The Windy City

As I mentioned earlier, Wanda and I went to Chicago this weekend.  Neither of us had ever been there, and we both wanted to go.

Dinner, far too late on Thursday. You pick your protein, sauce, and pasta/rice, then fill a big bowl with vegetables. They cook it and bring it to you.

We didn't do much on Thursday night - just checked into the hotel and went for dinner. We stayed at the Drake Hotel. As I mentioned yesterday, we booked it as part of a package. I was quite excited about it, because years ago, I read a mystery novel. I have no idea what book it was, but at some point they found a bible from the Drake Hotel, which led them to Chicago. 

One of the elevators at the Drake, complete with couch

We took the subway from the airport to the hotel - there was a little bit of a walk from the subway station, but we found the hotel with no issues. 

Because it's an older hotel, the hallways are sometimes narrower than you'd find in a newer building.

And that firescape? Rickety metal on the outside of the building. Well, maybe not rickety, but definitely outside.

The room was nice, though, and I was very happy with the hotel. 

We'd bought the Go Chicago card, which was awesome. It gave us a tour of the city (one per day - we choose the hop-on, hop-off tour), and one water tour per day, as well as admission to a bunch of attractions.

On Friday morning, we got up and headed for the place where we could catch the tour. It was quite a walk, and we stopped for breakfast on the way.

Friday breakfast - excellent bagels & juice

We  got on the first tour of the day - which started at 10 - and stayed with the tour until Navy Pier. At Navy Pier, we got off and looked around. We bought a few souvenirs, then went on an Architectural River Tour. 

Navy Pier

There's an interesting phenomenon going on in Chicago - when you go into a tourist attraction (like the river cruise, or to the top of Sears/Willis tower, or whatever), they take your picture in hopes that you will buy it afterwards. It's kind of like being on a cruise ship all the time.

The tour was amazing, and we enjoyed hearing about the history of the city and the buildings. Highly recommended.

After the tour, we went for lunch at Navy Pier.

We tried places until we found one with reasonable wait times.  Food was decent, too. You order and pay and they bring the food to you as it is ready.

As part of our Go Chicago card, we each got a voucher for 5 ride tickets. We went on the Ferris wheel, which was fun unless I looked down. I'm not great with heights.

We weren't really interested in any of the other rides, so we got back on the bus and went to Willis Tower (formerly the Sears Tower). We went up to the observation deck (also included in the Go Chicago card) and Wanda went out on the glass-floored ledge while I remained on solid ground.

When we finished there, we considered getting back on the bus, but the wait as long enough that we decided to walk.  By the time we got back to the hotel, I was pretty miserable. My feet had been bothering me all day, and the amount of walking we had done didn't make things better. We rested for a while, then walked over to Panera, as well as by Holy Name Cathedral, which is the setting for some other books I love. (Also, I just found out that the author died on May 29, and I'm wondering how I missed that earlier.)

Wanda's choice, a favourite from when she lived in Boston.

That was enough for one day. 

Saturday morning, we got going earlier. We took the subway to Shedd Aquarium, where we got to skip the line for ticket since, yes, admission was included with our Go Chicago card.

We wandered through the aquarium, and by the time we were done, the tour was running again, so we got back on the bus. We went back to Navy Pier.

I wanted to do a segway tour, but Wanda was afraid she'd get hurt, so we had a quick hotdog lunch and did a skyline tour on the lake.

When we were done, we took the bus back to the water tower (which was close to our hotel) and quickly looked inside the mall. We didn't stay long, and started walking toward our hotel. We passed John Hancock Center and decided to go up to that observatory as well (also included in our Go Chicago cards). Unlike Sears Tower, this observation deck went all the way around. We took some pictures and then finally went back to our hotel to rest.

Saturday night was the Darren Criss concert, which was the reason we picked this particular weekend to go to Chicago. Wanda was really excited about it, and I was hoping my feet didn't fall off, since it was standing-room only.

We ate at the Cheesecake Factory (which was a poor experience) on our way, then made our way to the concert. The concert started at 7:30, with the doors opening at 6:30. We got there at 5:50, and the line was already across the bridge - which was a block away from the venue.

It was a good concert - even though my feet were so sore I really didn't know if I'd make it back to the hotel - and Wanda really enjoyed it.

