15- Concerts!

Still grasping onto summer, I went to a few more concerts in September and October. And of course as you remember, since you're my avid reader (I don't really know who I'm addressing here) I made a point of going to a lot of concerts this past year. Not that I ever make a point of particularly NOT going to concerts. Why would I ever NOT wanna go?

But anyway, Josh and Andrea and I (me and my pseudo boyfriend and my surrogate girlfriend) went to see Ray LaMontagne and David Gray, for $20, at Millennium Park, with three bottles of wine. There were five things about that sentence that were great. Everything was right about that concert, there, with them, for that price, with that to drink. Kickass.

Here's Andrea's shot of us snuggling in one of the folding chairs. This folding chair smuggled a bottle of wine for us.

My big messenger bag smuggled the other two, under my clothes. I had come straight from South Bend, with some extra wine from home, and didn't realize it wasn't allowed into this show- so we decided to hide it, or I was screwed anyway. So we got it in...and got to drink it. Double yay.

Andrea was clearly enjoying it- Josh's shoe was keeping her cup from falling over (since we already had one spill accident).

Here's Ray LaMontagne and the Pariah Dogs, sounding amazing, and I woulda paid $20 just for them. Which I would have PAID just to see them, THIS summer, except Josh and I waited too long to get tickets and it sold out. IDIOT.

And after the sun went down (and the bottles of wine did too) David Gray and a starry-sky stage set makin it happen. Weird thing is, he had just put out a new album- second one in about a year- and didn't play a single song from the new album. It was odd. It was fine, but it was odd. What did I just spend two weeks listening to it for, David? Seriously.

After the show (good Lord it was great) here's what the amphitheater looks like with the decorative park lights shining on it.

More concerts!! Rad!! Guster came to town to do a little summer concert. They had a new album coming out soon. They played two shows in one day! Show numero uno- Hancock Plaza, Michigan Avenue. Free. Lunch hour. I got a nice standing spot.

And then I met up with a bunch of friends at LINCOLN PARK ZOO! for their evening show, with Griffin House (double bonus, cause I'd been wanting to see him too). I waited in line, realizing at some point that I had forgotten my ticket. Josh was able to run home and get it and bring it to me, and he made it back ONE MINUTE before the gates opened- otherwise I would have lost my first place in line- and the opportunity to go save a bunch of space for all my friends on the lawn. I had two blankets and a bunch of chairs- and a few friends who apparently didn't care about showing up on time. Our space got rapidly encroached upon, but we made it okay.

Guster Part 2. Rockin. The last time I saw them with their guitarist Joe Pisapia- they announced a week later that he was moving on and they had gotten another awesome musician, Luke Reynolds, to fill his spot. Who I realized I saw walking around before this show. Wish I'd realized who he was (and why he was there)- I woulda said hi. Alas.

Sweet poster. Guster, I will see you again soon.

14- Xavier, Cincinnati

To begin the fall semester (I still think of the year in terms of semesters) we (my dad, my mom and I) took Nathan down to Xavier in Cincinnati for what would be just one semester. I was excited to see a new city and check out the campus and the architecture.

First we stopped down to visit some family in Noblesville where we stayed for the night. Thanks to Jenny's idea, I got to go kayaking for the first time. Thanks also to my cousin Eric letting me borrow his kayak out of the garage. So we went out onto the lake for an hour or so and tooled around. It was nice. My job was holding the kayaks in the back of Uncle Steve's truck while Jenny drove down the street to the lake front.

The next morning took us onto the second leg of our journey, to the city. We found Nathan's apartment and unpacked the minivan's worth of stuff.

We met his roommates, and his roommates' parents, and then went with our cousin Nick on a little tour of campus. Here's the campus entrance, just down the driveway from Nathan's apartment.

This was the central courtyard outside Nathan's apartment. Looked like kind of a fun place.

The new-ish basketball arena. Not that attractive of a cube. But huge inside.

Here's the Musketeer. And Nathan and Nick.

We got to check out Nathan's brand new business school where he'd be taking classes- it had just been completed that summer. Still smelled new. The architect was clever to turn some structural elements into nice Xs in the huge windows.

