I went and saw my first Digital 3D movie and I have to say that I could not have picked a better movie to do it with. I went and saw Avatar not even knowing what digital 3D was exactly, and I was amazed at what I saw. The movie itself is a fantastic and wonderous journey through an alien world with an amazing story. The 3D effects are not gimmicky, they really seem to be a part of the movie. The whole thing was a treat.
I know that I have not been here to post an update in a little while, so I am going to go ahead and put what is going on at this time. It is not terribly exciting, and while I do think that there are a few more memorable moments coming up before the year ends, the next month at least will probably not be one to remember.
The first thing is that I started my student teaching. I have been there for over a month now. I have a great mentor teacher and the school is pretty cool too. I am glad that I did not end up in some of the schools that I have done my observation in. In about two weeks I will be teaching five classes by myself. I have to draft up the lesson plans, make the copies, assign and grade everything, and generally teach. I am getting tired just thinking about it all. It is fairly hard work when so many other things are going on.
What are those other things? For starters I just got the progress reports (they are calling them interim reports, which I have never heard them referred to that before) and the children are not doing so well. The main problem is that they do not seem to be doing their homework. I know from the classes that I am teaching this is something that drives me nuts. I am faced with students all day who did not turn in their homework and come to me wanting to make it up and I come home to the exact same thing.
I told the kids they need to get on it. From now on I do not think I am going to let the kids make up work. I am getting tired of them slacking off and not doing what they are supposed to and expecting to just make it all up.
Not a generally happy update, and I do not have any pictures that I really care to share right now, but maybe next time I will.
I do not know if it is ever going to get boring or ordinary for me to see a big city skyline during this life, but I asked Will about it, because he has lived in Chicago for a year now, and he said “I’ll never get used to seeing that”. Honestly I do not even know if I will ever live next to a big city. I do not consider the city I live next to big at all. I sort of feel the same way as Will about the whole thing and I wanted my last post about my Chicago trip to be what I saw from my car, some miscellaneous pictures that did not really fit anywhere else and just a little recap of the trip there and the trip back home.
I got really excited about seeing Chicago from my car when we got close. Tom Tom took us through the city to get to where Will is, so I got to take in a lot of sites. I was really excited and giddy and had to start taking pictures of the sites, because there was so much around me. I actually had Jo take the pictures, because I was driving and it was sort of rush hour the entire trip in. I think it took us almost an hour to drive the last 20 miles.
I saw huge buildings, I saw beaches with palm trees, which I am still not entirely sure why they have palm trees on the beaches in Chicago, but anyway, I saw trails especially set up for bikes and running. Here they have miles and miles of nothing and they can not manage to have more than one crappy bike trail that goes past a sewage plant, and in Chicago they have miles of trails that go around the city and past beautiful sites like the beach and the docks. I am a little bitter about having to come back home after seeing all that Chicago has to offer. It makes me wonder where else I could live and what they would have waiting for me there.
There is something so marvelous about being in the shadow of all these enormous structures of steel and cement. Something so awesome about what man is able to create. Looking back at a lot of the pictures now it seems hard to believe that it is Chicago, because all you see is water and trees. It really is that marvelous to behold in some spots. I have become a bit infatuated with Chicago.
I took some pictures of Will’s dog Scooter, because he has a dog now. The dog is a mix between something and something else. I wish I could remember, but I have never really owned a dog and so I know that people who do know what “type” of dog they have, but I honestly can not keep it straight. It is an awesome dog though, so it was definitely worth taking a picture of.
This is the hat that I bought myself as a souvenir. I feel like it is a really awesome hat. I really like the Cubs logo. I might even be a Cubs fan now. I certainly have not routed for the Indians in forever. I bought Patty a blue shirt that says “I Love Chicago” and Eddy a Cubs shirt. I did not want to get them shirts from any specific attraction that I went to, because that is something they will have to do sometime. I bought my Grandma a bag of saltwater taffy from Navy Pier. I personally cannot eat the stuff, but she loves it.
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I know that this topic is going to be awful mundane for a great many people, but I have personally never really taken public transportation. I know that many people have, and many people live in big cities, or have visited big cities, so for them this is almost ridiculous and sort of funny that I find this topic so interesting that I would actually take the time to discuss it.
I spent time on both trains, which you do not refer to as a subway in Chicago, and a few buses. It’s the train, and they also call it the “L”, because it is an “elevated” train. One of the things that I learned was that you can use the ticket you purchase for the trains on the buses. Jo and Will were actually shocked that I was not aware of this fact. I tend to find that people assume too much. Honestly, I paraphrased the line from a Family Guy episode when they looked at me shocked that I wasn’t aware, I said “we traded in our plane tickets for train tickets”.
