lakeview area in alley ways or the back of apartment complexes...beware of dumpsters.

7. You honk when you drive through alleyways so you don't hit people or animals. 

8. The noise of the L really does disappear after living by it, but the sounds of honking horns, smokers outside or people passing by don't.

Needless to say, I'm loving my time here so far! 

COOL APPS: Testing out iOS7

Like a true digital vanguard and constant attempt to be an early adopter, I spent this morning reading technology blogs about the features of iOS7, and specifically, how to save battery life. There is nothing more frustrating than low battery percentages on your phone when it's just sitting in your purse with WiFi, location trackers and other apps sucking it away.

I learned a lot from some reading, like the clock app icon being an actual clock, how to block calls and more. But the third point in this Mashable piece showed me the very exciting news that the Compass iPhone app now has a level.

As the tenant of a new apartment that my roommate and I are currently decorating, this news leaves me dumbfounded as we just hung up all of our frames using our own eyes as level, semi-upset that we didn't own the tool.

So for good measure (pun intended), I went to a few of our frames and put the level on them to see how we did.

Testing out the new iPhone level on the Compass app

And look- it is perfectly straight!

For more iPhone tips, ways to save battery life on iOS7, and detailed directions on how to turn off AirDrop, Bluetooth, background app refresh and other battery suckers, click here. 

Life in 2013

When you walk into a restaurant in the city for lunch and it's aligned with outlets so everyone eating can charge their phones, tablets or computers. 

Taken at Jason's Deli at Dearborn & Lake St. 

Lesson of the day: Snapchat metrics

Last night after being added by a friend on Snapchat, I scrolled through my contacts list and came across an interesting feature.

Upon clicking on any one of your contacts' names, you see a "score" as well as each contact's three best friends. WHOA - A LOT OF INFORMATION THERE. Not even surprised that this type of information is public, and being a nerd in general, I did some research as to how these metrics are determined. Are they even valid?

Apparently, I'm not the only one thrown off by this, as a BuzzFeed reporter who was one of the first to call out the feature in the media says, "It's confusing as to why Snapchat would even have a Web presence for user profiles at all-it's a service that's made for phone-to-phone private communication." Well said.

So....getting to the "research":

What is your 'score'?

The total number of points is the total number of Snapchats you have sent and received. If you send a photo to more than one recipient, it's still only worth one point. There are rumors across the internet that each Snapchat is worth 12 points and consecutive photos are worth 20, but this doesn't appear to be true. 

How are your 'best friends' determined?

"Best friends" are supposedly the people you snap the most, but we have to keep in mind that this includes sent and received messages. It seems to be refreshed pretty often, but I could not find a standard measure. In September, Snapchat released a code for users to enter to gain five best friends (instead of three) in their contact lists, which was a big deal in the Snapchat world to tech dorks (or just people who love selfies). 

Has this always been here?
Yes. In fact, I recall seeing it with friends on the old interface, but rather than appearing in-app the score and best friends would pop up in a separate URL. This is still accessible on a mobile device, when you type in snapchat.me/yourusernamehere.

Now to the primary research...is it accurate?
Looks pretty accurate to me. Andrew, Sherman and Shaina have been my best friends since freshman year of college, so I have no shame in them being represented on my Snapchat "best friends" list. We're all in different cities and Andrew & Sherman send Snapchats from their jobs in TV multiple times a week, so I'm not too surprised.

In terms of benchmarking my score, 1,546 seems like a reasonable number since it's a two-way street. Analyzing others' scores, most seemed to have points in the 300-12,000 points range. Many of my personal contacts list appeared to also have scores between 1,000 and 2,000.

So, is your Snapchat score accurate? Are your best friends your ACTUAL best friends, or is there secret flirting going on with someone that your friends didn't know about? What's next, being able to click on someone in your Contacts app, having the capability to identify the top three people someone exchanges text messages with, and a score of how talkative they are based on the quantity of messages? I sure hope not. In the meantime, let's acknowledge the information out there and apply accordingly. 

Living at home: lack of privacy or high Millennial expectations

Pew statistics show that 36 percent of all Millennials are living in the home of their parents. Zeroing in on the Millennials, you see that more than half of 18 to 24 year-olds (56%) are living at home. There are even gender splits, with recent studies releasing that male Millennials are more likely to live at home than women, an eight percentage point difference (40% men vs. 32% women 18 to 31 years old at home). As a college graduate living at home for another week, I help constitute these statistics.

I am obviously excited to have my own apartment downtown, but do acknowledge the pros and cons of both situations–staying home or moving out–especially with the ability to live in the suburbs of the city where I essentially grew up. Living at home for the past few months, I have learned a lot. A lot about how my family operates during the school year, taking into account others' schedules when it comes to cars and meals and a lot about how our generation defines privacy.

There are some times where I get home from a long day at work or a night out with friends, and am not necessarily in the mood to socialize with family immediately. But if I'm on the phone or computer in the family room or kitchen, the questions begin: Who are you talking to? Where were you? Who was there? Where did you park? What are you doing tomorrow?

And at first, I was frustrated at these questions. Our whole generation hears these questions and sighs at their parents, wondering why they are so eager to know every last detail. While some might think, "That's just what living at home is like," I thought about it a little more and realized this perceived nuisance is a family's way of knowing what's going on in my life.

Millennials have had high expectations of privacy our entire lives. Let's take a look. When our parents grew up...

• All calls came to a house phone. Your family didn't have to ask who you were talking to on the phone because they could see you doing it. In some instances, the phones even had cords. Who are you on the phone with? and "What did they say?" didn't have to be asked because overall, anyone around you could pick up on the gist of the conversation–catching up, making plans, whatever it was. 

• Not only were cell phones not in place, but written conversations via text message, Facebook, email and other social media didn't happen. Parents knew who their children were communicating with; kids couldn't hide it on Facebook, text messages and Snapchats. If you got a letter in the mail, someone else saw the return address and the fact that you received emails. Digital alternatives did not exist. How many people can say right now that their parents, siblings or roommates could name the past five people they have texted or communicated with on Facebook? 

• There were not numerous devices in each room of the household (TV in every bedroom, computers in other rooms, etc.), so it was more common to sit in the living room and have a conversation with your family. When I'm home at night, it is possible that my Mom is in front of one TV upstairs with her iPad, my Dad is in front of another with his phone reading material and I'm in the basement on my laptop in front of yet another television. Co-viewing rarely happens. With all of these devices spread out, there is no doubt that it takes more effort to get everyone in the same room for a conversation. 

With these three callouts being just a few pieces of evidence, we have more privacy now than ever. Despite the 'over it' attitude at the incessant questions upon walking into the door, if I didn't talk or share stories from my day, my family would have no idea what I was doing or who I was talking to...ever.

So to those who live at home, or even with roommates who care about your life and ask a lot of questions...be mindful this privacy notion. Consider how much of our life is password-protected, digital and why we feel the need to hide so much from those living with us. When you set your privacy expectation in any living situation, think of the additional mediums our generation uses to communicate and acknowledge that they did not exist before.