When we got back to the hotel, Wanda packed and I moaned about my feet. It* was a good ending to our trip, because Sunday morning we left for home..

* The concert, not the whining.

Going in circles

Today at work, one of my coworkers was talking about some problems she was having with her TV, and her dilemma about whether to buy a new one - new TVs have more features, but she doesn't want to spend the money.

And I said, "I know what you mean, I have no intentions of buying a new TV anytime soon."

So tonight, I thought to myself, "Hey, I can put off going through the mail by watching the Big Bang Theory", and I tried to turn on the TV.

Nothing happened.

I pressed the "TV" button on the remote and tried again.

Still nothing.

I walked over to the TV, noticed that nothing had any lights on (TV, Wii, DVR, stereo), and pressed the on/off switch on the power bar on the theory that taking down the Christmas lights had resulted in me turning it off by accident.

Still nothing.

I thought "Hmm, the power bar is dead."

A little later, I remembered that there was a light plugged in to that outlet, so I walked over to turn it on - but it wasn't there, because it's only there when the Christmas decorations are up, and I took them down last night.

I went back to planning to replace the power bar.

A little later, I thought, "Hey, I thought something was plugged directly into the wall, but there's no lights on anything. It's like the outlet itself is dead. That'll be a pain if that's the problem."

It took me a little while to remember that the outlet is on a light switch - and that I had a house sitter for the past two weeks who might have disregarded the massive quantity of tape on the switch. I walked across the room and turned the switch back no.

Still nothing.

And then I remembered that I'd "turned on" the power bar. I flipped the switch again and lights came on.

But I'm still scared to try the TV.

Things I've said while playing Super Mario Galaxy

At some point (last weekend? two weeks ago?), I started playing Super Mario Galaxy.  It's taken up more of my time than I'd like to admit. That's not why I skipped Blog Out loud last night - I had my last boxing class before summer, and if I'd gone to BOLO instead, my elbow, knee, and ankle wouldn't hurt today, so as you can see, boxing was the obvious choice.

(As an aside, two people in my department at work have required unexpected medical attention so far this week, so when my knee started bothering me last night, I thought "If I have to call in and say I'm going to miss work to go get my knee looked at, my manager is going to have a heart attack."  I fully expect her to bring rolls of bubble wrap in on Monday.)

Wanda laughs at me if she happens to be upstairs while I'm playing.  First of all, I tend to plunge to my death.  A lot. Secondly, some of the things I say are apparently weird if taken out of context.  Things like:

• Stop falling and don't get eaten by bugs. Words to live by.
• There's no "almost" in bees.
• Why can't I ... crap.
• Stupid Mario. I don't know why they call you super.
• No! I hit the button! I HIT THE BUTTON!!!

It's all worth it, of course.  If I get another 16 stars, the space station will start flying again and we can go rescue Princess Peach (who is kind of a dolt - she sends the same letter over and over again, and she really should get off her butt and rescue herself instead of waiting for Mario, who is probably plunging to his death somewhere).

Totally a good use of my summer.

Because I don't have enough electronic devices

I was initially hesitant to move to an e-reader, mostly because I don't really buy books. I do buy some books, but mostly I borrow them from friends, family, or the library.

That was before I realized that you can borrow library books electronically. That's right, you can borrow library books without having to take them back after you've read them.

I don't mind going to get books, but I hate having to return them.

This week, I used some birthday money from my mom to buy myself a Kobo. I've read two books since I got it on Thursday.

Luckily for me, Wanda has had a Kobo since last fall, so she's been able to fill me in on how to use it.

It's a bit of an adjustment - I still turn the page too quickly sometimes, and it takes a while to power on. On the other hand, I never have to worry about losing my page, and traveling will no longer involve me cramming books into an overstuffed suitcase.

At the movies

I went to see Morning Glory today.

For those of you who are counting, that's two non-cartoon movies in a row. That has to be a record - recently it seems like I only go to cartoons.

Morning Glory is the movie about a morning news show, with Harrison Ford as one of the anchors. It's a pretty light movie - nothing too serious or life changing - but enjoyable.

Interestingly, I don't remember seeing that many people at the movies in, well, ages. There were lots of people in the lobby, and the theatre ended up almost full. (I had to sit beside someone I don't even know.) Lately, it seems that theatres are at most half full.

Of course, maybe that's just the cartoons.