I did not take any pictures while I was on the bus but I did manage to take some pictures on the train, even though I was asked not to by an employee of the CTA. I did anyway, because I like taking pictures. Will gave me a lecture about how I should do what they say, and how there are armed security who will be called on me, and how I will be in jail. I am aware that the whole security for public transportation has been ramped up because of terrorists or something, but I do not really care. I was on vacation and I wanted pictures of something that I found absolutely intriguing.
I took a picture of Jason and Will. I took a picture of Jo. I took a picture of Grand Station, because this is one of the stations that is actually sort of finished. Most of the stations have plywood and a really unfinished look about them. It is as though all the stations are a work in progress. I imagine that is something that they would take care of quite quickly if they were nominated to be the home to the Olympics.
The train was our main mode of transportation for the four days we were there. We mainly took the Red line everywhere, but I also think we took the Brown and Pink line. The Red line is basically the best way to get every where from where Will and Jason live and get into downtown. There are many other lines that we had no reason for getting on, because they would not have taken us anywhere we wanted to go.
I can tell you that trains are probably the best way to travel, because you do not have to do anything. They are also loud, boring, and I know now why many people had books and other things to distract themselves. If I were actually taking this form of transportation to work or classes at a University it would be great, because I would have this time to sort of decompress from my day and get some personal things done. I remember when I went to Kent State University and I had to take the bus around it was great, and this experience was sort of like that.
I really enjoyed my time with the public transportation system. We bought three day passes, which Jo promptly lost on the 2nd day. I guess he had the ticket tucked into his holder for his cellphone and he was using his cellphone. I originally put the ticket in my wallet, and put my wallet in my bag, but that was entirely way to slow when we needed to put our ticket into the machine and go through the turnstile. I ended up putting it in my pocket and I am glad that I did not lose it, because I do have a habit of losing things. I guess if I actually lived there I would get a more permanent plastic card.
One thing that Jo lucked out on was that our tickets stopped working on that 2nd day. No reason, they just came back “invalid” on buses and gave errors at the turnstiles to the train. I still got to ride, because the date that the ticket is good through is printed on the back, but I had to get an employee to let me through sometimes for that last day. Jo had to pay more to buy another ticket, but he did not have to deal with that inconvinience the last day. I was told that there is typically a problem with the tickets on the buses and the trains occasionally. Not the normal tickets that people who live there buy, but the 1 and 3 day pass tickets.
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Jo and I decided that our next destination would be Navy Pier. As you can imagine it is a pier, so it is by the water. We needed to get from Millennium Park to the water front, but honestly while Jason had mentioned the buses that we should take, I unfortunately did not remember what he said correctly and we ended up looking at a map of bus routes. Looking at the map did not really give us that much information, but we did something that worked out wonderfully. We just got on a bus and took it north.
We knew where Navy Pier was, we just did not know exactly how to go to it. So we started by going north. The next step was finding a way down, because when you get far enough north you still need to go west and the problem is that Navy Pier is only accessible by buses that run streets that are lower than where we were. I am not sure if we really had to walk down the steps to get to these buses, and I am pretty sure we could have found a bus that ran down there, but we did it anyway.
As you might imagine there is not a great deal to do on a pier. Matter of fact we did less than I guess what most people would do on this particular pier. We did not take a boat ride/tour of the city, we did not get on the ferris wheel or any other ride, and we did not watch the magic show that was going on when we got there.
What we actually did was eat Italian ice, walked down to the end of the pier to get a better picture of the lighthouse at the end, and turn around and take a picture of Chicago from the end. This was our last destination for the evening and I have to say that it was a good thing. We were sort of exhausted, sweaty, and we had promised Jason and Will that we would buy them dinner that night so we really had another engagement to get to before the day was over.
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The first thing that Jo and I did after we had finished doing the Sears Tower thing was head to Millennium Park, which was about six blocks away. I guess each block is about 1/8th of a mile or something, so when we went to calculate our total walking for the whole day we came up with a pretty substantial number. The reason we even bothered was that with all that walking came a great deal of dehydration and fatigue. I believe Jo even got sick at one point because of all the walking and he was drinking a lot of water, but that does not really put everything back into your body.
The other thing that made this day a bit of a hassle getting around on foot was that it was quite hot and humid. Will said that this was the warmest he thinks it has been all summer, and he said that for the most part it has been in the 70’s. We got no such luck with high 80’s and 90 degree weather for the most part. Dark clouds rolled in and threatened rain, but we only got that rain right when we were leaving. I can not even tell you how much we sweat during the trip, but I know that there were two days I had to change shirts in the middle of the day.
We would have gone to see the “Married with Children fountain” in Grant Park, but Lollapalooza was in Chicago this weekend, so the entire park was fenced off. Come to think of it the city was generally more busy than it really would have been due to that event as well. I am sure that if we go again it will be a bit less crowded.
