Category Archives: travel

It’s Been a Quiet Week In, um, Hainesville…

I know I’ve been quiet here this week, but I have excuses! You see, much of our week has been consumed with preparations for Anthrocon; even when we weren’t actively working on convention planning, we were thinking about it and that kind of wears on you. Add to that the fact that I’m fighting off a mild summer cold. Yuck.

In general update terms, though, things have been going well. If I didn’t mention it earlier, I haven’t been hired on full-time at my employer yet since they were still working out which positions were open and which they were going to fill with whom. I have been assured, multiple times, that it is a matter of “when” and not “if” I get hired, though. My contract was extended to the end of July, and that’s OK by me. While that means my three days off for Anthrocon will be unpaid, the good news is that I still come out ahead in net salary. I had a good talk with my boss this week and he is satisfied with my performance and seems willing to put a bit more on my plate, which makes me happy.

Work for takaza continues to be stressful; I worry about him and I know that all of this stress takes its toll on his health. Things got a little more difficult this week (I won’t go into it here, but my heart does go out to those involved), but he’s been assured that it won’t affect his vacation time. He is justifiably skeptical and unfortunately probably will have to log in from Pittsburgh to do some work for some part of the time that we’re there.

We did find time to relax a bit last night. We had a pleasant dinner with roho and genet at a frozen custard place in Antioch (good sandwiches, not so good frozen custard), then we caught the late showing of Ratatouille at the Antioch Theater. GO SEE THIS MOVIE! It was so much fun! Great character design, a nifty score, and a really great expression of the love of food and cooking. I adored it, and wouldn’t mind seeing it again. As an aside, I also love the Antioch Theater – $4 admission, popcorn for a couple of bucks (and free refills on popcorn and sodas, provided by roving ushers), a trivia quiz by a real live employee before the show. When we went to see Waitress a few weeks ago we went to the Regal theater in Round Lake; tickets, plus popcorn and soda came to over $30 (and that’s at matinee prices!). That’s just plain offensive.

Ahem. Movie theater ranting aside, it looks like the next few days are going to be pretty nuts for us. I can’t even guarantee that I’ll be posting between now and Anthrocon, so here’s a quick rundown:

Today, once datahawk gets up here, we’ll all head down to Arlington Heights to meet justincheetah at the MFF storage locker to get a power distribution panel for him (I hope it’s not buried too far under everything!). Then it’s over to linnaeus‘s place in the city to drop off some stuff that he is kindly carrying to Anthrocon for us. After that, it’s down to Merrillville, Indiana where we have tickets to see “Weird Al” Yankovic in concert!

Tomorrow will be con packing and (more) planning, and staging everything as best we can. Oh, and relaxing somewhat, since that’ll be our last chance before the con. Monday will be work as usual.

Tuesday, we fly out from O’Hare at 7:05 PM, arriving in Pittsburgh at 9:32 PM (supposedly). Give that it’s an evening flight in the summer out of O’Hare, I figure if we get to PIT before 11:30 PM we’ll be doing good. We’ll spend the night at the La Quinta Pittsburgh Airport, then on Wednesday morning catch the 28X bus downtown to the Westin Pittsburgh Convention Center. We hope to be at the Westin by 11 AM or 12 noon.

And after that? Madness and chaos. With any luck I’ll be able to document some of that…at some point.

Go Go Gadget Airfares!

Woo! We just bought plane tickets to Anthrocon! Depart from O’Hare on Tuesday night at 7:05 PM, return from Pittsburgh at 2:35 PM on Monday afternoon. The total cost? $93 each, including taxes and fees. Sweet! We need to figure out the logistics of getting to and from the airport, but for that price it was worth it to lock in the tickets now.

Other than that, it’s a last-minute push to finish off the cleaning today, then there’s the party tomorrow. Happy fun time!

Midweek Already? I’m Not Ready!

