Dave wrote the Wisch List online at chicagotribune.com from July 2005 to July 2007, chronicling life — and the people who live it — throughout Chicagoland and beyond. Prior to becoming the Tribune’s third-ever blogger and helping to pioneer the technology for the newspaper’s Web site, Dave started up the Wisch List as a print column in 2002 while writing for the The Daily Times in Ottawa, Ill. Two years later, he transformed 75 of his columns into a book, Northern IlliNOISE: Tales of a Territory shortly before moving to Chicago’s Wrigleyville neighborhood.

A 1998 graduate of the University of Illinois and a former sports writer, Dave was the winner of 18 national, regional and statewide editorial awards for columns, features, sports and news — including six first places — between 2001 to 2005 while in Ottawa. These days, Dave is out of the newspaper biz, even if it’s not completely out of him (and probably never will be). This latest incarnation of the Wisch List is Dave’s continuing foray into the amazing city that is Chicago, the wonderful state that is Illinois, and the ever-so-wacky world that we all live in.

And with that, it’s welcome to the Wisch List. We hope you enjoy your stay.

(And, you know, come back again real soon … And bring friends … And bookmark us … And … yeah, that about covers it.)