Here's the campus chapel. It had a double-curved hyperbolic roof (dorking architect/mathy stuff)

Also on campus was this awesome house. It was empty, for sale. Stone. Right up on a little hill on the corner of campus. Looked amazing inside- huge arches connecting the plaster-walled rooms, giant old radiators, and lots of light through the huge windows. It needed a lot of work. But seriously- standing alone as a house (irrespective of its location within Cincinnati or the fact that it was IN Cincinnati) it was an awesome house that I would SO buy. If...lots of things.

Oops. Photos a little out of order. But the reader doesn't know that, do they? Except for now you do. Whatever. This was the first building on campus we saw after leaving Nathan's apartment. Looks cool and collegey, right? Three good looking Italian men. Me Nathan and Nick.

Also out of order, this is clearly some sort of seal/logo, it was embedded in the floor in the new student center. I like geometry. And logos. And photos of stuff.

After we said our not-really-teary goodbyes, after our little tour of campus, I persuaded my abiding parents to drive us downtown for a brief architecture tour. I was looking things up on my phone cause I hadn't had proper time to fully do my research ahead of time. Downtown was...maybe the size-ish of downtown Indy. Who knows :)

But we got there, and of course discovered things I didn't know were there, but were definitely worth seeing. Take this random building, by random architect...entertaining, worth a photo, colorful.

I like the experience of discovery. My favorite thing about traveling, besides seeing the things I'm already excited and planning to see, is seeing awesome things that I didn't know existed and just stumbled upon. Like finding Atlantis during a little fishing trip or something.

Here was a Cesar Pelli performing arts center of some sort. I knew it was here, didn't know it'd be quite so boring- I mean I guess its nice, but had I not seen it on the internet I probably would have barely given it a second glance. If I noticed it. I guess I like the square punches and the expanses of glass between the massive brick pillars. But still- kinda *yawn*.

For a split second I thought this was the building I came to see- just because I saw a more striking, contemporary, interesting shape down the street. Still worth a photo though.

And then I wheeled around and realized I was right next to the main attraction- world-famous Zaha Hadid's Cincinnati Art Center, I think it was called. I forget, since it was like 9 months ago. (Geez).

Zaha is famous for her swoopy work, most of which doesn't really look like this, and also famous cause she's a woman in a male-dominated field, and she's Iraqi. (But personally I don't really buy her work- it doesn't do it for me- she just makes cool shapes and then stuffs buildings into them and then explains why the shape was perfect for that building.)

It was a very vertical building, tucked into a corner lot, on a narrow site, so the museum was sliced up into small floors instead of spread out horizontally. Conceptually, this swoopy wall was supposed to be drawing the ground plane from outside on the sidewalk into and UP into the building (and thus drawing the people with it). You can see it extends through the glass onto the sidewalk. LOOKS cool.

But its just a shape. It doesn't actually draw people in. And you can't see it much from outside on the sidewalk anyway- especially since that giant wall on the right separates it from the other glass wall and sidewalk.

Anyway, a couple other interested buildings we drove by on our way out, after I stood in the lobby of the art center for 15 minutes as my parents sat in the car :) I thought this building might be an Antoine Predock, cause it looked a lot like his City Hall in Austin. But Google told me no dice.

As we were driving towards the river though, I realized there was this striking blue pointy building across the river. I begged my dad for a little bit more of a detour. So we headed down the waterfront, past the stadium campus, to the nearest bridge and over the water into Covington, Kentucky. And of course, we discovered some extra things worth seeing! I love traveling. Even if its just to Cincinnati.

Here's mini Notre Dame du Paris. I mean look at it, aside from the towers being connected, its like a scale model. Google told me (as we sped by in the car and I snapped a photo and then grabbed my phone) that it was the Cathedral there. Wish we had time to go in, but I think the natives (in the front seat) were getting restless.

Another building that looked like Tower Records in LA plus Marina City in Chicago.

Ooh! A big old bridge! It was under construction. Closer inspection (a plaque on the wall) told us that it was designed and built by a guy named John Roebling. NO, you say, THE John Roebling? That's right, him! Can you believe it? Crazy, right? (Same guy who designed and built the Brooklyn Bridge (or at least most of it, before he died and his son took over)).