It’s been a bit crazy this week as takaza and I make preparations for the weekend. Mainly just getting things cleaned up, etc. but also running errands. yesterday I stopped by our favorite local butcher to order some meat to smoke this weekend. We’re going to have rather a lot of meat, since I wound up ordering two pork butts (yes, that’s a pork shoulder, and no I don’t understand the vagaries of butcher-ese) plus a beef brisket. Each butt is going to be 7-9 pounds and the brisket will be 8-10 pounds (with fat attached; probably more like 6-8 pounds of meat once cooked). If we see the 50% yield on the pork that I did the first time I smoked (this will be better quality, so I expect more like 75% yield) we’re looking at putting between 13 to 17 pounds of cooked meat on the table. Hope everyone is hungry! 🙂

The other big news on my mind is Anthrocon. Besides some slight changes to my staff (and welcome to woodychitwn as my second-in-command in Artists Alley/Con Store), I was taking a hard look at our travel plans. We typically leave the Tuesday evening before the convention, spend the night somewhere in Ohio, the roll into the con at around noon on Wednesday. First off, leaving Tuesday night after work means trying to leave town on the evening of July 3. I expect it’ll take at least double the usual time if not more just to clear Chicago and surrounds. Which leaves us driving way too far too late at night, or having to drive further than we’d like on Wednesday morning. Plus, there’s the expense of the gas (assuming $4-ish per gallon), the hotel Tuesday night, the tolls, the food along the way, and the parking at the Westin.

Then, the thought occurred to me: just how much is airfare? If we fly out from O’Hare Tuesday night after work, we can stay at the La Quinta near Pittsburgh International very cheaply due to Dan’s points there, then catch the express bus downtown Wednesday morning. Monday morning, it’s as simple as catching the bus back to the airport. And after totaling all this up, it’s actually cheaper to fly than to drive. Couple that with the kind offer from linnaeus to carry a few other items in his car for us (i.e. booze) and flying suddenly becomes a very attractive possibility. Dan and I will talk this over tonight and probably have a decision in the next day or two.

So, to do tonight: install the new shower head (which, according to Amazon, is currently sitting on our front porch), clean both showers (we have a stall and a tub/shower in the master bath), then start in on dinner. Busy busy busy!

A Trip To The Mitten

Y’know, before this weekend, my sole experience of visiting Michigan was back around 2002 or so, going north about a mile on I-69 from the Indiana Toll Road, turning around, and continuing my trip on the Indiana Toll Road. Hey, at least I could say I’d been to Michigan, and therefore every state east of the Mississippi.

This weekend I got to see a bit more of Michigan than that. I left work at 11 AM on Friday and picked up takaza from his employer an hour after that. After carefully checking the traffic reports, we were able to slip through downtown Chicago and out the Chicago Skyway with minimal delays. The trip across Michigan on I-94 was uneventful; I wound up doing most of the driving, since Dan was sleepy. We arrived at the Best Western Executive Plaza in Ann Arbor at close to 6 PM EDT.

We were there for the Dorsai Thing, an annual private relaxacon that the Dorsai hold annually. It was a bit awkward, since we didn’t really know many people there, though giza and petercat from Anthrocon were in attendance, and indeed we spent a good bit of time hanging around and chatting with them. Although they had several tasty dishes available in the con suite, Dan and I opted to go out and grab dinner at Zingerman’s Deli, part of the Zingerman’s conglomerate in Ann Arbor. I had done a bit of googling before we left, and the deli was described as the one place in Ann Arbor (or “A2”, as the local hipsters refer to it) that should not be missed. I have to say, I was extremely impressed with the place. They are clearly set up that funnel massive amounts of people through their store quickly and efficiently, though fortunately there weren’t that many people there that night (I think it was Spring Break at the University of Michigan, so that helped). Dan had a turkey sandwich which he found close to transcendent, and my beef brisket sandwich was pretty darned tasty (great BBQ sauce, but it needed more smokiness in the meat). We drove around downtown Ann Arbor a bit and it struck me as a rather pleasant college town, albeit one that supports a freakin’ huge college. After dinner we went back to the hotel and I crashed early, while Dan stayed up too late making a video blog.

Saturday was pretty laid back. I stepped out from the hotel early to hunt down a tasty cappuccino and had a chance to read the local paper; this only reinforced my opinion that Ann Arbor is definitely a small town in big-city clothing. That has a certain quaintness to it, though. that afternoon there were a few pseudo-panels (more like discussions) on how to be a duty officer (i.e. how to head up and deploy the Dorsai contingent at a convention) and how to negotiate contracts with conventions. These were quite interesting from an outsider’s point of view, and it’s worthy of note that the Dorsai think that Anthrocon is a whole lot of fun, and have nothing but nice things to say about the convention. From the discussions, it sounds like they’ll be working at another furry convention this year, too (not MFF). Following the panels, there was The Spanish Inquisition. This was an entertaining contest where each team had to take ten minutes and do…something. The judge (Sergeant Steve, scs_11) would only tell them if they were doing something wrong, or not wrong. Oh, and the judge could lie at any time. Between your team’s activities and observations made of the other team’s activities, the goal was to deduce what the rules were. It was very silly, and people had a lot of fun with it. We worked with Giza and Peter and we were, of course, “Team Furry”. Of the four teams, we somehow won, for which we got a nifty action figure!

