"Tis the Season To Be Jorry..."

We got up early to begin the trip home. Yen took us to the train for the ride back, and then it all began.

Unfortunately, someone about 4 seats in front of me had been really thirsty the night before, and I could smell him clear from where I was. A few stops down he started to work on standing up, lurched over to the (wrong) door for a particular stop. Once he figured out it was on the other side, he leaned out the door, looked both directions with his eyes mostly, if not completely, closed, and proceeded to dash my hopes by opting for another circuit before deciding where home was. (He was still on the train when we got off at the end of the line). Nauseating would be an understatement. By the time I finally had an appetite it was too late to get anything to eat, and I was going to starve before I paid 7 bucks for a croissant on the plane. But unfortunately I think that's what gave me the headache, one so bad it made me nauseous again, thus creating a downward spiral of unwell-being. By the time we got back and made it to Steve's car, we found out that a can of gas had spilt in the back. And it was real bad. No help to the headache, and driving down the highway in December with the windows down trying not to suffocate. For a fleeting moment, I contemplated lighting a match to end it all, but it was only for a fleeting moment.

We made it back to his place without incident. Even though the nausea had not worn off, I strangely was craving the buffalo chicken sandwich at Subway, so I headed over to get something to eat. Sadly, they no longer have it but I was better enough to have something else by then. Next I headed up to see Amy's new place, and she, Joe, Jules, and I watched A Christmas Story, visited, and destroyed a giant bowl of popcorn. It was good to see them again and I was thankful to have this break to recover from the first legs of the journey before driving home for work the next morning.

It was a rough last step to the journey, but it was well worth it for the whole trip!

So Many Moogles ...

The challenge of the day was finding something relatively affordable that could take up a few hours before the evening event.

First thing I thought of was the Shedd Aquarium, just to say I'd been there, but after seeing how much it was to get in, I decided I didn't want it that bad. I think it was around $30 a piece, if I remember correctly. I settled for a free picture of one of the banners.

We knew ahead of time that there was no way to see everything, but we figured we could tackle a wing of the Museum of Science and Industry, dubbed as the OMSI for grownups. - Actually, it was geared for everybody. And, you know, OMSI really is, too. So never mind. But it was pretty sweet. It's already on my list to revisit if I get back out that way.

We grabbed dinner at Ricobene's Pizzeria to have a traditional Chicago-style sandwich with the greasiest fries ever. I think it might be the grease that make fries so good, because those were awesome. I think each one was about 1000 calories, but i just told myself they weren't empty calories. There's potato in there somewhere.

Yen dropped us off at the train to head up to the concert. I had no idea what to expect, but I went in with an open mind.
So a little history: I had played some of the Final Fantasy games in the past, and I remember really liking the music to them. Well, apparently these songs have been fully orchestrated, and that's what we were going to see. I braced myself for some of the folks who would be, oh, you know, a little hard core. You know, the folks that also show up for the Star Wars/Star Trek/Lord of the Rings movies all dressed up. Great movies accompanied with people who really got into them. Same deal here: people were dressed up as all sorts of characters from the games. Managing to keep my eyebrow(s) from raising, I took a deep breath and went in with an open mind. It was a lot of fun! The music was great, the crowd was energetic, and I have another unique experience that I can say I've done! Good call, Steve! It was a great way to finish off the trip. We got back at some unholy hour and, for some reason, played a few games before going to bed. Or was that the night before? Or both nights? Probably both nights. Heck, we felt we needed to get the most out of our time together, anyway. Sleep's for those who are, uh, not us.

Chicago Has Layers (Like Onions, not Cakes)

Yen has to work today, so Steve and I, armed with our 3-day transit passes, head out to explore the city. We saw all sorts of things, and I have no idea how far we walked, and I don't think we'll ever know. But it was one of those things you don't realize until the end of the day and you're telling someone else about it.

Tons of buildings everywhere, lots of people, lots of trains, lots of horns. It was great. And the best part of the whole day was that even as cold as it was, my ears never bothered me! At first I tried buying some cheap earmuffs (some device called a 180?), but I accidentally broke them I decided I was better off without anyway. For those of you who don't know, this was significant: normally my ears are the first thing to bother me, even in 40 degree weather. So wandering around outside for most of the day in Chicago in December without them bothering me at all was awesome!

So we wandered through stores, and navigated through not only various blocks but layers of the city. One moment I could swear we were on the ground level, but nex thing I knew we were actually on a bridge a couple of levels up with a train below, and a street below that! I doubt we still know how deep the city really gets before we'd hit the sewers. We made it down to the waterfront before beginning a search for food. We had lunch on an upper floor of one of the buildings. It had a huge window that I suspect was letting in cold air, and some waterways that led up to a fountain that was not running (so I just pretended).

