This is my favorite Tardam, and one of my favorite periods of time. I think my room mates and I as a whole were at our nerdiest here, and really came into our own as digital artists. We were in the final stretch of our degrees, finally had a place of our own, and the world was still our playground.
The greatest thing about this particular apartment was the location. Roof top deck with 270 degree view of the Chicago skyline, 10 minute train ride to the Loop, 15 minute walk to North Ave. Beach, with Best Buy and Binnie's just blocks away. That's hard to beat, and we never did top it.
The place was small but the...control center..had excellent fung shui. All the incoming traffic came from a single side of the room, and you felt encased by the solid 1890s made brick and wood work. The security of that in addition to the relative simplicity of our tech setup made for a relaxing environment. The arm-chair became know as "Todd's seat" because it was also my computer chair. I had my 22'' monitor mounted on a swivel arm that had a range of motion swinging all the way over to the adjacent couch. I recall one of my school colleagues seeing the setup and saying to me "You don't actually get any work done like this, do you?" I went through three arm mounts during the two years here.
Adam and I held the lease, but Bobby lived there as well. The three of us were completely engulfed in digital art, video games, and the Internet. I recall endless days and nights of scouring the internet for fun new digital developments and working on both school and personal projects. Our marathons interrupted only by class, a kegger, or to play some Halo. We also occasionally set up the 800x600 projector for some super-sized and pixelated Wii bowling.
Myself and my room mates also did some of our best work during this period of time. Our most passionate work, anyway. Plenty of time to conjure up wild aspirations and explore new techniques. We had made it past most of the general education, traditional art, and bogus secondary skill classes, and were finally studying exactly what we signed up to study.
College life was also still going strong, with weekly speed-quarter and beer-pong tournaments and roof-top grill-outs all summer long. Our social circle was very diverse yet very tight-knit. Sure I think of two or three who I was closest to, but the entire group of friends really felt like my room-mates. I think the fact that we all came from the same private art school, or other very similar schools, made a big difference. Animation, film, graphic design, print, fashion, audio, etc. I believe the kind of people in these type of fields of study are of a different breed, and surrounding yourself with these like-minded people will put a significant twist on the quality of life you have together.
Planet Earth viewing parties, nightly Halo matches, camping out to get a Wii on launch night, drunken Wii-bowling, Star Wars and LoTR trilogy marathons, collaborative web/graphic/3D projects, chugging Red Bulls, LANing up for random first person shooters, and torrrenting out the wazoo. Drinking PBR, appreciating the Chicago skyline, midnight strolls to Shedd Aquarium reef barrier, beer pong at BAMF house.