20- Vicky Visits From China to Chicago

A couple years ago, my brother and my dad went to China. They went with Chris's college roommate (Isaac Garcia), to visit said roommate's dad who works over there sometime- and of course clearly to see China. Well his roommate's dad had a nice coworker who was Chinese but spoke good English and was great for showing them around. Well she'd be wanting to visit the US, so she finally came, first flying to Texas, then driving up with aforementioned roommate and his parents. They hung out in South Bend with my family, and then came to Chicago to see the big city (and hang out with me).

I gave them a good little walking tour of some places, we got deep dish pizza, my dad decided it'd be fun to go to a Bulls game (it was) and bought tickets for us all. I felt bad cause they were expensive, but grateful at the opportunity. I don't exactly get to go to Bulls games...though I wouldn't generally want to pay the ticket prices either.

Anyway, here was our view. For some reason Vicky (that's just her American name so her English-speaking co-workers had something pronounceable to call her) really loved NBA basketball, so she was thrilled to go to a game.

Up above us were retired jersey numbers. THAT was cool, cause those were players from back when I actually watched the Bulls. Or the NBA. Or pro sports period.

And also all the banners from championships and stuff. And in the distance, banners from the Blackhawks also. Lots of em, including the recent Stanley Cup banner.

They also had a huge jumbo tron. They used it for lots of entertaining things like getting the fans to boo- by putting up a Green Bay Packers logo. I thought that was hilarious. (Bears fans hate the Packers).

HERE was the highlight of the night- when the Bulls scored over 100 points (AND were clearly gonna win) cause we got some handout thing before the game saying that if that happened, we won free Big Macs. Me and Vicky were getting really excited when it was getting close. And we were watching the scoreboard. The crowd went nuts. I thought it was hilarious. Cause I was going nuts too- and I got like five free Big Macs cause everyone else gave me their tickets :D

Also, it got me wondering- they must notify the local McDonalds, or else the manager watches the game or something- cause there were like 20,000 fans there. If even say, 100 of those fans decided to hit the same nearest McDonalds, they'd be SWAMPED. And that's GOTTA happen- so what do they do? Interesting question to which I don't know the answer...

We also walked around the promenade, where I found out that I had almost as long of fingers as Shaq but he has HUGE palms...and the same size palms as Michael Jordan but he had WAY longer fingers.

Here's all of us at the game- even a few people managed to wear red! Good work. I failed. I had red stripes on my shirt though...

Joachim Noah. His arms are a little longer than Vicky.

Here's my glass topped desk with my lists of buildings to see in Chicago for making plans to tour guide them around. I had long lists. And then mapped em all out, and then made an order of buildings to see. It was a grand master plan that didn't completely work out, but I tried, and apparently they were grateful.

Of course we went to see the bean.

And here's our deep dish pizza time at Gino's, my personal favorite. My dad decided to write Vicky's name on the wall with White-Out (borrowed from the waitress) while Vicky and the Garcias walked down Michigan Ave. while we waited for our pizza.

Here's a nice completely-out-of-order photo- While they were in South Bend, Isaac's sister Rita and her then-fiancee-now-husband, who went to Tulsa, came to South Bend for the Notre Dame-Tulsa game. And stayed with my family also.

Back to the Chicago visit at hand- we went to Macy's to check out the Christmas decorations.

Back in Millennium Park. Mixed up photos. Yknow.

One of my favorite buildings in Chicago. I don't care what other people say. And we hadta get close so I could show em what it was like when the glass starts disappearing and all you see is the concrete balconies.

We stopped by the Apple Store. I mean how can you not.

Oh. Good. Another photo out of order. What the heck is going on here? How did this happen? Anyway, Vicky liked that her name mysterious was up on the wall (we ended up telling her how it got there).

Later that day we went to Lincoln Park Zoo (free!) and also went to the uh...I forget the name- the greenhouse with plants in it. Check out these monster seed pod things. It was like a tropical jungle in there. Hot and humid. And exotic crazy plants. Pretty cool!

I thought this was just a cool mess of plant.

In the kids part of one of the exhibits, my dad and Vicky decided they wanted to be groundhogs.