I had a dream

Not the kind of dream where the world lives in peace or everybody has clean water to drink.

No, I had the kind of dream where you wake up and wonder what your subconscious was thinking.

You see, I was at the grocery store. (I like to do that on occasion.) I had just started my shopping when Nathan Fillion came up to me. Now, I wasn't terribly shocked, because we knew each other (um, in the dream world, just to be clear). He was upset with me because I wasn't watching the season premiere of Castle, which was on at that very moment.

(Just for the record, I don't usually do my grocery shopping at 10 p.m. on Monday nights. I also don't watch TV then. I am usually asleep.)

I tried to explain that I had every intention of watching it, but that I was actually busy grocery shopping and thus would watch it later, so he pointed out the large TV in the back of the store that was playing the episode at that very moment.

I didn't want to watch it because I had missed the first ten minutes (also, I was still grocery shopping).

That's all I remember.

So, does this mean:
1) I watch too much TV
2) I spend too much time grocery shopping
3) Wipeout (which is the only show I've watched this summer, and only because Wanda watches it 3 feet from where I'm usually sitting) has broken my brain
4) My grocery store should invest in a big TV in case I realize I'm missing a show while I'm shopping
5) I should spend less time on twitter
6) I should re-watch Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog

Let me know in the comments.

(Oh, and to The Independent on Merivale - if you could tear out the giant TV and put the bakery section back, that would be great. I might need to buy bread one day.)

Toy Story 3

Today was busier than I like my Saturdays to be.

In fact, this whole week has been remarkably busy - between BOLO and socializing and the gym and appointments (dentist, insurance, hair), it seems like it has been ages since I've had a chance to just sit. (This is inaccurate, of course. Most of last weekend involved not doing much.)

When Toy Story 3 came out, Wanda and I wanted to go see it. Tonight is the first time we were both free.

Before I saw it, I heard that it was good but everyone I know who saw it also said that they'd cried.

Now, I've been known to cry at cell phone commercials, so I was kind of expecting that I might have a similar issue.

The other thing I'd heard (from my niece) is that she liked the part with the potato head. That ... kind of puzzled me. Potato head has been in all of the movies - what could he do in this one that was so special?

Anyway, tonight we went to the theatre, bought our tickets, received our 3-D glasses, and took our seats.

The movie started, and I was ... kind of confused, at first. Eventually I figured out what was going on and started to get into the movie. (I should mention that it's a darker movie than the others - at one point, I compared it to a toy horror movie. Definitely scary for younger kids.)

Once the horror movie part was over, things started to resolve themselves. That's when we got to the crying.

Now, there have been a lot of movies were I might have been a little teary, but this one - I was crying for minutes. Tears running down my face, the whole works.

With, might I remind you, 3-D glasses over top of regular glasses. At that point, one or both of the glasses started fogging up.

It would have been funny to watch, let me tell you.

Luckily, they did some funny stuff over the credits, so I had time to compose myself.

(And the part with Mr. Potato Head was hilarious.)

I Read Twilight ('Cause The Internet Told Me To)

One of the pages I visit at lunch time is NPR's Monkey See. A couple of weeks ago, they started the "I will if you will" book club.

The idea was that everyone would read Twilight and then we'd talk about it.

I read Twilight and I have to say, I don't really get it. I found Bella kind of ... boring, the "romance" borderline abusive, and the book almost completely empty of conflict.

However, the discussions have been very entertaining. The latest one included the sentence "I'm just saying that a Viking or two might have helped."

Let's see, what else has been going on ....

Oh yes, last weekend was another show at the NAC. This one was Music & Magic (or Magic & Music? There was music, there was magic.)

That's right, the music was magic themed and they had magic acts perform as well. I really enjoyed it. Of course, I like magic shows - and it made a nice break from reading a book about a vampire.

Back From Camp

Spark camp was Friday night. We stayed at a local museum. It's quite small, and they are really glad to work with Guiding groups.

I went to the gym on Friday morning, then went out and bought the groceries. Instead of bringing them home, I stopped by and dropped them off at the museum.

Because the girls are so young, we do a mother/daughter camp. Everyone was supposed to arrive at 6 on Friday, so one of my co-leaders and I met back at the museum at 5:30 to get organized. We had ordered pizza, and it arrived promptly at 5:45.