It was very blue. Apparently a lotta people live over on the KY side and walk the bridge to commute to work. Not a bad gig! I kinda wanted to do that...

Here's a rare picture of me taking a picture (though me taking pictures is clearly not rare).

Woot.

And the main attraction that brought us to this sleepy little town (that was like Cincinnati's Hoboken, if that means anything to anyone)- The curvy pointy blue building! Tallest building here, called to me all the way from downtown Cincy across the river. Good work, whoever built this...

The backside. It was hard to get in one photo (so some of these are photomerged together- thanks Photoshop, again and again and again). Cool balconies, facing the river, overlooking Cincy. Get to live close to the city, and also SEE the city. Nice. I thought the color and shape was great, and the facade too.


We inquired within, and at least the lobby was designed by Daniel Libeskind, but I think the whole thing was, though it wasn't clear (nor on the internet, believe it or not). But there was an award to him for the interior, in the lobby. I took a couple pictures but didn't find it amazing or anything. Oh ps, it was a condo building.

On our way back north, here's where the Bengals play, right on the river next to downtown.

And that is all. We headed back to South Bend. See you in a semester, Nathan. I'm glad he came back to Notre Dame but sad I won't have much of an excuse to go visit Cincy again- apparently U. of Cincy has some cool buildings too...and that's what life is all about, right? :D

13- All Kinds of Stuff.

August every year in Chicago brings the Air and Water Show. Most of the city's population ends up on the beach somewhere, packed in like sardines to watch the show down where they have speakers and announcers. But its still plenty fun, and less packed, and more comfortable, farther up north- so we went out to the lake front and sat on the grass and watched the show- me Josh Andrea Gobel Jeff Rachael David and...maybe I'm forgetting someone. We sat on our blankets and chairs for a couple hours and saw the planes fly in formation, make lots of noise, make lots of smoke, and do cool tricks.

Josh and Andrea had some alone time by the water and looked like a good picture- so I made sure to catch it. They were watching the planes.

I took a few sweet videos but they take too long to post. Here's one of the Blue Angels though, flying wing to wing...when they got close overhead you could see there was only a few feet between each plane. Unreal. And SO loud.

There were also F-16s flying overhead too, sometimes so loud we hadta plug our ears. Thankfully we were easily able to just walk home afterwards rather than being all the way down at the beach.

I also got a great chance to see MORE music. My friend Ryan (or Becky's boyfriend Ryan if you prefer) invited me to go see Keane with him at the Chicago Theatre- apparently Becky couldn't go with him at the last minute and he asked me to come- for free. Wow.

I'd seen Keane before, and they were better than last time because they had great lighting and actually a guitarist these days. But the added bonus of getting to see Fran Healy (the lead singer of Travis) and Ingrid Michaelson (who I realized during the show that I had actually heard a few of her songs months or more ago when I'd looked her up). Seeing Ingrid was the highlight, and I had a huge crush on her after the show. And thankfully found out that she was coming back to Chicago soon again, and I was DEFINITELY going :) I looked up a bunch of her music and listened to it over and over. She has a certain way of enunciating or something that is really very...enticing, I guess. Anyway. She's also a cute redhead with a great voice, and she's really funny and self-effacing in concert.

Another August event- I applied for something called "Month at the Museum". Which multiple people told me about within the same week, saying they heard about it and I'd be perfect for it. It was basically $10,000 plus some free gadgets, to spend a month LIVING at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, living in a glass box, touring the museum, learning about EVERYTHING, interacting with the public, and blogging and video blogging about it.

Here was my setup for filming my little application video. Needless to say, THEY didn't think I'd be perfect for it apparently- I didn't even make it past the first round. Oh well. I tried.

A final event August always brings...the ND Alumni Club booze cruise. Always a great time, always worth it- its like $35 for 4 hours on a boat, out on the lake and then down the river, with all you can eat pizza, beer and wine on tap, and a bunch of ND alums. Sadly, it used to be me and a bunch of friends. The past couple years have been most of my friends saying they couldn't come or didn't want to anymore (seriously?? a CRUISE on the LAKE) or people not being able to go for some reason. Kills me.

