When the Mayor Rahm Emanuel Bike Path -- formerly known as Kinzie Street -- was billed as a "pilot" program, I figured that meant a trial run.

Certainly there would be traffic counts, on-the-street interviews and maybe even a survey of neighbors, workers and guys who drive BMWs to the mayor's workout spot, the East Bank Club.

Once that data were collected, the city would decide whether to configure other streets with wide bike lanes, a barrier of flexible plastic posts, parking spots and, finally, a narrow lane for automobiles, all over town.

So, I asked City Hall for their bike path data. Turned out, there wasn't much.

Crews did two traffic counts of bicycle and vehicular traffic between 7 a.m. and 9 a.m. One count was taken on an overcast Tuesday in May with temperatures in the 60s before the path was installed. The other count was taken on a partly cloudy Wednesday in July when temperatures hit 82 by 8 a.m.

The results: Bicycle traffic increased 60 percent from May to July. And total traffic heading east on Kinzie from Milwaukee was 49 percent bikes and 51 percent drivers, according to the data.

City Transportation Commissioner Gabe Klein was giddy to talk about the paths. "Those numbers are the highest I've ever seen," he said. "And the feedback has been pretty unbelievable . . . Now, we're at an even mode split."

He's right, if we forget that several times a day you will not see a bicycle on the Mayor Emanuel Bike Path when the half-mile stretch is inexplicably crowded with cars on a skinny street that no longer has room for the Gaztro-Wagon, much to my foodie co-workers' dismay.

While we're at it, let's also forget that all the city data really say is that for two hours on a warm summer morning there were 60 percent more bicyclists on the road than on an overcast spring day. Let's also forget that the correct response to that is, "Well, duh."

The half-mile Kinzie path cost about $140,000. If that's the model for the next 99.5 miles of protected bike lanes, it could cost us -- Chicago taxpayers -- about $28 million. It's not that much cash when you consider the enormous size of the city budget. But how many street cops do you think a city struggling to stop shootings in certain parts of town could hire for $28 million? I'm no budget expert, but probably at least a couple.

So why the big push for ugly, congestion-causing bike lanes?

During a telephone chat, it was my goal to play devil's advocate with Klein, who is what transportation reporters call a "policy wonk."

It is a policy wonk's job to advocate for spending taxpayer cash on projects whether we want them or not. This is not always a bad thing. Sometimes, we need policy wonks. Chicago probably wouldn't have L trains if it had not been for someone's great, great grandfather -- a City Hall policy wonk by trade.

Here are some highlights of our chat:

* The debate over the need for protected bike lanes is so two years ago. "Everyone" agrees we need them now. (No one asked me.)

* There are more college students in town during May than July and bicycle ridership on Kinzie still went up. (Don't know what that means? Me neither.)

* Bike paths will be plowed in the winter. (But will side streets get plowed?)

* "We have a safety problem in the city. An 8-year-old child should be able to walk around the city safely and that is not the case," Klein said, referring to the death of a boy struck by a car on 63rd Street. (Klein, who moved here from Washington, D.C., said he is not sure he has been on 63rd Street or if bike lanes would make it safer.)

Finally, though, Klein told me the real truth. Mayor Emanuel made a campaign pledge to install 100 miles of protected bike lanes.

"He's putting them in," Klein said. "The mayor says we're doing it."

So there you have it -- an answer Chicagoans can understand.

One we've become very familiar with over the years.

Twenty years ago, a special group of kids graduated from Thornwood High School in South Holland.

They were state champions in softball and baseball. And they were pretty darn good at basketball, football and track, too. A few students excelled in oratory and drama. A handful of kids put together a pretty dynamic student newspaper. One manchild with a wicked home-run cut got drafted by the Montreal Expos even before graduation. And for teenagers, some of my 1991 classmates really knew how to throw righteous beer-drinking parties. Just ask the South Holland cops.

Anyway, some of them got together Saturday at a west suburban ballroom to mark the two decades since we graduated. I did not attend.

The truth is that the Internet, which hardly existed in 1991, ruined my reunion for me.

I know you're supposed to be super curious about whether the cute girl in homeroom kept her figure.

Or if the football team captain is now bald, fat and living in his parents' basement.

After 20 years, you should want to find out what's up with the guys who dressed up in your mother's nightgowns for a videotaped performance as the Three Hags from Shakespeare's "Macbeth."

That's why you pay the 80 bucks to share appetizers, drink from a cash bar and take a group picture with people you haven't seen since Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" was a chart topper.

But I just couldn't get excited about it.

A quick search on Facebook had already shown me the skinny classmates who got fat, the pretty boys who went bald, the cheerleaders who surgically enhanced their breasts, the drunks who got sober and the smart kid from English class who came out of the closet.

The social networking site tells of Thornwood sweethearts who married . . . and the perfect couples that split. A flip through the photos shows which classmates have adorable children and whose kids are funny-looking. I even know where some people vacation and what some look like in a bikini.

And what Facebook, LinkedIn or MyLife can't tell me, Google can.

Some of my classmates work as mechanical engineers, beer distributors, food salesmen, construction managers, professional rum experts and real estate appraisers. There's a contingent of stay-at-home moms who decorate cakes, a couple of doctors and a guy who got charged with securities fraud. The male cheerleader is a marketing rainmaker in New York. The guy who played center on the football team is a high school coach; the fireballing left-handed pitcher is an Air Force fighter pilot, and the brainy second baseman is an architect. At least one high school pal is an undercover Chicago cop, and the cute girl from homeroom is a neurotechnology intelligence analyst. (I don't even know what that is.)