We went down to Millennium Park with a few sites already in mind. Jason already told us the main attractions of the park and so we knew what we were looking for. We started at this map for the entire park so that we could get our bearings and figure out what the closest site was that we were going to see. That is one of the cool things about going site seeing with Jo he really does not want to miss a single site. We ended up coming back to the maps after we had walked all around the park just to make sure we had not missed anything.
I am already going to go ahead and say that the coolest thing in the whole park to see is Cloud Gate, which is not what people actually call it. If you look at it you will realize why this huge reflective attraction is usually referred to as “the bean”. I am sure on nicer days, which is to say days with less overcast it is even more wonderful to see it. Maybe after they wipe it down as well, as people have a habit of putting their hands all over it. I can understand wanting to touch it, but the base was literally covered in hand prints. You can see so much of the sky and the Chicago skyline that I really couldn’t take my eyes off it.
There is a pavilion in the park, but that is for shows and we were not there on a day they had a performance. I saw brides and grooms in the park. I do not know where they were headed exactly, but I imagine they were either getting married in the park, or they had already gotten married and were downtown for pictures. Either way I do not know exactly what the plan was there.
I really could not find the energy to mingle with the kids and other people that were standing underneath Crown Fountain even though I really could have used the cool down. If you can not tell from the pictures the fountain is actually two large pillars of glass bricks and LED’s to display faces. The faces blink, and smile, and then eventually they close their eyes and open their mouth and water comes out. We did not hang out long enough to find out how long it takes between faces, but the face does change. When the faces are changing the water pours down from the top of the tower and soaks everyone on all four sides.
There were some other things to see in the park, but really it is all a bunch of stuff I did not understand. There were some things that were supposed to be art I suppose, and there was this sort of tunnel created where when you walked through you heard people talking about something through speakers, but I did not really care to hang out long enough to see what that was about either. Much like the Sears Tower I guess the final verdict is that if I were downtown already and had someone along with me that had never been there I would most certainly take them, but I personally do not have any real motivation to go back.
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The next thing I wanted to talk about is the Sears Tower. Yes, I am aware that it is actually called Willis Tower, but I will not be using that name. I do not believe many people will be using that name. I do not know if that name is ever going to catch on, but I feel like it is a shame that the city of Chicago could not have passed some sort of legislation to force the name to stay the same. It is obviously an American icon. Jo and I decided to walk down from the Jackson stop off the red line to visit the tower on Saturday, because that was our free day to roam around the city and do all the tourist stuff that people typically do when they visit Chicago.
The Sears tower is huge. You have to start by waiting in line just to get in line to go down an elevator to, you guessed it, wait in another line. I can not emphasize enough that if you plan on visiting the tower it might not be a good idea to do so on a weekend when obviously there are more people visiting the city.
I do not know if we really saved a whole lot of time, but they informed us that the wait was going to be over an hour and a half, unless we bought the special tickets that allow you to skip the lines and go to the top. We opted for these special tickets, because although they are double the price we had many more plans for that day that did not involve waiting in that line.
I always pictured that when you got to go to the top of the Sears Tower you were literally going to be on the top. I was slightly disappointed to find out this is not the case. You are actually on the 103rd floor, which is fully enclosed and there is a ceiling and everything. I do not know if people used to be allowed, or possible they still have some sort of tour that goes higher than where we were, but that is where we ended up. The whole “throwing pennies off the building thing” seems right now to be more of an urban legend or something from American history.
Once you are on that floor you can look out the windows and take in all the surrounding sights of Chicago. It is very interesting. You can put coins in those machine that allow you to look out through a telescope basically, but I did not really feel like doing that. I just wanted to take a bunch of pictures and look at everything around me.
There is a gift shop at the top, but I did not get anything. Instead I just focused on taking pictures and standing in one of the glass floors they have that hang over the side of the building so that you can look straight down. They have three of these enclosures and some people take pictures from one where they can see the people in the next one over, because they want the picture to look like they are “falling”, since they are sort of “outside the building”. I have to warn you though that if like me you start to feel a bit sick it is because, as I was informed, the building sways in the wind so many inches in either direction, and that is what will make you feel a little queezy. This is of course nothing to say of looking straight down at the street from so high up.
Was it worth it? Would I do it again? Yes, it was one of those experiences that you have to do at least once. I will probably never have a feeling that I have to do it again though. I think that this is one of those things you only have to do once in a lifetime. It is sort of a shame that some people went before they installed those glass boxes, because they almost want to go again just to check that part out, and honestly I feel bad for them. Either you pay that fee for the express ticket or you wait in that horrendous line. I suppose if you can make it out on a weekday you might find the whole experience a little more enjoyable. I know that is the general rule with amusement parks as well – go on a Wednesday.