After that, we gave Peter and Giza a lift to the local Kroger where we purchased supplies for the Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster contest. The goal was to create a drink that best embodied the description of a drink that was “like being hit over the head by a gold brick wrapped in a slice of lemon.” Peter and Dan’s entries were quite tasty, though Giza’s was…well, I’ll have to track down some pictures of the reception that Giza’s drink received. I think the best comment his drink received was, “A bit harsh for marinating pork or chicken, but maybe not bad with beef.” Dan won a nice set of martini glasses for his drink!

Sunday morning we stopped by the breakfast buffet briefly, but decided to go ahead and hit the road to beat the weekend traffic back through Chicago. Sorry to everyone we didn’t get a chance to say goodbye to! The drive was uneventful, but difficult due to nasty crosswinds most of the trip. We arrived home and pretty much collapsed on the sofa, enjoying the two hours of The Amazing Race that aired last night. Then it was off to bed.

Many thanks to Steve and all of the other good Dorsai Irregulars we met this weekend! We had a lot of fun and I definitely look forward to seeing many familiar faces when Anthrocon rolls around.

Long Days, Video Games, and Peanuts on the Floor

It’s Thursday, and as this day begins…

Oh wait, it began a while ago, didn’t it? Anyway. It hasn’t been a very exciting week, but things are picking up. I’ve been coming in an hour early each day (7 AM – 4:30 PM) so that I can leave at 11 AM on Friday. Why? More on that below.

Earlier in the week I finally finished Okami. How sad is it that I fired it up again for a bit yesterday just to see what happens when you start it again (oooh, you have lots of cash and stuff, that’s what!). I don’t foresee playing the whole game through again, but it’s remarkable that the playability holds up even after finishing it. And even though it’s the most expensive game we’ve ever bought, at 40+ hours of gameplay, it was very much worth it!

Yesterday when takaza got home I started to make dinner – farfalle in a tomato-sausage sauce. Except when I unwrapped the Italian sausage from the fridge something wasn’t…quite…right. Rather than speculate on just how spoiled the sausage might be (hey everyone it’s food poisoning roulette!) we elected to seek dinner out. We wound up trying Pat’s Pizza on 83 in Grayslake. Wow, what a throwback that place is. Peanut shells on the floor, tables decorated with pages from the 1967 Grayslake High School yearbook…yeah. As much as I wanted to like the place, though, the pizza was unremarkable, as was the garlic bread. It might be a fun place to go with friends, though, just not on a weekend night – that place gets seriously crowded then!

After dinner we made a short drive up to Antioch to visit our favorite booze supplier, Antioch Liquors (nee Armanetti’s, and now apparently part of the Cardinal Liquors chain, though they haven’t changed their sign in over a year). We got a six pack of the Winter’s Bourbon Cask Ale that I had at the bowling alley a few weeks ago; as I feared (and the stupidly low price was the tipoff) it’s an Anheuser-Busch product. The stuff from the tap was reasonably good, though, and at three bucks for the six pack, if it’s nasty at least I didn’t gamble much. We also got a bottle of Van Gogh Dutch Chocolate Vodka (giza is so doomed!) and a bottle of Aberlour a’bunadh (I’m so doomed!). I toyed with getting a bottle of the extremely tasty Stolichnya Elite, but we were already damaging our wallets enough, so we stopped there. From there it was back home for a boringly early bedtime.

Today has been somewhat busy but I’m really looking forward to tomorrow. After I leave work at 11, I’ll be picking up Dan at work then we’ll be hitting the road for Ann Arbor, Michigan and the Dorsai Thing, a nice little relaxacon. I have no idea what to expect, but I’m sure it’s going to be entertaining one way or another. I’m really looking forward to this because it’s been a while since we did any kind of a road trip (since last July, I think?) and I’ve been antsy to get out on the road again, even if it’s just a short jaunt over to Michigan. For those going to Congenial this weekend, I’m bummed that we won’t be able to make it and I hope that you all have a blast!