This bird was pretty cool. Since he had a curly mustache. I got a pretty good picture of him!

Vicky taught my family how to make Chinese food. They had a great time.

Yeah I dunno what's going on. Pot sticker dough or something...

Apparently Vicky loved Max. Can't wait to go visit her in China someday!

19- Museum of Science and Industry

Events! I did so many things while I didn't have a job. And didn't enjoy them nearly as much as I should have, because I didn't have a job, or money. My friend though had some passes to the Museum of Science and Industry, and I'd been wanting to go, since the girl who won the "Month at the Museum" contest was living there, and since I'd applied, I wanted to see what it was like. So we went. I hadn't been since I was a kid. And it was awesome!!

The rotunda had a big Christmas tree in it which was great. And there were smaller Christmas trees (but still like 9 feet tall) that were decorated like traditional trees from around the world. It was pretty cool.

Here's the glass cube that the girl was living in. That *I* could have been living in if I'd won. Yeah I didn't even make it past the first round. The cheating thing is the girl didn't hafta sleep in there, she had her own private room somewhere else to sleep in and have alone time or something. I think for $10,000 and prizes, she shoulda hadta live in the spotlight (aside from the bathroom of course).

I did get a free pass for four to the museum though, for entering that contest. So I'm going back some time- maybe this summer.

Here's a two-story-high tornado. You can adjust the moisture and the direction of the fans and the strength of the wind and stuff and see how the tornado changes. But pretty cool to just look at a mini tornado.

THIS was awesome. It was about light and how what wavelengths are shining and reflected off objects determines what colors you see. You could change the colors of the light and see what colors the objects looked, that were labeled the color they'd look under white light. The vividity (is that a word??) of the light was amazing.

This was a thing you could adjust the angle of the mirrors and stuff, it was splitting a beam of light into multiple wavelengths so you could see that white light was actually made up of multiple colors. It was very cool to see.

THIS was AWESOME. It was spraying flammable liquid from the top, that was lit, and you could see the droplets falling and burning- you could change the size of the droplets and force of the liquid coming out. Pretty cool. The museum has done well creating interactive exhibits...

Here's me, clearly, and the stand-up model of the girl who won the contest, maybe so you could get a picture with her if you couldn't find her, maybe so you would know what she looked like so you could go find her.

I didn't see her. Didn't know she was wearing an orange shirt. Dammit, I would gone to find her- just to go see if she was doing a good job interacting with the visitors, and to secretly think that I could have done a better job than her- unless of course, I found out to my own chagrin that she was in fact doing a great job, much better than I could have. Then I would have just been annoyed and dejected.

18- More Events

October was a good month. More concerts. I went to see Ingrid Michaelson, who I had a huge crush until I found out she was engaged. So then my crush lessened, but stayed. Its since *mostly* disappeared (until I probably see her in concert again, cause she is just so endearing...there's just something about her). She tells funny stories, makes fun of herself, and is just goofy and stuff. Her voice is great, and has some kind of magical quality to it.

I was probably one of like five guys at the concert. The rest were either gay or drug there by their girlfriend probably. Thankfully I had my earplugs, cause girls can do some screaming let me tell you. Man. The concert was great, and she gets along well with her band. She plays a little eukelele most of the time. She's really cute. Long red hair and librarian glasses.

The funny thing is they came out to Led Zepplin, as if they were a rock band. Entertaining.

More October events...my friend from high school, Monica, who used to have a huge crush on me, then dated my college roommate, then almost married another boyfriend of three years...well she got married. She was very excited. I was excited for her.

She's now pregnant, and they have a house somewhere in Indy. I don't see her much anymore sadly. But it was nice to go to the wedding- and meet her husband, geez! Always weird when someone you used to know so well is marrying someone you've never met.

It was a nice fall wedding, with fall colors and fall decorations, and they had a hog roast for their rehearsal dinner but it wasn't rehearsal, they just invited everyone. That was a good chance to actually see and talk to Monica briefly, and a few other friends. Oh weddings- this year I think I have 7 weddings/receptions to attend. Par for the course.

17- Me, Turning 30.

