Thank You Lake Michigan

work today was stiflingly hot.

so hot it made me love my normally frigidly cold classroom.

so hot you could feel the wall of hot as you exited my room into the non air conditioned hallway

so hot my car claimed it was 88 degrees when I left work.

and then I drove home.

and i watched the temperature drop

every half mile another degree

as i parked on my street the car read 73

and it was a delightful spring day

you had me at free beer.

when my brother started working here I'd lived here a month. and I was good at going to the pizza places that make chicago dining famous. this after all is what people want when they come to visit. when my brother lived here he ate out every night and I tagged along often on Papa Deloitte's dollar. through my brother I found my favorite breakfast place, yolk, where I am more that willing to wakw up at the crack of dawn and pay the chicago parking meters, just so I can enjoy their oversized, underpriced breakfasts, I also discovered my favorite mac and cheese at bijan's bistro.....where your cravings can be cured till 4 am. and I discovered by bimonthly hangout, rock bottom brewery.

we made the unfortunate mistake of stumbling into the RB grille the first time we frequented the establishment. delightful if you are willing to pay a premium for tablecloths and hostess seating. trip number 2 we hit up the cheaper and more delicious uncovered tables, seat yourself side of the joint and I was hooked.

the chicken waldorf salad...perhaps one of my favorite salads EVER.

add to this the addition of mug club membership - FREE card, 20 oz beers instead of pints, and PRIZES after increments of visits. ( my pint glass count it 4)

add to this more with $5 appetizers including FULL pizzas during happy hour and I am there. I am there twice a month (if not more)

the newest addition...FREE beer. - not so good the the RB crowd,,,but new to me and simply delighful - every 3rd Thursday of the month, when they tap their new seasonal brew. 2 hours of FREE beer. FREE GOOD beer. I am 100% there.

I am 100% there AND I blogged about it.

1000 mile project

over the summer my bike project was to post tales of my miles. and then I accidentally reset the trip odometer on my bike. and then I forgot what the number was when I reset the trip odometer. so now I have a new project, and a new goal to motivate me wake up and not hit snooze for those extra 5 minutes of sleep. I call it: "the 1000 mile project"

my goal: to ride 1000 miles before putting my bike away for the year. a goal which actually isnt quite as impressive as it sounds. not even I with my crazy bike commute to work (where I proceed to sneak my bike up the back stairs and stash it away in my prep room because last spring the maintenance man told me I couldn't bring it into school. Take that maintenance man...you can't tell me what to do!) has it in me to bike 1000 more miles before the winter comes. I just want to bike a total of 1000 miles, a total since august 2009.

the current odometer: 684.3. that leaves me with 315.7 miles to go. or 14.35 round trips to school via my new 1 mile longer but 1 million times safer route. translation: at my current two trips a week I'll be biking till mid october.

time perhaps to find those gloves.

or ride more days each week.

L.A.T.E. ride 2010

despite my best efforts I could never find out what the L, A, T, and E stood for in the friends of the park L.A.T.E. Ride, but now after completing it despite my best efforts to enjoy it I'm pretty sure it stands for Lame, Annoying, Thoroughly Elbow-to-Elbow Ride.

we started with the best of intentions....psyched on the el, crowding the car with our bikes and not understanding why people didnt feel compelled to go through the OTHER set of doors when we were clearly in the way.

pictures from this when CLAIRES finally posts her pics.

we navigated through the crowds when we arrived and found an empty-ish spot to decorate our bikes, our helmets, and ourselves for our adventure.

we stood in the massive group of people waiting to start, mentally preparing for the crowd that would be at the beginning of the ride....something like 2000 people starting a ride at one time when there were already 2000 in front of them and another 5000 behind....this was going packed...but we assumed this would spread out eventually....right? (we could only hope)

WRONG.

three miles in and probably a half hour later we were still elbow-to-elbow attempting to ride down the road. by this point we'd probably passed the 10 pile bike pile up with was reportedly bloody. by this point I'd also probably had to tell the people who stopped in the middle of the road waiting for their friends who got stuck at the red light and who hadn't mastered the idea of inertia and how they'd need some time to start their bikes, leaving me to nearly run into them that they need to watch before they pull out in front of people.