We spent the remainder of the afternoon wandering around, and then worked our way back to Yen's workplace. We helped her close up after her last class, and she took us on a highway that gave us a good view of the skyline, as well as driving down the Magnificent Mile: the more famous stretch of shopping, etc for Chicago. And then we headed to a favorite pizza place of Yen's to have some Chicago deep-dish pizza. Of course, it tasted great. I grabbed a beer, took a picture, and sent it to my sister since I was missing her 21st birthday tonight. Here's to you, sis!

We Say Goodbye, and We Say Hello. Hello, hello!

We got up and just kind of milled around, took our time leisurely packing up stuff to be ready to take off. We decided to only have a round of Mario Party and a walk on the agenda for the day. So we kept it simple.

It was hard leaving and saying goodbye. But we hope to catch up with each other again sometime next year location TBA. I drug my feet a little so we were running behind, but amazingly it only took 8 minutes to get from ticket checkin to the gate. 8 minutes! I couldn't believe it. A part of me was relieved that we didn't miss the flight, but another part was bummed that we could have spent another half hour together. But better to play it safe than sorry.

The flight went okay. Well, until the end when yet another 2-year old sitting in the row in front of me elects to freak out and scream at the top of her lungs. While the previous kid just squawked a few seconds every now and then, this poor kid was continuous. I'm not sure how long, because I'm sure it felt a lot longer than it really was, but it was at that point where we've landed, taxi'd to our gate, and just sit there a hundred feet away, unable to unbuckle, unable to get away, but witness the full power of a raging two-year old girl. I felt really bad for the parents. At first I was thinking I'd be 40 before I have kids, but now it might be 50.

We took the train from O-Hare to downtown since it was a ways away, and met Yen there. It was interesting starting underground for a while, then ground level, then three stories above everything, and maybe underground again some time later. But we got to our stop okay, met up with Yen, and headed for the grocery store to pick up supplies to work our way across the frozen terrain.

We got back to Yen's place afterwards, and it's an amazing place - not just because it's heated, but it's spacious, wood floors, granite counters, cool showers, and did I mention heat? I failed to get pictures of the place as I planned, but Yen's probably okay with that since she does not yet have all her furniture in place.

Apple Jacks and Bling-Bling

Actually I had golden puffs for breakfast. But after breakfast, we went out for a walk around the neighborhood, checking out the architecture, the foliage, and a mystery church. It was windy outside, but while the rest of the nation seemed to be in the wake of a huge winter storm, we were enjoying 65 degree sunny weather.
26.JPG"
After naptime, we got ready to go to trivia night at Revolution Pizza and Ale House. Our team, the Apple Jacks, didn't get first, second, third or, well, we don't know how well we did. Heck, we didn't even hear a couple of the answers, anyway. But we had a blast, I know I would do it again. At least we gave them something to laugh about when we didn't know the answer. Who wants a blank space when they could put something more entertaining? Apparently, bling-bling is in the dictionary - I know, stupid. I was sure ginormous would have been in there before bling-bling. We couldn't remember what the twin deficit was (trade and budget!), annoying because I used to know. So we put bling and bling for the twin deficit, and couldn't remember the dog's name from the Grinch so we put Blingo (Max!). Afterwards, we came back and figured out how a killer penthouse was killing people and then played a few rounds of not-zombie-Fluxx. We stayed up fairly late, but hey - it was our last evening together. The first two rounds went pretty quickly, so we decided to go for a third round, which got really complex, especially complex for that time of night:
So here was the breakdown of the rules that were in force at the time the pic was taken:

Can pick between one of the two goals on the table. Not too tough, right? Well ...

You have to have the radioactive potato in addition to what the goal requires (only 1 in the deck)

Have to draw three cards

Have to play four cards (unless you run out)

At the end of the turn, if you don't like your hand, you can turn all your cards in and replace with the same amount

If you have the fewest keepers, you can draw an extra card

If you have the most keepers, you can draw an extra card

If the party keeper is on the table, then you can draw an extra card

If you start your next round with no cards, you get to draw three extra cards

Hand limit 0 = at the end of the turn, you have to discard anything not played

You can only have three keepers at a time.

The person to your left draws a random card from your hand that has to be played first.

Inflation card: any rule card that has a numeral on it ("1" not "one") gets an added value of 1.

SO ... two goals was listed as double, so it's still two, but you have to draw 4 cards and play 5. If you have the most or fewer keepers, you now draw 2 extra instead of 1. If the party keeper's one of the (4 allowed now instead of 3) keepers, you draw another 2 cards instead of 1. If you start with no cards, you get to draw another 4. Hand limit is now 1. The random card drawn from the player to the left is still one because it was "a" card or "one" card, not "1". So basically you could be drawing anywhere from 6 to 12 cards, playing 5 (one played by neighbor), and discarding all of the rest of the cards (except one thanks to inflation).

So are you dizzy? I am. This late at night? Hilarious.

