Here are some of my recent articles for the Chicago Tribune Travel section: I added a little minor league baseball to a college-visit trip to Nashville, Asheville and Durham, creating a memorable father-son road trip. You can read it here. Southern Rhode Island is often overlooked amid other popular New England destinations. But it offers everything one could want from a lazy beach vacation, without the hassles and crowds of more popular spots. Here’s my love-letter to fresh oysters, sandy beaches, and happy hours on the lawn. Two Lake Michigan ferries… Read more Travel Writing →
Here is my Watchdog story for the Chicago Sun-Times on efforts by the City of Zion to recover from the 1998 closing of the ComEd nuclear power plant there, and news that nuclear waste will be stored on site for the foreseeable future. You can read the story here.
Yesterday evening I got a call telling me my 23-year-old nephew is moving from Chicago to Austin, Texas, and could he swing by in a little bit with his roommates… Read more Notes on a ‘Getting Out Of Town’ Playlist for my nephew, Jack Cox →
Here is a link to my Forbes blog, where I write about business innovation in the Midwest, covering everything from Chicago tech startups to old-line industrial companies attempts to keep pace with new technology, and new business models. John Carpenter: Forbes
My first attempt at extreme flash fiction – 101 words, exactly! – was published on the 101 Words website. You can find it here: A Lousy Goodbye
Day Seven “Forty-five Years” by Stan Rogers There are a few things I’ve missed in this seven-day exercise. No Bob Dylan songs, for one, which isn’t right. No Little Feat, REM, Fred Eaglesmith, or Flight of the Conchords. Ah well. It’s almost Valentine’s Day. So I couldn’t resist adding this one for the person I most enjoy listening to music with. A Boston bar singer lead me to Stan Rogers. He played “Barrett’s Privateers” at the Purple Shamrock, and I walked up and asked him about it during a break.… Read more Seven Songs in Seven Days: Answering the challenge →
I wasn’t exactly chomping at the bit to see Bruce on this latest tour, singing “The River” start to finish. It’s an album that came out when I was 18… Read more Bruce takes us (back) down to The River →
(Note: This story was published in the Chicago Tribune April 14, 2015, and recently won a MORE award from the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons.) By John Carpenter Two Northwestern University biomedical engineers have taken a new approach to one of the most confounding injuries in professional sports, using digital tools to study the way baseball pitchers, especially hard-throwing big-leaguers, keep destroying their elbows. Researchers James Buffi and Wendy Murray in a recent study used digital modeling to simulate the effect of varying levels of muscle strength on the elbow joint during… Read more Northwestern uses technology to target pitcher elbow injuries →
John Carpenter 