12.5 miles in and an hour and 45 min after the start, after watching a cyclist (who was on the wrong side of the road and ran a stop sign) get hit by a car and then proceed to yell at the car driver about how he was riding his bike, we reached the rest stop, where we hoped for our $45 there would be some water and nourishment. WRONG again. there was mint water (GROSS), bananas, and some life savers. the cliff bars were apparently gone...the people in front of us must have taken more than one...WHAT there were 7000 people behind us...DONT RUN OUT OF FOOD. DON'T SERVE ME GROSS WATER WHEN I NEED TO BE HYDRATED.

the last half of the ride was better. along the lake in the dark, where I'd try to pass swerving people hoping I didnt have to swerve myself and end up in the lake. but at least there was the delish all I could eat pancake breakfast waiting for me when I finished and for split seconds I got to just ride.

Delish pancake breakfast I paid $7 extra for...this should be good.

WRONG AGAIN!

pancakes were good...but that was all there was. nothing to drink (REALLY are they TRYING for me to pass out from dehydration????), no fruit, no protein, and then we had to stand in line again to get the with-ride breakfast....they couldnt have brought some of those bags down? At least we're still smilin' because if there's any one we like to have times with (not good times or bad times, just times) it's each other.

we were supposed to stay for the sunrise. it was 4 am. the sun rose at 5:30. our arms hurt (not our legs because we gripped the brakes more than we peddled). our butts hurt (because it took us about an hour longer than any 25 mile ride should take and we weren't prepared). our tummies and heads hurt (because we had no more water after finishing our own). and so we lugged our bikes back to the el.

nick and I did catch the sunrise in evanston.

and we weren't the only ones who bailed on the ride and came up to watch it closer to home.

in summary:

backlog of blogs

it has been a whirlwind last week and a half....lots of things going on, which translates to lots of things to blog about, which translates to not a lot of time to blog, which translates to a backlog of blogs. and so...the last week and a half in pictures (mostly)

first we went camping which gave me a chance to use my headlamp for real, provided opportunities for general store photo opps, included delicious malt-o-meal breakfasts, included a bonfire, a trip to the beach on bike, a trip to wine tasting on bike, lots of watermelon, a return trip to the beach in car, the chance to use the hatchet I always fear falling on my head, and the opportunity to mangle a can with a swiss army knife (apparently it was someone's cruel joke to offer us this when we asked to borrow a can opener), then loaded the bikes back on the bunny, and headed home where we got stuck in pride parade diverted traffic.

. . . . .

Then there was camp invention. where on day two in pattern kingdom the kids played with bubbles because the provided curriculum sucked....who wants to measure lines of masking tape at summer camp?...bubble day was also crazy hat day. on the last day of camp king pattern came to visit the kingdom, and he turned in to king pattern-zilla at the end of the day

. . . . .

and then we went to the taste where we feasted on crazy potato chips (I want to try this with an apple peeler corer slicer) and chicago dogs (fabulously crispy dogs), barbecued turkey legs (delish as always...though if they injected the bbq sauce it would have been even better), crab cake nuggets (yum...crab, though I prefer my crab cakes unbreaded) , cajun meatballs (spicy...but good), sweet potato hashbrowns (would have been better if they were crispy), jerk chicken (translation: mouth on fire chicken) and hibiscus tea sorbet (hands down my favorite thing I ate), and chocolate dipped frozen cheesecake squares (100 % YUM...we even had 2 since the mobs wouldnt let us to our fried dough). the night ended with pictures and head kisses after giving up on ever making it though the mobs on the street, granted, we barely managed to get out minutes before stabbings and riots.