Okay so if you somehow missed the one million Facebook announcements, I turned 30 last fall, on 10.10.10. I did a countdown on Facebook. I invited lots of friends to a trifecta of events spanning the weekend. I went to like a bajillion concerts over the course of my birthday "week". It was awesome. I was determined to make the best of turning 30 and not be like "I don't wanna celebrate". I like having one day a year be about me. So I was turning 30, so why not have three days be about me? I like threes, anyway.

First thing I did, thanks to winning tickets on Chicago radio station WXRT, is go see Guster again. With my friend Matt, since I had an extra ticket. I waited in line, got in the front, the stage was tiny and close. Perfect for taking close up photos of Ryan Miller trying to maul the microphone.

This was an invite-only album release party, they were signing stuff afterwards, and it was one of their first shows with their new guitarist Luke Reynolds. I thought this was a cool shot of their instruments sitting and waiting for them to take the stage.

This picture is from their last song- an awesome picture from XRTs website, awesome because you can see my bald head right below the acoustic guitar on the left- and that's how close I was. So that started off my birthday on Thursday night.

Friday night we had an event at Dave and Buster's. I'd never been. We got a discount on stuff and a free "room" rental for a couple hours where we could play pool and shuffleboard and eat food and drink drinks and be merry. Then we went and played games. The bill for like 15 of us or whatever was hundreds of dollars. I spent the ensuing week trying to reconcile the amounts with everyone (through no fault of anyone, just underestimating when giving me cash and then leaving before the bill came). So that involved a scanner and lots of highlighting and math.

Saturday morning we headed to South Bend to go paintballing. Those photos are out of order and I don't feel like moving them. Saturday night we hung out at my parents house eating more food, drinking more drinks, watching Notre Dame football, and hanging out.

Sunday was family birthday time. Always includes Jenny since she was born five days before me (but 3 years after...wait, before AND after?) This birthday also included some delicious Italian meats and cheeses.

I always mandate that we have a Dairy Queen ice cream cake on my birthday. Chris is a master cake-cutter too.

We opened some presents. Jenny got a sleeping bag. Made for sleeping standing up, apparently.

(Also out of order, a picture when I got home to my apartment a few days after my birthday, discovered a mysterious package from I had no idea who, and then realized that my friend Jenny's mom had taken my request seriously for some puppy chow- Chex mix covered in chocolate and peanut butter melted and mixed together...and then rolled in powder sugar. AMAZING TREAT that I ate for WEEKS.)

Back to ice cream cake. Delicious.

Me admiring my new Guster album for my birthday- requested.

Which also came in a special collectors pack with some Guster artwork and a Guster t-shirt. Sweet.

Sunday night we headed back to Chicago. (I think I was driving with Josh and Andrea but I sorta forget now). Then we finished the trifecta and went out to Goose Island for some drinks. My friend David Gloss gets the grand award for being the only person to make it to all events, all three days. I should have given him a prize. Maybe I still will. Like a shirt or something.

Oh but the birthday celebrations continued. My friend Erin, at my Twitter/Facebook public plea, came to Chicago to see Miike Snow with me. They're a band. Not a person. From Sweden. Not sure how to describe their music but I saw them last year at South By Southwest and they were cool. Erin likes them. Most people have never even heard of them.

The FOLLOW UP cool thing is that Erin mentioned she was going to see Jars of Clay in South Bend. For cheap. And that they had some meet-n-greet beforehand. Signing stuff. SO, in the spirit of my birthday week of a plethora of concerts, I decided to go back to SB again with her after we went to see Miike Snow, to go to the concert. So I was in SB for like 12 hours or something nuts. Whatever, worth it.

Jars of Clay. Up close. Unfortunately for fans of their recent albums, they were doing this new thing where they played like their whole first album. Would have been kinda cool way back when, cause I liked that album, but their recent songs are GREAT. Whatever, it was good anyway.

One of the two guitarists had a custom Jars of Clay Taylor guitar, with jars on the neck, and he'd apparently worn a nice hole in it too, which I managed to get a good picture of.

Oh. Pictures out of order. Par for the course. Here's Miike Snow, the Swedish band, when they came out in smoke, wearing masks. It wasn't as freaky weird as it sounds...or looks.

