I produce the chicagotribune.com sections and databases on real estate, cars and jobs.

Consumer and technology topics have been my specialty in 15 years as a Chicago Tribune editor, web producer, analyst and developer. Previously I was real estate editor and business reporter at the Chicago Sun-Times and helped lead the Society of Professional Journalists as national secretary-treasurer. I've also reported for Chicago suburban and community newspapers and taught journalism at Columbia College Chicago.

East Village Association blogger, weekend remodeler and fan of jazz, theater, White Sox and other fine arts.

Grandpa got a gun 2/19/2013
My grandfather was an outdoorsman. Wladislaw hunted game in Wisconsin, and perhaps as a teenager in Poland. Photos from fishing trips show his prized crappie catches, but no poses have turned up with hunting gear or trophy game. Yet lately Dziadek has been my stalking horse for thinking through the gun-control debate. He died when I was 3, leaving no tales of tracking deer or nesting in a duck blind. But Walter Jr. and I did the things he did with Walter Sr.: fishing, camping, wood...

iPod Shuffle doesn't repeat? Then explain Lang Lang! 10/19/2012
A blackjack card counter might not beat the iPod odds, but that doesn't make Shuffle random. Most likely it's an algorithm we haven't cracked but a formula just the same. In any case the game's fixed: We choose what to load on the device, so patterns are there to be found. On my aging iPod Touch, it's an equal mix of roughly 7-minute classical selections I've been replaying for years and music of all sorts that caught my attention in just the last six months — stumbled-upon library CDs...

High school confidential: Web edition 5/10/2012
The City News Bureau of Chicago maxim, "If your mother says she loves you, check it out," hangs on the wall in Room 226 at Benito Juarez Community Academy . A student who takes that advice seriously might stumble on this page investigating Friday's guest for the 7:59 a.m. Media Studies class. I'll be there on behalf of the News Literacy Project . If you're one of Liz Winfield's students, congratulations! My high school did not have a Media Studies class. Ms. Winfield also advises p...

A reporter's guide to project management 4/17/2012
I've been moving between journalism and development for the past five years, ever since my boss ordered me a copy of "Project Management for Dummies." Nothing personal, he said, it's just a good book on how projects get done. Eventually the head of the Project Management Office told me I needed a more formal study of the project manager's body of knowledge. So I began reading "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Project Management." A newspaper is not the model environment for project man...

Civic engagement: Free symphony and Chicago blues 4/4/2012
If the symphony is an acquired taste, the first step is to acquire cash. Main-floor tickets to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra cost $47 and up even on a weeknight. Box seats go for $220 each. But there's a way to take in the Orchestra Hall experience for free. It could be ticket to a lifelong interest in classical music. Symphony Center's tuxedo-clad ushers open the house of Riccardo Muti, Georg Solti and Fritz Reiner to free performances of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, an acc...