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This trip to Chicago was the first for which I took no pictures. I even have pictures from what amounted to long lunch visits there yet this time my visit was for a full day and a half with no pictures. There are two things I missed:

  • Suzie had a low carb ice cream mostly consisting of heavy cream which Peter’s young cat found very compelling. The cat became less and less hesitant to investigate until it decided to poke its head in while Suzie was eating resulting in a cat vs. person stare-down.
  • The sun setting over South Chicago while Audrey, Peter, Suzie, and I had our first homemade dinner at Peter’s residence.

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I find road trips hard to write about. Sometimes I want to be thorough which is boring, sometimes I want to be brief which is a disservice to those I see. I’ve been told by those I’ve traveled with that they enjoy my after the fact retelling and what I found interesting but I find this trying. Whenever there’s a long break from me writing, it coincides with a trip. My most writing streak stuttered in the run up to this trip which, in retrospect, has proven to be another hammer blow in the annealing of my character. This isn’t to imply that the trip was a bad one, but it was a case where I learned something. Usually I learn things but this was a systemic change to how I viewed the world and those moments are rare and precious.  People are rich and deep and should be ends and not means if they are at all important to you.  The ones we love sometimes follow different paths than us but with effort this will result in perspective rather than alienation.

The four of us had a nice lunch before Suzie and I left in the early afternoon.  I dropped Suzie off around 6 despite my best efforts to get there earlier and I drove back to PA listening to the Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.  Another 1500 miles on my car and another Monday where I will be running on fumes.  If this be the price of friendship, I pay it gladly.

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I had trouble getting momentum to leave Cincinnati and went through a stack of mental note cards trying to remember the thing I forgot to say or the item I forgot to pack.  Having found none of either and seeing that I was an hour behind, I left into Cincinnati traffic and then received a text message indicating what I’d forgotten: my pillow.

Chad and I were set to meet for a late lunch and shortly before meeting I received a message from him saying that this was the part where I was supposed to cancel last minute.  Of the dozen times I’ve driven to Chicago, I’ve only successfully met up with Chad on the way during a quarter of them.  After a false start, we met in the parking lot of a Pizza Hut and shook hands with the slimmer, bearded Chad whose first words to me were “what happened to you.  It looks like you’ve been shot you lost so much weight”.

We caught up over lunch and then returned to his house where, his entire family including wife and three daughters were present.  We watched Return of the Jedi with his two youngest daughters of which the older is a Star Wars fan.  She watched the construction of the second Death Star over Endor and commented to her father “Daddy, what’s happening to Darth Vader’s house?”  As precious as this moment was, this child was showing non-encyclopedic knowledge of the sacred texts of Star Wars, episodes 4-6, and I was in nerd rage over her usage of the title “fan” until I remembered John Siracusa’s comment: Clone Wars is their Star Wars.  In the same way I prefer Next Gen to Star Trek: The Original Series, she recognized these movies as the same universe but the relation of the parts didn’t quite make sense.  Let us see where her allegiances lay as she grows older.

Chad made dinner and I enjoyed his skillet potatoes and grilled pork chops and after talking some more I left to make the long ride home, via Chicago.  My initial crazy plan was to leave from Chad’s and drive the 12 hours home but instead I replaced that with a three hour drive to Chicago where I would stay over with Peter and Audrey.  After arriving there dead tired I was glad I didn’t soldier home.

I had driven some 1000 miles to get to the Condo Above the World but the door opened like I was from a few doors down and just popping in.  I would enjoy a future where Peter and I had proximity on our side.  We talked about boring adult topics like stretch marks, taxes, academic politics, and plantar warts.  It was lovely.

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The march of atoms is sometimes a novel change from directing the flow of bits as objects were hashed into banker boxes, moved via UDP to the truck whose packet size was about 600 cubic feet.  The routing protocol used was hardcoded with no QoS as the path didn’t change but there was some traffic shaping in that jumbo frames weren’t accepted after 5 PM.  Once in the condo building, we switched to TCP and Peter managed the SYN, ACK, SYN/ACK three-way handshake which allowed us to avoid packet collision.

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A view I hope to see a few more times.

The analogy does eventually break down though as no level of the TCP/IP stack has to deal with being told to die in a car crash for not donating bandwidth to a lost payload but nor can any specific layer know the joy of a handmade vanilla malt.

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At some point, John convinced me that we should leave for a weekend trip to Chicago directly from his house Wednesday evening was a good idea.  I presumed him a capable driver and his parents outfitted us with dinner and a care package of iced tea and popcorn before we went west over the Appalachian mountains and into the west.  John and I didn’t have much overlap in musical tastes and he didn’t seem one to complain so as a last resort I started a 12 song play list of Beatles hits and promptly fell asleep in the passenger seat.  I woke up 3 hours later where he looked at me, then the radio and said “make it stop”.  My radio apparently defaults to loop for playlists and he’d now heard the set 5 times but didn’t want to break my radio by changing anything.

