Resident charged in fatal apartment building fire

The Trib's Chicago Breaking News site reports: "Mahad Ali Hassan, 26, of 6720 N. Sheridan Road, was charged late Saturday night with first-degree murder, aggravated arson and aggravated unlawful use of a weapon, said Chicago Police News Affairs Officer John Mirabelli."

Here's a prior story on the fire from the same site, with more details about the blaze.

6720 North Sheridan -- The Day After

Here's 6720 North Sheridan Road the day after the fire. Looks a lot quieter today, doesn't it? Sad to think of the people who were hurt, the one person who perished, and of course, the people who are now homeless, thanks to their apartments being ruined by fire, smoke, and/or water damage.

6720 North Sheridan Fire Update

According to CBS2:

• One death; multiple injuries. :(
  
• Somebody jumped from the back before they could be rescued. They are in critical condition.
• Two firefighters were injured.
  
• Might have been arson. Gasoline found nearby.

CBS2 used some of my pictures on their website, including the one accompanying this article.

I fumbled trying to shoot cell phone video with my phone; was hard to see the "recording" indicator. This left me with a handful of very short clips. I was able to stitch them together into a single Youtube video.

Fire at 6720 North Sheridan

I spent the morning working from Starbucks, then was going to walk down to Five Guys and grab a burger for lunch. I walked out the door of Starbucks and wondered, why are all those people standing there? What's that smoke? Oh no, the apartment building at 6720 North Sheridan Road was on fire. Smoke seemed to be pouring out of two middle windows on the top floor. (The building is a four plus one.) Just as soon as I had walked out and saw the smoke, I heard sirens, and police and fire showed up seconds later. It was clear that I was in no position to help, so I hung back and took a few pictures.

Click here to see some more pictures from the fire and rescue efforts.

One lady was sticking her head out of her fourth floor window, telling people she couldn't get out of her apartment. This was right when the fire trucks were arriving. The CFD didn't spend any time messing around. They very quickly set things up so they could get a ladder up to her. She did make it down OK. She's on the stretcher here, I wonder if perhaps only due to possible smoke inhalation. At the same time, the firefighters were helping one or two more people down from another fourth floor apartment on the other side of the fire.

It looks as though the people in the two adjacent apartments were able to get down safely, thanks to the good work of the Chicago Fire Department. Here's hoping that the burned apartment was unoccupied.

Update: One dead and four injured, according to CBS2. :(

Celebrate New Year's Eve at RoPa

RoPa, located at 1146 W. Pratt is offering New Year's Eve specials as well as their regular menu.  Don't forget to call and make a reservation (773-508-0002). Read about it on the Rogers Park Business Alliance blog.

Grand Victoria Casino, Elgin

Saturday was our first wedding anniversary, and since we were married in Vegas, we decided to adventure out to a casino to celebrate. It was, uh, an adventure.

Yikes: Tribune's New CEO & Freedom of the Press?

Hard to say what's worse: That the Tribune's new CEO Randy Michaels is an ex-shock jock who sounds like he's the embodiment of the bad end of the sophomoric element of morning radio; or that NBC Chicago squashed a pretty straightforward piece on this guy, and nobody's got the balls to give author Steve Rhodes an honest answer as to what happened.

Verizon: FAIL

Well, that was a short adventure. On Wednesday, I stopped into a Verizon Wireless Store and picked up a Mifi 3G pocket router/modem. It's small, it's neat looking, it's easy to configure.

3G vs. 3G: Whose mobile data network is best?

My colleague Matt shared this very detailed article from Telephony Online that breaks down who actually has the best 3G network. It's nice to see some data applied to the question of whose network is better; I trust data more than I trust Luke Wilson.

The Ethics of Content Syndication (or "Theft")

This weekend, while dealing with yet another dillhole who thinks it's kosher to republish content I've authored sans consent, I figured that perhaps it was time to again point out the ethical considerations relating to content syndication and republishing.

New Website!

Yesterday I set up a website for my favorite hot dog stand, the Wiener and Still Champion in Evanston. Why do people charge so much for websites? I just don't see the point, unless there's some big, significant value being added over what you can do on your own, with a few hours of elbow grease. The site is hosted (free) with Blogger. I think it cost, in total, $6, for the first year of the domain registration.

I ended up starting with this "Natural Health" Blogger template -- which I think is pretty funny considering it was going to be for a hot dog stand -- and tweaked it until I ended up with the yellow, orange and red thing you see before you today.

Country-Fried Gyros!

Are you tired of me talking about Wiener and Still Champion yet? No? Good.

Last night Kate and I made our way up to WaSC in Evanston after work, both to meet up with our friends and to sample some of the new goodies on the menu. Our trip was well worth it, we were rewarded with many delicious deep-fried treats.