Rick Santos' restaurant, De Carlucci's Pizza, is far from a big-time corporate business. Santos recently moved to Skokie from Brooklyn to open his first pizza shop at 4010 Main St. just a few weeks ago.  He's a small business owner trying to make it in a brand new environment. My encounter with Santos came after a reader tweeted me saying I should check his pizza out. My plan was to have a review of Skokie's newest pizza spot. To my surprise, Santos insisted we put a blurb in the story about giving every customer a free pizza slice.  I thought, "Awesome." Here's a guy who just moved to Skokie…

My game plan to get Bears-Packers tickets was foolproof. I had my desktop and laptop ready to go. My cell phone was connected to a hands-free device. At this point, Ticketmaster.com was already entered in the computers' web browsers, so all I had to do was hit refresh at 2 p.m. when tickets officially went on sale. At 1:59 p.m., I thought I'd beat everyone else and call Ticketmaster. I get a busy line. Screw it, I'll try again. Again, I get a busy line. Argh! Forget calling, to the Internet! It's officially 2 p.m. and I hit refresh on both my laptop and desktop. I quickly select a pair of …

After checking out a false fire alarm last Thursday about 9 p.m., I decided to stop by a convenience store near Skokie Boulevard and Main Street to pick up some bread and a coke. On my way out, I noticed four black teens walking toward the entrance and stop just outside the door. It appeared as if they already knew the drill: Only one went inside while the other three waited. The clerk immediately set his eyes on his lone customer and after a minute went by, another two walked in. For whatever reason, the group of teens knew they all couldn't go in at once. Before the two entering had the …