We arrived in Cincinnati at 7 AM and the number of sleep-deprived car members increased by one.   The drive across Ohio and Illinois was uneventful outside but inside the car I got to hear someone being fired, and then a recounting of their attempt to steal a cash register tray which was way better than anything else on my iPod.  Peter met us at around 10:30 AM, gave us a tour of his new apartment and I showered and changed before driving John, Suzie, and I to meet a fellow outside Chicago for lunch at Portillo’s, a purveyor of fine cased meats.  The call agent used rhyming announcements which made me wish silver, month, and orange were numbers and I had a mediocre Vienna beef sandwich as I talked with Ty about things while in a hypnogogic state.

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At some point I said something funny.

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Oddgo's spider senses activate.

John was made to volunteered to drive us back to Peter’s where I learned two things quickly:  He didn’t appreciate the wanderlust of my GPS and he does not enjoy city driving, where city is defined as within 4 miles of anything larger than a tool shed.  He did not enjoy driving around Chicago.

Back at Peter’s, we engaged in lively discussion:

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A lively debate

After a nap, we started putting things into boxes.  We stopped putting things in boxes when we ran out of boxes.  There were many boxes.  Tomorrow, there would be more boxes, a box-like truck into which the boxes would be placed, and two boxy freight elevators to hold our then-filled boxes. Boooo……ooooxes.

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My driving in New York, Philadelphia, and Boston had convinced me that the parking space was a mirage concocted by parking garages to break down the will and force one to cave to their $16 a day demands.  Chicago swept away this belief as Kyle and I were perpetually blessed with decent parking spots.  I’m fine with that.

Rather than narrate the pictures of the Shedd Aquarium, I’ve added descriptions to the Flickr album, dive in for comments.

[flickr album=72157623088511393 num=34 size=Thumbnail]

The aquarium displays were itself was much better than I expected.  I rarely don’t see everything in an animal place and after six hours I’d still not hit Rivers of the World.  The opening presentation in the steam-punk/Victorian tank which featured a feeding was acceptable despite the usage of mood lighting to dramatize the trials of Nickel the turtle and her date with a boat that destroyed her buoyancy control.  On reflection the turtle seemed to subject to exploitation as fixing the buoyancy issue causing her hind portions to shoot skyward seemed easy.  Sea turtles modify their breathing to control their density and weighting the turtle seems like an easy fix as the tank has a very small pressure gradient.

The lobster tank was empty and the occupant was described as “off exhibit”.  I picture a donor to the Shedd pointing at it and asking “how much for that one?” My guess is that it was probably a $10-25k lobster that also came with a plaque that said “Benefactor”.

The mid-afternoon “entertainment” was Fantasea (get it?) which was a stunning example of why someone should invent eye bleach.  The feature included five sea animals of which one was a red-tail hawk.  Kyle described the show as what happens when Liberal Arts programs are too well funded.  I considered it a case of some donor stipulating that facts and information be banned from “oceanarium” or whatever term was used for the show tank.  The show progressed slowly involving a small read-headed girl using a medallion from beyond the stars to discover the wonders of imagination from a horde of Lady Gaga backup singers.  I took no pictures, had you been there, you’d consider that a courtesy.

The coup de grace was the penguin show.  Three penguins were brought out on some sort of penguin cart from whence they hopped and proceeded to not move a f#ing inch.  After a few minutes, a presenter picked up and relocated a penguin which then again didn’t move.  I hoped one would produce an “Animal Performers local #397” strike sign but none appeared.  It was spectacular.  Later, a man in a bird costume was brought in on wires and landed as a hawk was walked across the presentation area.  The show ended and we were quickly shuffled out.  I can think of few experiences that could more appropriately be called stupefying.  My rational faculties were devastated and had I been offered a timeshare or snuggie, I would have been quite the mark.

We left in a daze and recovered over Chicago-style pizza.  Based on my Chicago-style vienna beef and Chicago-style pizza I’ve deduced that Chicago-style means “throw a chunky tossed salad on the foodstuff”.  The pizza was presentable but not as spectacular as I anticipated but I thank Peter for the meal.  The after dinner conversation involved heated discussion over the maximum power of capillary action in trees and the effects of the human body being exposed to the vacuum of space.  I eventually won the point that it could cause bruising and learned that depending on the situation, eye proptosis (your eyeball popping out).