The museum staff had planned a program running from 6:30 - 8. They took the girls on a tour of the museum, had them draw pictures of famous Canadian women, and helped them make beaded bracelets.

Since we weren't running the program, I left shortly before 6 to go to my boxing class. If we had been organizing the program, I would have stayed, but it seemed silly to miss my class to sit around and watch.

I made it back by 8:15. When I got there, everyone was outside making ice cream (and running around). We came back in and ate our snack. By the time we got the beds up and ready, it was well after nine, so the girls went right to bed.

At that point, one of the other leaders helped me get the breakfast in the slow cooker.

We started with 1/2 a package of frozen hash browns. We cubed a pound of cooked ham and put 1/3 of it on top of the hash browns. Next, we sprinkled it with dried diced onions, then put shredded cheese on top. We repeated these layers two more times. Next, we beat a dozen eggs with a cup of milk and poured it on top of the layers, then we turned the slow cooker on low and let it do its thing. It was really tasty.

When we got up in the morning, we packed up the beds, had breakfast, and then made buildings out of boxes and jars covered in construction paper. Each girl made one or more buildings, and then we combined them to make a city.

After that, we went outside to play some games, and then we made smores over a milk carton oven.

To make a milk carton oven, you take a 1 litre milk carton (500 ml would actually work better, but I never have those), cut a slit down it lengthwise, then put in 4 charcoal briquettes and a couple of fire starters. You then cover the whole thing in foil. When you go to use it, you open the foil (and use it to protect the ground), light the fire starters, and let them light the briquettes.

The girls had a good time, but the briquettes were slow to start (as they often are), and the marshmallows kept freezing. Oh well.

The nice part is that I was home before noon on Saturday. I had time to take a nap in the afternoon, and I have all day today free.

Of course, the nap was necessary because I was tired and I was going to Guys and Dolls in Concert at the NAC last night. I enjoyed the show - I wasn't really sure what to expect, but it was basically the regular play, but some parts were read out of binders. (I think that's what it was - I haven't actually seen the musical otherwise.)

(Oh, and I put my green bin out for the first time on Friday. It was properly lined with newspaper, and didn't have a lot of wet waste, so it shouldn't be frozen - and yet it wasn't emptied.)

Picture this

Today was a busy day.

A friend came over for a perogy-making extravaganza. That took much of the afternoon (and resulted in lots of perogies). I then drove her home - and got rear-ended on the way home. The bumper will need to be replaced, but no one was hurt.

This evening was a Chuck marathon. (Apparently it comes back January 10, for those who are interested.) While I was watching TV, I started putting pictures in albums. I started with a bunch of really old pictures. There's still more to do, but it's a start.

Whip It

Today's anti-procrastination project was a continuation of yesterday's. I cut out a couple of more colours of fabric. I'm making 16 copies of everything, so it takes a while to get it all done.

In other news, my Sparks went for a hike today. It went really well, and the girls had a great time. It had been threatening rain all day, but luckily it didn't start raining until 5 minutes after we ended our hike - then it poured.

After Sparks, I went to see "Whip It". It was really good. The downside is that now I want to hit people, possibly on roller skates.

Since my foot still hurts from boxing last week, I will try to restrain myself.

Thinking inside the box

Yesterday Wanda and I went to see Chicago at the NAC. We bought our tickets on the weekend, and ended up sitting in one of the boxes. The biggest disadvantage of the seats was that they were balcony box seats, and one of us (me) has a bit of trouble with heights. It was OK when the show was on, but not so enjoyable when there was nothing to concentrate on.

Generally, though, I liked the seats - there were only 6 seats in the box (and 4 were empty), so we didn't have people walking over us. We also were some of the first people out of the theatre, and thus out of the parking garage.

Hey there!

It turns out that I haven't dropped off the face of the earth.

Work has been crazy for the last couple of weeks, and when I get home I don't feel like turning on the computer, so here we are.

Last night I went to see the play Scotland Road. It was enjoyable, but confusing. Afterwards, the director and cast came out and talked with the audience members who remained to explain what their interpretation of the play was. It definitely helped explain what was going on.

Today I got a pedicure. The woman applying my nail polish took 15 minutes to finish it up, which meant I only had 10 minutes for it to dry before I had to leave. As a result, I left wearing "shoes" made of fun foam. I'm sure it was funny to watch me trying to walk.

