Sometimes it just works like that.

I realize that I haven't blogged for over a week. I knew something bad was going to happen to this thing when I came back. I wanted to try and avoid skipping a beat, but I determined that blogging while in Chicago on Patrick's iPhone was just too pathetic. It just happens sometimes, you don't have enough time to do what you want. I couldn't even tell you what I've been doing exactly for the past week, but it's felt like non-stop stuff. I've kept myself busy.

I'm actually surprised that Greg didn't blog about the Chi-town trip we took to celebrate his birthday. Although he might have blogged about it somewhere that I don't have access to or a place I just don't know about.

We went into the Chicago trip completely blind. All we knew was that there were Halloween fireworks (weird, eh?) and that we wanted some deep dish pizza that you can't get anywhere else but Chicago. The way up was pretty good. Miles and time just melted away as we all thought it would. After you have been in a car from sunrise to well past sunset, a 4-5 hour drive seems like nothing. I think we only stopped once, kinda impressive considering I was in the car. I tend to slow down road trips, but I think I'm getting better at them now.

On the way down we basically shot the breeze having casual conversation most of the way. Closer to Chicago, Greg ended up telling us how his Kansas City trip went. It sounded like a blast, and I really wish I could have went with him, although the majority of it wouldn't have been privy to my eyes. It isn't that much of an interesting drive going up to Chicago, but the cities seemed more memorable than the endless pastures. I remember seeing a field that was absolutely full of windmills. Not old school ones, high tech, energy making ones. I actually thought that was kinda cool. There was also a mosque on the way too. I'm not sure I spelled that right, or called it the right thing. It seemed like a religious place, that had Arabic looking writing on it. It was the first time I've ever seen Arabic writing outside of the news on TV. I thought it was a neat thing to see.

When we pulled into the Embassy we checked into our hotel and quickly realized that our lack of planning might come back to bite us. We had no idea what we were going to do, but it wasn't much of a problem. We kept looking at what was right in front of us. At that time, that was hunger. Patrick had brought up a place called Gino's East that was only a couple of blocks away from the Embassy. He said it was featured on Man vs. Food. Frankly, I'd love to go to any place that they go on that show. I'm all about trying new things these days, and what better way to do it than by following a show on Food Network?

We walked down there and ordered what they actually told us to on Man vs Food, some Super Meat Deep Dish Pizza. They told us that it would take 45 minutes to make the pizza. That shocked me. I'm sure that my mom has cooked cakes in that time. Turkey dinners have been prepared in that kinda time. I think we just completed a drive to Chicago in that time! Well, those last ones might've been lies ... but that's a lot of time for pizza. About 3 times how long it takes for one of the pizzas I cook in my oven. In all fairness though, it's about 3 times as big and infinitely better. Well worth the wait.

While we were waiting, we took in the scenery from our seat. Quite the interesting place. I noticed when we walked in that there was a sign saying you could write on the walls, but NOT on ... and lists a bunch of things to keep pens off of. We looked around and noticed all the different markings people had left. Tags, symbols of love, sports logos, slurs, the place was just loaded. Patrick actually took a photo of one of the better ones. It had a picture of somebody (I forgot who it was), and above it in a quote bubble was "I'm wacked out on Scientology." Awesome. Signature of the Shop right there.

Anyway, time passed by, about half of required to make the trip, and we headed out. Again, we had nothing planned until nightfall, and it was something like 4 or 5 by this time. To burn some time and enjoy ourselves in the process, we then went over to the ESPN Zone in Chicago. I have wanted to go into one of these for a long time. It's basically a sports haven. Televisions everywhere, all tuned into sports. Sure, you may have been in a sports bar that had a lot of TV's, but I'm sure it pails in comparison.

We actually weren't there to watch TV, though, we were there to play games. On the second floor of this Sports Haven, is an arcade akin to Dave & Buster's (a favorite of mine). Sure, it had pretty much sport related machines, but still plenty for me to have a blast with. There was a mini-bowling alley in there, which we played a game or two on. It's pretty fun, even if it's hard to get in a bowling groove with 5 feet to throw from and a ball I can palm. It was an interesting experience though. I pretty much followed Greg's lead as he went to all the big ticket items. There was a hockey thing in there. You get a stick and a bunch of room to run around and shoot pucks no a moving, wooden goalie. I ended up slaughtering his score on there by two-fold. There was also a QB Challenge type thing in there. Two moving wide outs to throw to as (dated) references are spewed out by ESPN personalities. Greg smashed me by more than two-fold here. Just sayin. I'm not good at basketball either. If you were wondering.

After getting our heart rate going, we headed out to burn more time. Again, without anything to do, we ended up wandering a bit. Harley Davidson shop here, Michigan Drive there. With a bit of luck, we ended up finding a big map that had tourist destinations on it. We noticed a bunch of stuff we might have wanted to see were pretty far away from where we were, and some we were willing to drive to were also closed. (Fancy Pat's iPhone told us about those). We noticed the NBC Studios was listed on there and thought it would be cool to get a tour in there. After a quick pit at the hotel to gain coats suitable for the chilly Chicago night, we set off.

When we got a bit past Michigan Avenue, the city did something weird in my eyes. We kept going with the road, but there were a bunch of crossings above us, and as we kept going it seemed like an entire bridge structure was above us. The area we were walking through kept seeming to get seedier as well. Kinda like Midgar in FF7 (Yea, I went there), it was like the Chicago slums down there. Weird that there were two different cities on top of each other. Puts new meaning to the term "Second City" (though I know that's not where it comes from).

After we got to the NBC Studios, we saw that it was closed, but we were only an hour or two from fireworks, so we decided to hand out on the Navy Pier until then. Since the fireworks show was going to be from the pier, it seems like a logical choice. After browsing all the neat stuff down there, we grabbed a bit to eat at the Billy Goat place. It is apparently famous, though for two different reasons. They keep mentioning that it is from SNL with the Cheezeborger Cheezeborger Cheezeborger skit, though I have no idea where that's from. I saw on the walls that it was also home to the Billy Goat that ended up getting tossed out of a game in Wrigley Field (even though he had a ticket). I thought that was awesome. The place that is believed to have cursed the Cubs is still alive and well respected in Chicago. That really puts how messed up Chicago is into perspective.

With our bellies full of Cheezeborgers, we wandered a bit more around Navy Pier. They were having some sort of side show going on. A bunch of people were dressed up like freaks and walking around. Some neat stuff realy. It provided an interesting backdrop for our mini golf game. That, and the wet leaves around the entire course. I hadn't played for a long time, and it was nice to release some competitive juices.

After the game it was only a couple of minutes to the firework show. It was nothing to really write home about. It lasted about 10 minutes and was set to some Halloween music. It did have a clip from Rocky Horror Picture Show in it. So now I have a strong desire to see that movie again. I need to borrow that from Patrick soon before I forget about it. I wanted to watch it before Halloween, but obviously that didn't work out too well.

The trip was fun, although short, and it left me a bit drained. But I've gotten over that in the week after it. It was a great time, and now it will live on in the halls of the interweb ... FOREVER!