Family, and the Fourth

I've been without internet for the past few days. That's my current excuse for not updating this thing sooner. I finally paid the bill in full and now I am connected to the internet again.

Monday was nothing special. Work and tutoring. I kept playing with my funny character who was on a crashed plane and has now established his own contested country. The series of short stories I originally had planned to do with this character is quickly becoming a novel or novella. I'm trying to figure out a way to make a satisfying conclusion, or what exactly the story arc is... As of now I think I am just going to keep writing the little scenes.

Tuesday was the third. My mom and my roommate's parent's came in to town to celebrate the Fourth of July with us. We met them at the train station around noon and went to lunch at the Eleven City Diner, which we fondly refer to as Elevenses. The best part about this diner, other than the food, is the awesome wait staff. They're a feisty bunch. My mom ordered a reuben which comes with either just corned beef, or corned beef and pastrami. Mom was debating between the two and decided to go with the straight corned beef. The waitress responded with a curt "why?" and then badgered my mom until she ordered it with pastrami (a homemade recipe). It was all in good fun, but I think only the wait staff at elevenses could get away with such a blunt manner.

After that, stuffed to the gills, we took them to the Taste of Chicago. It was about the same as the last entry. Wall to wall people, and expensive food. Then we went and toured Shedd's Aquarium (my second time this month). It was about the same as the previous time, except for the majorly depressed Sea Lion, which had been replaced with a more peppy and athletic one. For dinner we went to the Berghoff, a local brewery and restaurant, where we tried the beers, and their awesome food.

This was followed by joining what seemed like millions of people along the lake front and Grant Park for the fireworks. Chicago does their major fireworks display on the third. I learned that this was because of the police department. If they were to do it on the fourth it would cost them time and a half for each of the police officers on duty (which is a really big number), and would drive up the costs to the point where it would be almost undoable. The weather held until the very end of the fireworks, and we managed to make it from Grant Park to the car while getting only marginally wet. Watching that mass of people move across Grant Park was like seeing a large riot scene from the movies. There was an innumerable crowd flocking over the hills surrounding the baseball diamonds and across the bridges over the Metra Rails.

The Fourth was spent in and out of grocery stores, filling Matt's and my larder for the first time ever. It was nice actually being able to see a cupboard full of food. And with all the fixin's I'll probably be throwing a spaghetti dinner sometime in the next week to start to break into the load of food.

Afterword we came back and I picked my Mom's brain about the history of our cottage at Houghton Lake for a 10 page paper I had to write. And that was what today was, between work and class. Writing a 10 page paper in two hours. A new accomplishment for me.

Tomorrow I head back to Haslett for the annual bike ride from Haslett Community Church to Northwoods Boy Scout Reservation. I'll have an update with photos that sunday night if I'm not too tired.

I found this great article which has spawned some ideas for a story I started in class. It's about Kumaris, or living goddesses. A practice from Nepal.

The semester ends in a week. And I'm not counting at all...
cheers

The Overly Long Long Overdue Entry

I'm getting really terrible about remembering to update this..

It's been a busy week since last I wrote in this thing.

I used the Lake Front trail to commute in to class on Monday. On the train from the Morse stop to the Harrison stop of the CTA Red Line it's about 50 minutes. On a bike it was about the same. That and the view is far better than the hobo sleeping across the aisle. I get to watch the sunrise over the lake, see some nice parks, Buckingham Fountain, and I get exercise. Only downside is that I get to look like a goof using a bathroom in the library to change into my pants for work.

The Haslett Men's Ensemble, the nationally renowned choral ensemble that came from my High School, and a group that I am an alumni of, sang for the induction ceremony for the new president of the American Medical Association. His son, Evan Davis, is also an alum of the Ensemble, and so to accommodate him the group was opened up as an Alumni Performance. Eight gents (including myself) joined the Mens for their Tuesday night performance, including our staple, "A Hymn To God the Father" and another classic, "Viva Tutti" which translates (according to the sheet music) as "Hail to Women!"

The gig was at the Hilton right on Michigan Ave. in Chicago, which was a very convenient location for me (right across the street, south of Columbia). They put the men up in hotel rooms there. For meals they got to eat in the South wing of the Executive Suite.

After the performance, that Tuesday, we took a tour of the Hancock Building, followed by a quick desert at the Cheesecake Factory.

The next day the gents were given a brief tour of the touristy side of Chicago. I skipped out on Class and tutoring to join them. Sometimes life just gets in the way. The day began with a glorious breakfast again in the Executive Suite, and then a visit to Shedd's Aquarium. Ben Henri, the newest member of the Music Department Faculty at Haslett was telling me about working at Sea World, and we had a few laughs over the hilarity of the Dolphin shows. Then we were witness to the saddest looking Sea Lion I think we'd ever seen. It was half flopped onto the shore of its cage lying catatonic.

The next part of our venture was to Chicago's famous Navy Pier. I split away from most of the Men's guys and stuck close with a few of the Alumni, David Theis and Dan Voegler. There are only so many times you can see Navy Pier before it becomes really really boring. Needless to say, this time was well past one too many. For the last part of their day I hooked back up with Ben Henri's group on the Magnificent Mile. We spent the majority of the time in the Apple Store (no complaints there) playing the I Spy children's games.

Having people visit Chicago is by far my favorite thing about being here.

Thursday was back to the daily grind. Have to write another essay for my Prose Forms class. This one is about the history of my cabin with the slant that I'm interested in the story behind my inheritance. I need to call my Grandma and get the stories from her because she knows the story the most.

This week is the Taste of Chicago Festival. I went down there today and left fairly quickly because of the ridiculously large crowds. I will definitely be returning when my Mom comes down on Tuesday to spend some time with me.

Next weekend is the yearly bike trip from East Lansing, Michigan to West Branch, Michigan. It's about 150ish miles. We do it over three days. We ride from the Haslett Community Church to the Northwoods Boy Scout Reservation. We've been doing it now for about 4 years, and I haven't missed one yet.

Saw 1408 last night and it was good!

My mom sent me this article, and I laughed uproariously. Read it through and you will too...


And in other news my mentor, Mort Castle, has had his story "If You Take My Hand, My Son" performed by the AMFM Theater as part of their horror audio productions: "The Grist Mill." The production was awarded the Gold Ogle Award. The Award will be given at the CONvergence Convention in July. The Ogle was named for the actor who portrayed Frankenstein's Monster in the 1910 film Frankenstein.

Firefox has decided to stop acting up, which is nice. Now all I need to do is find my digital camera...