. . . . .

and then there was the 4th of july (preceded of course by my birthday but we can afford another post for that!)....when we spent the day being lumps...then rode bikes to the evanston fireworks

the calm [orange] before [after] the storm

picture from thechicagoist.com

Wednesday night we had a storm. a MASSIVE storm. and we were on the nice calm side of it. it was not nice everywhere.

the tornado sirens went of in the loop for the first time in a LONG time. lightening overwhelmed WGN's weather sensors.

and then the sky got weird. all orange-y. so I took pics. (and am crossing my fingers that these storms stay away this weekend while camping)

flesh fest 2010

known to the rest of the world as ribfest, flesh fest is a weekend dedicated to eating meat, piles and piles of delicious barbequed (and yes barbequed in the real sense of the word) meat.

for three years running we've counted down the days, stretched out stomaches, and mentally prepared for ribs, glorious ribs.

year one was sweltering, then poured, then ended with us stranded on the platform at ravinia for 2 hours thanks to a bonus express train that flew through evanston unstopped.

year two was cold. we bundled up, we ventured out, we ate meat, after a disastrous half slab we took notes on meat so we could be better prepared for year three, we ate more meat and finished our bellies off with a good helping of fried potatoes followed by a plate of fried dough. life was good.

year three started strong. we eliminated the poor contenders from the year before, we walked the street, we were ready. this year our group of three had expanded to eight since ribfest coincided with GRADUATION DAY! (yelled as roary gilmore does in the preview for post grad) and the valley/whalen clan were in town for the festivities, which made the whole ticket purchasing extravaganza more complicated ... but we were ready.

we progressed to our favorites from last year armed with 18 tickets to throw down for a full slab right off the bat. and then we met spare rib. and so we took a pic.

and then we ate some ribs. and a pulled pork sandwich. I should have known then that this year would be different. but it was ok pulled pork is still bbq after all. We devoured the slab, sat for a moment to let meat coma pass, too some more pics, this time with the characters of our new favorite game, and went back for ribs round two.

and THEN, on the mention of waffle fries, a completely acceptable SIDE to ribs, the idea of a fish sandwich was thrown out because that would go good with the fries. WHAT??? this is RIBfest not FISHfest. this was bad. but THEN they came back with piles of vegetables. sacred tickets spent on broccoli. some people just dont understand. clearly I need better screening when choosing companions for my day of MEAT. at least we ended with one final taste of what the day was meant to be.

The company was good, but as a kansas city native I live for this day...which perhaps makes me a little defensive.

SAILBOAT!!!!!

while the rest of chicago was watching the blackhawks finally clinch the stanley cup in game six against the flyers nick and i were admiring the city from the water aboard the tall ship Windy.

yes, I was a new found hockey fan watching my first game (game 5 of the series) and I even went to take a picture of the art institute lions in their blackhawk helmets.

but nothing could keep me away from my sailboat times.

we got there early...aka with an HOUR to spare after being nearly kicked out of dinner because we were just sitting there...so we took some pics.

lots and lots of pics

and then it was BOAT TIME!!! where I took some more pics.

and I got to RAISE A SAIL! why? because when the asked for volunteers my hand shot up and I exclaimed "ohhhh I volunteer" and then nearly got by mutt kicked by a little kid when lifting the 600 foot sail. yes it actually was 2 little kids and the help of the crew memeber...but still. and then I made nick volunteer.

and of course, I took lots of pretty black and white boat photos because those are my favorite.

penthouse and fireworks

went downtown tonight to have one more dinner with tim and papa deloitte and to scope out the penthouse. we settled ourselves into the swanky diggs,

then headed out to rock bottom brewery for some delicious chicken waldorf salad, a couple of beers (extra large thanks to our mug club membership......next visit = free mugs!)

then back to the penthouse for a tour and surprise fireworks! time to test out the new camera's fireworks setting to capture the fireworks in all their brilliant colors. see tim's video here!

all this followed by el times with lots of drunk cubs fans including the people who were "el surfing" aka standing up without holding on and seeing who would fall first....too bad I didnt quite make good enough friends for a picture...and there were no good angles for stalker photos...since we know I dont have to actually be friends to take pics :)

el cat!

yes I know there are only 4 of my many days of london posted...more will come with time...but for now a blury photo from the US.

sure there are dogs in bags on the tube...but here we have kittens in bags on the el.

a little blury....thanks to the CRAZY el driver.

HAPPY ST. PATRICK'S DAY!!!

green rivers

green shakes

green cars

green dogs

and green hats.

"May the road rise up to meet you, may the wind be ever at your back. May the sun shine warm upon your face and the rain fall softly on your fields. And until we meet again, May God hold you in the hollow of his hand."

happy st. patrick's day!