Out of order. Don't care. Post-paintballing pictures. My dad, who hasn't paintballed in like 20 years but was man enough for it anyway, and Jenny...who we convinced to come with us at the last minute (thanks in party to Colleen coming and making her feel like not the only girl...which then helped us convince my cousin Eric's wife Jill to come too!)

Maybe you can't see THAT well, but the paintball carnage left a LOT of welts on my back. WHO KEPT SHOOTING ME IN THE BACK!?! No mercy on your birthday. There's one on the back of each of my arms, one on the middle of my back, and one on my lower back. Awesome.

The whole paintball crew. Not coincidentally, the ones who play first-person-shooter video games were the best at it- Nathan, Eric, and Pat. You jerks.

Here's the giant hole I ripped in the crotch of a pair of jeans I'd had since high school. Shame. I was diving behind a...thing. I tried to duct tape it. It kinda helped.

And that is all. I celebrated my birthday for almost a week in total. Wait until I turn 40.

16- Me, Rockin It.

Well I spent all summer running my ass into the ground for this Chicago Half Marathon, cause Josh's sister asked if I'd be her running buddy. I went running like every other day, in the middle of the afternoon heat, all summer. Knees started getting tired of it.

But we did it. We did it kinda slow, but the weather was nice, and there were millions of people cheering us on (which was pretty awesome) and we got to run down Lake Shore Drive. They had bands, people standing on the overpasses, the radio pumped in through speakers, the works. And free granola bars, bananas, COOKIES, and LOU MALNATI'S afterwards!

Some pictures I uh, copied from the website of photos. You can even see our finish time! I got lots of cheers for "Nathan" because of my brother's shirt I like to wear running- he made it in kindergarten. People liked seeing your name and cheering for specific people- it was nice.

Here's Rachel and I. She got a few cheers for Marquette also. I saw this camera man, clearly.

I felt good that we finished the race, but we ran pretty slow. But my legs were also pretty damn dead afterwards. We all hobbled to the car (I realized there was no bloody way I could ever run a marathon simply cause my knees would die, without some serious painkillers) and I got a ride to the train- problem is, me hurrying out of the car at an intersection to the train station got my leg to cramp so bad I could barely walk. WOW that hurt :)

In other achievements, I got chosen to present at Pecha Kucha this summer. Basically its 9 people presenting 20 slides for 20 seconds each, on whatever in the world they want to- its a presentation event held in cities all over the world, a few times a year in Chicago- artists, architects, photographers, musicians, and all kinds of other creative people have presented. I was stoked and nervous that I got picked to present. I spent probably 10 hours putting together 6 minutes and 40 seconds of slides.

I talked about things that inspired me, hoping that they would inspire other creative types in the audience, since the inspirational slides that other people showed were always my favorites.

Here was a slide of macro (super close up) photos I took in Europe. One is from a smashed berry in a park in Barcelona, another is a berry on a tree in the gardens of the Palace at Versailles, and the last is a candy blue raspberry in a candy store in Zurich. Then on the side is my friend John, who is obsessed with macro photos (especially of gross stuff) and inspired me to take my own. And turns out my camera takes superb ones.

Here's a slide of the book I illustrated. I don't remember what I said about this... oh yeah, this was just a little "about me" (some self-promotion since I needed a job at the time).

Here's a good little shot my friend took, of me presenting. MAN I was nervous, and I knew it'd go by fast (I rehearsed TONS of times to get down exactly what I wanted to say in each 20 seconds). I didn't use my notes or the timer though- and still managed to say MOST of what I intended to :)

Afterwards they always like taking pictures of all the presenters together. There were a couple other architecture related people and I mentioned that I needed a job during the presentation.

I'd been to a couple Pecha Kuchas before this one so I knew what to expect, and knew that people either don't have near enough to say for each slide, or they stumble over their words trying to get everything out. I've been to a couple more and would definitely present again. So much fun, so interesting, such a novel format. And if someone sucks, they're gone in 6 minutes 40 seconds, if they're awesome then you're just enticed enough to Google them for later...

By the way Pecha Kucha is Japanese for "chit chat".