Cooking & cleaning

I'm happy to say that I'm feeling much better today. I had a very productive day cleaning. I also did my first pass at my income tax. I always enter my info once, leave it for a few days, then go back and verify that I have entered everything correctly. Often I find silly mistakes this way. I've got a little over 2 weeks to go back and do my second pass and submit it to CRA.

This evening I finally got around to watching some of the depression cooking videos on YouTube. They are done by a 93-year-old woman who lived through the Great Depression. She shares recipes that they made. I had seen people talking about them a few weeks ago, but hadn't checked them out myself. Today I finally got there.



(Did you notice I figured out how to embed a video?)

Playing around

Another day, still sick. You may remember a long, long time ago I bought a Nintendo DS. Since I spend most of my time lying on the couch these days, I'm very glad I have it. It gives me something to do that doesn't require the amount of energy that holding up my head does.

Anyway, I bought a game that includes various card and board games, as well as pool and darts. I am getting better at darts and pool on the DS. I bowl about as well on the DS as I do in real life - so, in other words, not very well at all. I've also finally learned how to play backgammon. I'm glad I have the game.

We still look funny

My manager was also off on Monday and Tuesday (although he was worse off than I was). Another co-worker was off on Monday as well. Today, everyone in my department was at work. It was shocking.

I skipped going to the gym today - I'm still coughing far too much for that. I did guilt Wanda into going. While she was gone, I picked up where I left off back in December. I transferred home videos off of my DVD recorder and onto a DVD. I then messed around with transferring them to a format I could upload ... and they're too big to upload. I'll have to do some editing before I can upload them. I am one step closer, though. In another 3 or 4 months, I might get motivated enough to take the next step.

Stream of consciousness

The hardest part about posting every day is remembering to post every day. The timestamp on this one says it was posted on Saturday, but I'm actually writing it Sunday morning. I got home at midnight, remembered, and decided to go to bed anyway.

Last night I was over at a friend's house. I taught her son to play Kings on the Corners, which was fun. The kids went to bed not long after I got there, and then we sat around and chatted.

I'm starting to get a cold (again). Let's see, I had one in August, one in September, one in December, one in early March, and now again. Most of them have been quite mild, but it's still annoying. Hopefully this trend stops soon.

Back in November (when the September cold was lingering on), my doctor prescribed me a nasal spray that I had to use for three months. It worked wonders - I can breathe through my nose better now than I ever could before- even when I have a cold.

I'm sure none of you care about this. :)

I ran the usual Saturday errands yesterday, but the bulk of my day was spent reading a book (The Surgeon, by Tess Gerrison). I read another of her books ages ago, but somehow didn't pick up any more of them. I enjoyed this one (if "enjoyed' is the word to use about a book about a serial killer who rapes and mutilates women). I'll have to check out more of her books.

Breaking the camel's back

The afternoon of Christmas day tends to mean that my family sits around and plays games. This year two people got new games for Christmas, so I played Straw and Wizard. Wizard is a game where you predict how many tricks you will take and gain or lose points based on how accurate you were. Straw is a game where you add cards (with different weights) to a camel's back. If you go over the limit, his back breaks and you add up points.

Both were entertaining (and compact, thus easy to carry).

Wii!

In my family, we open our gifts Christmas eve. It has evolved so that we go over to my aunt & uncle's place for supper, then open our gifts.

We were there before supper today, so I got a chance to play their wii. I tried the golf, the boxing, and the bowling. It took a while to get the hang of it, but it was fun. The boxing was excellent, but I didn't play for too long as it was too much of a workout for the circumstances.

Bubble breaker

Today is another day I'm spending in airports. My first flight tried to leave 30 minutes late, but they couldn't get the gate detached from the plane, so it actually left 1.5 hours late.

Flights throughout the country are a mess. Halifax airport was closed, and flights were getting cancelled. There were people in Ottawa airport lying on blankets on the floor. (I don't know where they were trying to go). I'm in Winnipeg, and when we got here we waited for 30 minutes before a gate was available. (Luckily I had 4 hours between flights, because by the time we got off the plane it was only 2 hours - but, of course, my next flight was delayed 45 minutes.) I don't think there are any flights on the departures board that are not delayed. It's a mess.

However, as a result of the chaos, I had a lot of time, so I played bubble breaker on my sister's cell phone. It's an entertaining game. Sadly, her battery is now dead.