I also got to see Pants in his native element:

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I had trouble getting to sleep as the steampipes sounded like someone was tap-dancing on them with a skill level between Tapdancing Jesus and an end-of-career Gregory Hines.  On to day four.

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Feasterville has always been to me the Noah’s Ark of fast-food.  Covering more ground has showed me that my region of PA is losing the strip mall arms race as Columbus held both a Little Caesar’s and a Donato’s Pizza, serving as a Land of the Lost of dead chains.

The Bounty

The Bounty

Additionally, I test drove a Steak ‘n’ Shake, which succumbs to the burger counterlogic of proclaiming “100% ground <cut of choice>”.  Good hamburgers come from a combination of meats in much the same way that a good salad includes many vegetables.  “100% pure romaine lettuce” may be nice to some but not I.  Their milkshakes were also questionable, with much larger ice crystals than one should allow:

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This was done with the remarkable macro function of the Canon G9.  Anyway, I was comforted that I hadn’t traveled too far from home when I saw this reminder of tawdry spell-hacking:

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Ah, a baby hanging station.  That’s something that reminds me of home.  As we continued on something that didn’t remind me of home was this:

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Before leaving Chris and Stephen’s I played the gift gnome and hit a jar of baconnaise in their fridge.  The snow effectively ended as we exited Ohio but the damage was done:

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I’ve found that the larger the above image gets the harder it is to directly make out the word “stop”.  I’m actually posting this a week after this was taken and my windows are still much like this.  I buy fuel in New Jersey and never go to car washes so it may be some time until the stars align and I remove the salt.  That’s probably dangerous, but I have principles to maintain.

Indiana at night was as magical as I remember it but this may be partly due to hypnogogic hallucinations.  Kyle was smitten by the landscaping and shortly after stopping near Purdue for some wine for our hosts he asked if we could take pictures of the wind turbines at night and I replied with the tact of the angry parent of an 8-year old who’d been awoken at 6 AM on a Saturday.

Kyle: can we try to get a picture of the wind turbines?
Me: No.  It’s too dark.
Kyle: But they’re illuminated at the top.
Me: The reds’ll saturate and you won’t make out anything.
Kyle: Can we try?  I’m willing to pull over.
Me: I’m not, road vibrations can induce lens shake and wind and such *snore*

I probably should have given it a sporting try as a 30 second exposure can help one cheat out a lot of stuff when coupled with the pixel-peeping power of RAW.

Our last stop before Chicago was again to get fuel at a gas station in Indiana.  I have a special place in my heart for truck-stop hot dogs as the fact that they’re on rocket hot rollers for literally hours made them my default snack on cross-country runs.  Much like the last peanut in a container, the last hot dog is slathered in the juices of its forgotten peers and like wines that develop flavors based on their barrels the hot dog can pick up kielbasa, hot sausage, and beef frank notes based on its former co-rollers.  I got the hot dog, but saw no rolls so asked the counter agent who replied with incredulity at the notion that I’d slander her noble gas station with claims of insufficient hot dog rolls.  After two attendants performed a visual inspection of the hot dog setup to confirm that they were indeed sans buns one of the associates disappeared for a period in excess of 10 minutes before returning with rolls.  I think he walked into the store room, opened the exterior door, ran to the next gas station and stole their hot dog buns.  What did I get for my wait?  I was only charged the medium hot dog price of 89 cents instead of the full 1.19!  While waiting, I did get to check out their keen hat display.

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Actually driving into Chicago proved difficult.  The GPS recommended route was not open so we had to switch back through the Alcelor-Mittal plant to the south of Chicago.  The powerful juxtaposition of old industrial shanty town next to a the precision flare-offs off a cracking made the scene look like satan playing the organ.  The low clouds and snow obscured the fractal detritus that belies the age of industry and the whole scene was out of something by Charles Sheeler.

Classic Landscape by Charles Sheeler

Classic Landscape by Charles Sheeler

For those of you who play TF2, it was very much similar to many of the more industrial maps like cp_well or cp_freight.  We eventually made it to our hosts’ house and set to the task of consuming 4 dozen cookies (spoiler: we ate them all by the time we left).  Pants and I reviewed his discomfort with the notion of an infinite universe and its implications and I drifted to sleep in existential terror.  Just like I like to.

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We departed Banks splendid hospitality Saturday morning and again took Rt. 30 west.  I started the day with a positive portent where I thought myself tricky by grabbing literally a handful of ice to recharge my car cup.  Ice is cold.  We arrived at the zoo at 9:30 and we were quickly met by TheChief/Jim German.