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I will probably be doing about six posts about Chicago, because honestly there are many pictures and a whole lot of words that I want to share about my trip. I have sort of come up with some catagories and the thing that I wanted to start with is the food in Chicago, because that is supposedly one of those famous things that you have to do when you go to Chicago. What it comes down to is three things. You have to try the Chicago deep dish pizza, which I am sure a great many people have heard about. I certainly was aware of that before I left. The other two I was less familiar with. There is a Chicago hotdog and an Italian beef sandwich.
This pizza is probably some of the best stuff I have ever eaten. It is just so good. We got this with sausage and pepperoni. As you can see there is an ungodly amount of cheese in there and it is topped with marinara sauce. You can not pick this thing up and eat it like normal pizza you have to eat it with a fork and a knife.
Next on my list is the Chicago hotdog. There are many places that serve this thing, but Jo and I were downtown, so I figured that was as good a time as any to find a place to get one. Seemed like good food while we were walking around. I actually ended up asking a man that was standing on the corner selling or giving away something for direction to find a place that served the item and was given very good directions.
For better or for worse we ended up having two of the dogs and they were fantastic. As you can see they come with some sort of hot peppers, tomato, mustard, onion, on a poppy seed bun. The whole package is complete with the addition of a beef hotdog that they cut in this peculiar way. I did not bother asking if there was an actual reason for that cut or if it was strictly for the sake of presentation.
I do not have a picture of the Italian beef sandwich, but to paraphrase the great late comedian Mitch Hedburg it was “like a cow between two crackers”. They piled so much beef on to this sandwich that I was quite content for the rest of that evening. Instead I have a picture of something else that while you can find anywhere Chicago is apparently one of, if not the largest, consumers of Mexican Coke. It is a very sweet drink with no high fructose corn sururp. Instead, they have sugar, and lots of it. We had to take the train downtown and then the pink line up to a special part of town to procure this beverage.
I do not even like Coke and I would probably drink this stuff. If you have never had it I can describe it as being so sweet that it actually reminded me of Pepsi. The glass bottle that you see in the picture has a date on it and that is when the bottle was actually made. I guess from what I was told the bottles are reused and there is tale of bottles from the 1980’s being discovered. It is something neat to get while you are there for sure. The grocery store we purchased them at was selling them for 99 cents each so it was hardly a huge cost.
I think the whole video game thing is getting a bit out of hand. I know I should probably stop buying them, but I have been playing games every day in the absence of having class or anything else to do. I should be focusing on calling the University of Akron to see if it is weird that I have no received a reply back from the teacher that I am supposed to be student teaching with in less than a month. I should also be cancelling XM radio (it is Sirius now or something right?), since I do not feel like paying for the three stations I actually enjoy. I should also give these people a call about a refinance, since the person I was dealing with stopped returning calls last month. Many of these things are the reason I am playing so many games.
I was posting pretty regularly about how I was riding my bike to class as well as other places and sharing the trip data here. The problem is that every time I want to do that I have to go to two different sites, upload the data, and that way I would have all my information on the sites that I want to have it on. I know I explained all of this in an earlier post. Since Garmin has not actually taken the steps to make those trips exportable to WordPress, or any other format that I would be able to post here, I have not really felt as though it was worth the effort to keep doing that.
I did continue to ride my bike for the duration of summer classes. I decided to go around Akron and take some pictures of the sites that I have seen. The kids came along as well. I do not have class for several more weeks and I wanted to take a picture of some of these places before I forgot. Summer classes being over and is a huge relief and it is time to maybe laugh at some of the things I have seen. On a side note I had originally promised myself that I would continue to at least go to the yoga class at the recreation center, but I have failed miserably at getting motivated to attend that class twice a week.
This business is actually still in operation. Maybe that is not a good reason to take a picture of it, but I thought it was just really interesting. This business almost embodies how I feel about Akron. I have passed it several times and have personally witnessed employees doing… something. I do not know what this business does and the name of the business is something of a puzzle.
This is the stadium that while I will probably never actually attend a game in this stadium for the 2009 football season I am sure that it will make finding parking a living nightmare. The University of Akron intends on adding more parking and they have certainly started construction that would achieve that goal, but I doubt that I will personally benefit from any of it.
I probably should not have even taken a picture of this one. This is right off a main street near downtown and you can clearly see that someone wrote an explicative on the billboard. Yes, that is an arrow going to the corner of Hannity’s mouth. No, I do not know why they did this, and honestly I want to know how they got up there. The funny part is it was probably the work of drunk college kids. I should just be glad nobody died climbing up there for such a dumb joke.
I really saved the best picture for last. This picture really needs no explanation, because while the joke might be sort of dumb it is completely worth it.