Here's a nice view down the river. The same one I get every year. That never gets old.

So I went again obviously, with basically just Gobel, and a few of his friends were going too. So we hung out, it was alright, but I was starting to feel like my life was changing, my friends were moving on, and here I was sitting on a boat with a bunch of people I didn't know, with no job and no girlfriend. It was the second or third time since graduation that I was thinking maybe I should move home and start life over again. But I didn't move home. Almost though! That saga is to be continued ;) Too bad I hadn't blogged in real time, because this would have been the time I threatened to move home again.

12- Transformers 3!!!

Now here is some cool stuff to talk about. Yknow, its good looking back on all these things now and finishing to write about them, because it helps to remember that even though I was looking for a job for nine fricking months, I guess it was actually a better year than sometimes I remember- it often just feels like the year of no job and no money.

So during the summer, Transformers 3 was filming in Chicago. COOL. My cousin got a job from a friend of his at college, to work on the movie. COOLER. I got to visit multiple times and get on set and see what they were doing. COOLEST!!

The best day was when they had Wacker Drive blocked off, totally a mess with fake rubble and overturned cars and buses, and they were driving Hummers and sports cars covered with machine guns down the street and firing them off. I got to watch. And I got to see Jason Statham, who is a badass British action movie star, cause he was visiting his Russian model girlfriend who's apparently in the movie. So he was just sitting right there. Awesome. I wanted to go punch him just so I could say I got my ass kicked by Jason Statham.

They also flew a helicopter down the river, over the Michigan Ave. bridge that they closed off for the stunt. They were trying to get a camera shot of Wacker.

Here's Shia LeBeouf's stunt double, who I got to watch teach Shia how to do some stunts jumping and climbing over smoked-out cars. Pretty cool. Would have filmed it if it wouldn't have gotten me kicked off set :) My friend Rachael came to visit too and came on set with us. She was excited. Cause it was exciting :)

Here's two of the "Transformers"- Bumblebee, a Camaro, and a chop-top Corvette who's name I forget. These guys got to haul ass down the street. Behind the Camero is a giant blue thing that is a piece of a Transformer that will get computer graphics overlaid onto it.

Also got pictures with some of the Marine-types. They were real Marines (or real whatever military) and were pretty star-struck themselves, thinking it was awesome to be on set.

After they were done shooting, they started cleaning up the street, we hung out and watched- there were fake pieces of street made out of foam, and like I said lots of overturned cars and mess. It was awesome. And they cleaned it up in one night. You can see the Trump tower in the background and the IBM building- two places they filmed lots of The Dark Knight.

And Marina City in the background too. My home someday ;)

Down this side street was a whole overturned Chicago bus. SWEET.

That giant piece of Transformer. Couldn't tell what it'll be , but I'll keep my eyes out for two giant round things on the street in the movie. All the red spots are tracking points for overlaying the computer graphics onto it.

Same blue thing, Chicago in the background, street a mess.

A couple days later I also found a park near the lake they had trashed up with fake pieces of sod and dirt, and apparently guys were parachuting down to the ground here from on buildings.

The cool stuff I didn't see, but have already noticed in the trailer- a guy base-jumping off the Sears Tower, who my cousin was standing next to when he jumped, and them racing those cars (and a Ferrari) down a blocked-off street near McCormick convention center, which my cousin got to ride in. Those shots were in the trailer they showed during the Super Bowl. Badass. I can't wait to see it simply because it was filmed in Chicago and I got to see it. Supposedly they're starting to film the next Batman this month...OH MAN.

I tried and tried to get a job working on Transformers but didn't happen. Would have been like 14-16 hours a day at like $10 a day, but what the heck! Chance of a lifetime. My cousin (Anthony) got to hang out with a few movie stars and see lots of cool stuff. Later they went to Detroit and he saw the original Dodge mansion, which was huge. Then he was working on some movie with Kate Winslet and Matt Damon and a bunch of other stars- apparently Kate Winslet took him to breakfast one morning. Man.