Our classes' biggest sports stars are all over the Internet: University of Illinois at Chicago softball coach Michelle Venturella won an Olympic Gold medal in softball, and Cliff Floyd played in the All-Star game and won the World Series with the Florida Marlins. The brainiest of the bunch, Shmaila Tahir, is an optometrist and reunion organizer.

I didn't ditch the reunion for lack of caring about my classmates, even the ones who aren't easily discovered online. It's just that knowing the little the Internet tells me about them is enough for me.

Besides, there's probably a reason some of us didn't keep in touch after high school. And for some of us it's better that we not relive it in person . . . over beers.

We followed paths that took us in different directions and hopefully we ended up exactly where we belong. Forced small talk -- and the inevitable debate over our chances of winning the 1991 state football championship if that last-second pass wasn't dropped in the end zone against St. Rita in the playoffs -- just doesn't have the appeal it did 10 years ago. Maybe, I'll change my mind in 2021.

But this weekend, I'll think fondly of my classmates when Dave Grohl of the Foo Fighters takes the stage with his former Nirvana bandmate Krist Novoselic at Lollapalooza.

That's a reunion I just couldn't miss.

Epilogue: Krist Novoselic didn't play with the Foo Fighters. But it was nice to see Dave Grohl again. Loved his story about his first show: Naked Raygun at the Cubbie Bear. GEORGE LOUKAS should be proud. http://tiny.cc/kzuv7

James "Skinny" Sheahan was the first guy to say the South Side Irish Parade -- canceled after the 2009 event due to rowdy crowds --would make a triumphant return someday.
"I'm sure the parade will be back because we need a parade. Beverly's still Irish, but [without the parade] it's very boring," Skinny told me at in 2010. "Listen, I was in charge of every parade in Chicago for 10 years. I've seen more parades than anybody in the world except for Mayor Daley, OK. This was a great, great parade. Two percent of people at the parade were goofballs, that's a fact. But the parade will be back. They'll have a heart attack when they read that, but I don't care."
Ol' Sheahan waited one more year.
On Monday, he brought together a coalition of Beverly-area folks set on reviving the St. Patrick's Day parade on Western that President Obama called ""one of the great events in America."
The public "airing of feelings" aims to raise cash and create committees to organize a more sober parade day.
Sheahan has the parade pedigree to get it done. For a decade he was former Mayor Daley's parade czar.
"I've been to more parades than anyone in Chicago besides Mayor Daley," Sheahan said. "We can do this."
Preliminary plans call for monitoring Metra trains and CTA buses headed toward the parade route.
Parade organizers also have asked mayors of surrounding suburbs to set up police checkpoints to stop party buses filled with drinkers with open containers into the neighborhood on parade day.
A second parade organization meeting will be scheduled for later this month.

Inspired after reading about Aimee and Yuriy Zmysly's struggles in the Sun-Times, Chicago firefighter Matt Drew and his brother Dan Drew of Orland Park organized a golf outing to raise money for the Oak Lawn couple.

All proceeds from the Aug. 13 outing at The Meadows Country Club in Blue Island will be donated to the Zmyslys. So far, more than $7,000 has been collected for the couple, Matt Drew said.

Aimee and Yuriy plan to attend the event.

"It's amazing that people still want to help us," Aimee said. "We really appreciate it."

For more information on the event, contact Dan Drew at Ddrew@hotmail.com or Drew_matthew@yahoo.com.

For more than six years, Aimee Zmysly has been the unpaid caretaker for her husband, Yuriy Zmysly, who suffered a brain injury during routine surgery at a military hospital in North Carolina after surviving tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan with the Marine Corps. He was left disabled, unable to see, walk or talk.

Now, thanks to a new federal law that the Oak Lawn couple helped spur the passage of, caregivers for severely disabled veterans can get a stipend from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

Aimee Zmysly's first check arrived about two weeks ago. It was for $3,541.26.

For Aimee Zmysly, 25, the money was more than just a $12-an-hour subsidy for giving up a career of her own to take care of her husband full-time. It was also validation.

"It's good to be recognized for what I've been doing and other people have been doing for years," she said.

"The whole reason why I take care of Yuriy, and have given up a lot, is because I wanted him home. He doesn't belong in a hospital or a nursing home. It's a hard job to do, especially when you are husband and wife, and you have all these roles -- caregiver, wife and friend. It gets overwhelming."

Name a celebrity -- Jay-Z and Kanye West, Brittney Spears and Justin Bieber and even Paris Hilton -- and they probably have their own fragrance.
So if you ever wanted to stink like a rapper, pop star or floozy all you have to do is hit the perfume aisle at Macy's.
But is possible to smell presidential? To wear a musk inspired by President Obama?
Say it with me: Yes we can. (Si se puede)
Well, sort of.
President Obama doesn't have a lucrative cologne deal, at least not yet.
But if you find yourself wandering around Harper Square in Hyde Park and stumble into Front Line, an African-centric book and craft store, you'll find a little Obama in a bottle.
For about $7, you can get a few ounces of roll-on body oil named after the 44th U.S. President.
The fellow at the Front Line counter who sold me a bottle said he's not sure why the blue oil is named after Obama or that it particularly conjures the essence of our hometown commander-in-chief. But it sure is popular, he assured me.
Of course, I soaked myself in Obama Oil for a few days and asked people to take a whiff.
The overall consensus: Obama Oil smells like a stripper doused in baby powder and Old Spice -- at least on me.
Which makes me wonder: Did I get the Clinton Oil by mistake?