The Cast

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Jim German/TheChief

His children already knew all of us by game name (which was creepy) and also accosted Tardbagel for not going to enough Steelers’ games.  The rest of of the party arrived including the following:

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Peter Jerde/Pants

My first meeting was odd as I was used to seeing him in pictures with more beard.  He was also usually sitting so his 6’3″ness was more…vertical than I anticipated.  He has a perpetual sparkle in his eye requiring “gee golly, mister” to be prepended to all statements of incredulity.

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Clinton Haymen/Jazzysax

I made at least 2000 references during the weekend to Clinton being short.  At a mighty 5’4″ he’s apparently tall in his family although I was perpetually afraid of backing up suddenly and crushing him.  He has an asymmetrical face which makes him look like he’s been pulled from a Picasso painting or was hit with a 2×4 during his formative years.

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Mike Weber/VirginBride

He has cuffed jeans.  I also correctly guessed he had granite countertops.  I don’t know why, I just saw him as having granite countertops.  I was partly expecting him to meet us at his door in a velvet bathrobe and direct us to his leopard print couch.  He took public transit home so I had no opportunity to verify this image.  After meeting him, I’m glad I had no such occasion.

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Will Gattis/FlamedDemon

I have better portraits of Will elsewhere in the Flickr feed but thought this summed up much his time at the zoo.  He’s a chronic texter on his iPhone in the way I’m a chronic searcher on my iPhone.  The faux-hawk with red highlights was excessive in my opinion but I’m told this is a method among his people to court someone during the Illinois mating season.

/OnaZ”]IMG_1146-20090613-ZooDespite having the “Douchebag” appogiatora added to his forum account, the fact that he apologized for being in the way of a 5 year-old charging through a display dispelled that.  He’s training to be a piano tuner which I think is getting to him as per his shock of gray hair.  During the day after getting bored at one point he yelled for us to “change the map”.  Oh, topical humor.

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Lea Dekker/littlekitty

This isn’t the most representative picture of Lea I have but the others made her either look fat or like she was about to eat someone so I thought this was a nice compromise.  Lea’s education has proven… lacking in some areas which I documented throughout the weekend.

List of Things to Which Lea Claimed Ignorance

  • Beaver as synonym for vagina
  • Cornbread
  • John Stewart and Stephen Colbert
  • Exit Only as a statement of opposition to anal sex
  • What a “b-boy” is
  • Mr. T
  • Porn on DVD
  • Understatement
  • Chuck Norris (added 30 Jun 09)
  • Religion of the Pope (added 30 Jun 09)

This is not mocking her ignorances merely that it was an interesting collection.  Most people would fake knowledge, Lea refuses to, which I think is to be valued.  The last note “understatement” requires a bit of explanation.

Peter: Bluthium thinks we harsh on hackers too much.
Me: I think that’s a spot of an understatement.  We exterminate them with extreme prejudice.
Lea: Well, what’s wrong with “harsh”?
Me: I don’t think “harshing” is strong enough.  That’s like saying the Nazi’s “harshed” on the Jews, Roma, and gays.
Lea: But they did.

The Meerkats

The best portion of the zoo trip was the meerkat pen where Peter and I proved extremely popular with the lil’ bastards.

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Turns out they really liked my camera/monopod combination, to the point where spent about 30 minutes staring at them staring at us.  We were eventually yelled at by a park docent for scaring them despite doing nothing besides standing and staring at them staring at us for about 30 minutes.

We took a constitutional on the false promise of coffee.  The bathroom had a profoundly powerful (I say diesel powered) hand dryer which may have served as inspiration for the pyro’s compression blast.

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Will approved.

The search for coffee involved an 8-block walk to get sufficient caffeine to have the energy to walk 8 blocks back.  Caribou coffee appeared to be more descriminatory than Starbucks or my more familiar kitchen coffee pot as none of carried sufficient Apple products to sit inside.  I could have walked back to my car to grab my iPod and iPhone thinking that’d be effectively a MacBook Air but decided against it.

We had dinner at a restaurant that found a way to hid an entire tossed salad into the hamburger.  The ribs blew and I left a measly 28% tip.  Tard and I returned to Pants’ appartment where Tard fell asleep.  I learned a vital lesson: Pants can hold his liquor like a f*ing champ.  Peter and Audrey make their own soda to avoid the 10% Chicago “pop tax” and over the evening he downed two 1-liter bottles of grapefruit soda.  Except instead of using water as his base he used vodka.  The only indication that there was a trace of blood in his alcohol level was when I challenged his sobriety and he said “my sleech doesn’t splur”.   I met Ivan, his 16 lb cat who sports a crappy Russian accent in which he largely says “I am sooo fat”.  I really wish I had a recording.