"I never wear a seatbelt or a bike helmet and I'm fine, ergo not wearing a seatbelt or bike helmet is not a risk."

Every single person we've ever sent or taken on the cruise has thanked us profusely for doing so.

If you're on the south loop, I suggest taking a trip down to 18th street during the day. (We go there at night, but some people find it dodgy.) There is a dizzying array of Mexican restaurants, grocers and bakeries along there. Mexican food here is different from the border states because a lot of people here hail from the interior and coastal regions. Pollo Express is the best chicken on the planet and a couple could stuff themselves for $20 (as you could at most restaurants down there. We ate at Nuevo Leon last weekend and it was $14 with beverages and tax. More than any other restaurant in the city, that one is in my experience the most frequently recommended by chicanos/chicanas. If you're a bit more adventurous, there's a taqueria that that specializes in goat (Birreria Reyes de Ocotlan) that is also fantastic.

Restaurant Row is home to a lot of amazing restaurants and has the bonus of being close to downtown but a few blocks away, leaving the tourists behind. A $5-7 for a cab there, or just take the green line. Three E/W streets of Randolph, Morgan & Fulton, bounded by Halsted on the East and Ashland on the West. Glazed and Infused for donuts. Publican for best modern pub in the city (their pork rinds will blow your mind and their weekend brunch is great as well); brainchild of Paul Kahan, one of 7 or so completely different establishments that are changing the way the country eats. Aviary if you want to splurge for a crazy cocktail night (but it's not for everyone and is extremely spendy); it's run by Grant Achatz, head chef of a variety of restaurants, including the #1 in the world on some lists. Belly Q for Asian BBQ. There are lots of others as well.

They're all similar enough to each other and different enough from all other types of pizza that it really doesn't matter that much. We actually like Pizzeria Due and Uno (the original ones downtown, not the post-expansion ones).

The four things we recommend to everyone who visits:

(1) A drink atop the Hancock Tower
(2) The Architectural Boat Tour
(3) The Art Institute
(4) Millennium Park.

We've done all of these things multiple times and never get tired of doing them.

Eat All of The Things. If you let me know where you are staying and what your interests are, I can give you specific suggestions. If you're in the downtown area, here's a map of some of our favorite places. I can do different cuisines, budgets and neighborhoods as well. (Sorry, we're kind of hardcore about food and really love to promote the city.)

Yeah, this is my go-to thing. I pretend to excuse myself for the washroom and then pay without people realizing. But now they don't let me get up from the table at all once the meal starts.

Just to be clear, my MIL actually told me awhile back that we could help pay for the aforementioned improvements. It's all part of an elaborate cultural and etiquette dance, for the most part. My wife and I are comfortable financially and this is also a part of a culture of the kids looking after the parents. My MIL supports herself and my FIL, who never really worked, but they go without many times. She used to work in the now-defunct garment industry in Montreal but was forced into retirement a few years ago and is generally unable to find work because she doesn't speak French (but she speaks English very well, as well as Cantonese and Mandarin; Quebec discriminates very heavily against non-French workers).

The thing that my good teachers did right or perhaps more importantly, the thing that my bad teachers did wrong is that the former did and the latter didn't motivate a given topic. As in, why should I care about this? Until you get into really high level math, there's almost always going to be a real life situation that a topic can be related to. I remember one teacher in particular who really knew her stuff, but just couldn't relate it to students in a meaningful way. I remember her triumphantly going through multiple proofs using infinite series and induction and all kinds of stuff that we hadn't even taken yet to prove the quadratic formula. She was clearly excited to do it, but nobody in class understand what or why she was doing so.

The other thing I would say is probably more meaningful if you've ever seen Stewart's calculus text. In the foreword, iirc, he acknowledges that people learn in different ways, and that he tries to teach everything in the book four ways. I believe it was graphically, numerically, in words, and mathematically, but I can't say for sure.

Even though I didn't do math as a direct part of my career, that text still stands out as the best one I had across all disciplines.

I can't speak to the One, but I have found the Zip to be pretty accurate for normal walking/running. The only time where I feel it misses steps tends to be in the house, such as going up and down stairs, or, say, if you're in the kitchen or doing laundry and you do a lot of shifting around and turning. It doesn't seem to capture slower, irregular movements as well.

If anyone is wondering, a trip through the washing machine registers as about 1,400 steps. A good way to boost step count, but not recommended.

This weather is the frickin' worst. In a fit of dumb, I bought plants a few weeks ago and all but one has died.

Sorry to hear about the touchy neighbor. Most people are pretty good about stuff like this, but some people just don't really get how to co-exist with others.