Where am I? What day is it? Is that my dog?

We went to meet Chad for lunch at Chick Fill-A since it was one of those non-Oregonian experiences. Good stuff: try it out!

The afternoon was nice and relaxing. One moment I was looking out the window at the rain, next thing I'm waking up in the dark under a blanket with a dog barking.
First thought: why is there a dog in my apartment?
Second thought: wait, I don't have a leather couch.
Third thought: what time/day/year is it?
Fourth thought: Is this my dog? Is this my apartment?
Fifth thought: This is not my place or my dog or my blanket or my couch.
Sixth thought: Yes!!! I'm on vacation!
I had fallen asleep until Carol came home, who was being greeted by Morgan.

I had not been that disoriented in quite a while. Trippy.

After dinner (chili and palenta is a mysterious yet delicious combination) we played Bohnanza. We had fun, even though I don't think I completely get that game yet. At some point by now we had played Ninja Burger (hilarious), but I honestly don't know which day that was. But it was worth mentioning.

Creepy Chili's and a cool big bear

Today we went to a mall to explore it due to its sheer size (it was big), and went to Chili's there for lunch. We explored through all sorts of stores, and had deep philosophical discussions, such as contemplating what the creepy waiter/thanker's name AJ stood for. I think the final vote was Apple Jacks.

I saw the biggest fishing store of all time. I took a couple of pics to show the bro, because I'd doubt he'd believe me otherwise. And a cool teddy bear that Jake liked quite a bit.

After the afternoon adventures, we came back, had dinner, and played Killer Bunnies well into the night and/or early morning. Oh yeah and Chad broke a chair.

Mini-ng golf

I woke up feeling refreshed after spending the night with Morgan (the dog). We had waffles for breakfast, and got everything ready for the day. We went to a pretty sweet miniature golf course that had a miner's theme (miners not minors), where we could play 18 holes for less than $5. Nine holes were outside: thankfully the weather was nice, while the other nine were underground. We had lots of fun, especially at those holes where we just couldn't get it to work out and got creative.

One of the players behind us got a little too creative. In an aggressive attempt to make it to the end of the hole, she hit the ball fairly hard: hard enough it came onto our course. She came running after it to try and stop it (?), but in her haste slipped on a wet spot on the course and fell, feet flying up into the air. She was okay other than a little embarrassed, but she was able to walk away with pride after seeing she got a hole in one: on the next hole over!

On the way back we stopped at Wal-Mart to get 2 new sippy cups (not for me and Steve: for Jake), and picked a couple of sodas that are specific to the area: Cheerwine and Sun Drop, which I keep calling Sun Spot. My bad. Both are good: Cheerwine is kind of like a cherry root beer, and Sun Spot I mean Sun Drop was like a mixture of Moutain Dew and Sprite.

We finished off the day with Settlers of Catan and got to bed late: most likely a theme for this week ... which I'm perfectly okay with!

Brinner

Well, to kickoff the trip, we decided that our first adventure would be to take Jules to breakfast for taking us to the airport. (I came up to Newberg the night before since our plane was leaving at 6am) Which, of course, meant that we had to get up even earlier in order to have time for an early breakfast before getting to the airport early to leave on the early flight. So, I went to sleep around 10pm and got up around 2am, left around 2:15 to look for an open restaurant to grab some brinner. Actually, we all got breakfast so it technically wasn't brinner. I suspect there was a little more laughter/giddiness due to the time of it all, in addition the the excitement of the fun to come.

I also suspect that due to lack of sleep and multiple worlds colliding (figuratively speaking: collision of GFU/Portland/Eugene eras), I was recognizing about half the people we were walking by. Since only one person did a hesitant double-take (hope I wasn't gawking), I fear these recognitions may have been false alarms. So Steve gave me a piece of gum to distract me until it was time to board. I lucked out because my seat hadn't been assigned yet, and the flight was full, so I got to sit in a better seat, but not first class. Who knows how many "classes" of seating there are nowadays: I'm guessing three or four, because I wasn't coach. I had 5" extra foot space - i think it was "economy plus", so I wasn't economy. And don't forget first class and/or business class. Long story short, I was somewhere in the middle, which I was thankful for the legroom since I was in a middle seat.

The second leg of the journey had a newer jet, and was empty enough that I had a window seat without someone next to me, so that part was nice. Unfortunately, there was a little kid in the row in front of me that elected to throw a 6 second fit every 10 minutes or so. There was many a red-eye-opening glare directed out the window before I was driven to drink to help pass the time. (Water, tomato juice, water, cran-apple) I pondered for a bit about why it isn't called crapple, which was an indication of how rested I was feeling at the time. But I was still excited about the upcoming week.

Chad picked us up at the airport once we got in, and we came back to the homestead for homemade pizza night and played Zombie Fluxx. Much fun - highly recommended.