I lived in Chicago for three years, and it remains my favorite city in the US. I'll be back in town over July 4th weekend, which creates a perfect opportunity for an in person Sporkful meetup! It'll take place on Friday, July 1 at Monk's Pub at Lake and Wells in the Loop, from 6-8 pm. The event is free, no tickets necessary, just come on down, have a drink, and kick off the holiday weekend in style. I'll have a limited number of Sporkful t-shirts for sale -- pre-order a shirt by emailing us to guarantee you get one -- and more importantly, there will be special guests: Ian Chillag, producer of Wait Wait Don't Tell Me and co-host of the excellent new NPR podcast How To Do Everything, and my brother Howard. (See them in the above photo, Ian on the left, Howard in the middle. Howard's a legal historian, so if you buy him enough drinks and ask real nice like, he'll explain how, during the Revolution, colonists in New York state used the confiscation of Tory property as a way to persuade people to support the cause, and to establish the fledgling government's legitimacy, thus preventing a societal slip into chaos.) Ian, Mark and I worked together on The Bryant Park Project at NPR, so he's an old friend. If you come to the meetup, he'll be your friend too. See you there! /dan