Now That Is How You Celebrate A Holiday!

Wow. It’s been a while since I updated here, hasn’t it?

As I mentioned last week, we didn’t attend MFM, though from what I hear a good time was had by all. Instead, we had a nice, lazy weekend around the house. I found a new addiction (Jak 3) with which I wasted numerous hours, which was pleasant. On Saturday night we met up with lisagems for some tasty gelato (not as good as Silvia’s, though) and then walked down and hung out with siriuswolfstar for a while at his place of employment. Sunday morning we met up with Lisa, Sirius, and simbalion for a delicious brunch at Tre Kronor. When we got home we collapsed into a food coma, and enjoyed a lazy day around the house, watching TV and playing Jak 3. Monday was rainy and gray outside, so we made the most of it by taking care of some cleaning around the apartment. And that was about it – our Labor Day weekend! Not exciting or anything, but actually quite enjoyable.

Yesterday was an all-day job interview for the company I’m currently contracting with. I won’t say much about it except that I think it went well, but it will be a good month before I hear anything one way or the other. In the meantime, life goes on.

And here we are at today. I’m back at work, for now anyway. In a few hours I’ll be heading out for lunch with the rest of my department to mark a cow-orker’s 30th anniversary with the company, but it looks like I’ll be bowing out from the ensuing golf outing so I can head down and pick up takaza after work. Why pick him up, you ask? (Well, you didn’t really, but pretend you did.) The street where we live is currently under construction, and from what we’ve seen they tend to put up signs about how you must move your car or be towed about 24 hours in advance. I think it would be safer to leave his car at his employer’s while we’re in Maine.

Maine, did I say? Why, yes I did! Tomorrow morning, we wake up at 4:30 AM (ugh) and drive to O’Hare International Airport. Following our cavity search and removal of all relevant and irrelevant privacy rights, we will be boarding a United 737 for glorious Manchester, New Hampshire (along with feren and Lori, roho’s cousin). We’ll pick up a rental car there (AAA discounts are da bomb!) and drive two hours to Portland, Maine, where Roho’s parents live. We’ll be spending the next five days out there, attending (and helping with), Roho and genet’s wedding, plus seeing some of the sights and generally having a good time. We’ll be sharing a vacation cottage with linnaeus, chebuytkin, Feren, lady_curmudgeon, and datahawk. It’s gonna be a blast! According to the listing, the cottage has wifi and broadband Internet, so with luck I may even post the periodic update (probably at the wee hours of the day, when I’m awake and the rest of those slugabeds are still asleep! 🙂

So: some last-minute laundry tonight, then packing, and oh, we have an online MFF board meeting somewhere in there too. Ideally, an early bedtime, too, though I somehow doubt the likelihood of that.

For now, though, time to get some work done!

Now That Was A Weekend To Remember!

First off: Happy birthday, linnaeus!

So, when last we left our heroes, they were about to venture forth on a romantic weekend getaway. Takaza made all of the plans in secret, and I had no idea where we were going or what we were doing. I picked him up from work at 4:00 PM on Friday and I was instructed to drive…north.

Where did we go? Click here to find out!

Feeling All Accomplished-Like

Reservations have been made and tickets have been purchased, yay!

takaza and I will be flying out to Maine for the wedding of roho and genet in September. We’re flying into Manchester, NH, at 10:44 AM on 9/7/06, and departing Manchester at 5:22 PM on 9/12/06 (yay for Kayak for finding the cheapest airfares!). Also, by renting a car through AAA‘s website (and of course by having a AAA membership), we’re getting a full-size car for less than the price of a compact, going through Hertz instead of somebody crappy like Thrifty. This is going to be a wonderful trip – I haven’t been back to Maine in close to 25 years, and I really love that part of the country. I’m hoping that we’ll be able to make a day-trip up to Acadia National Park, and it sounds like there’s some seagoing boating in the offing as well. Oh, and lobster. Lots of lobster. Mmmmm….

Oh yeah, if anyone missed it, we’re hosting a coffee get-together tonight in Chicago!
What: Coffee (And Ice Cream) Night!
When: 7:30 PM – 10:00 PM, Wednesday, July 26 (this coming Wednesday)
Where: Bobtail Soda Fountain, 3425 N. Southport, Chicago, IL
That’s a half-block north of the Brown Line Southport station, and the El is by far the easiest way to get there. Street parking is available, though you may have to hunt a bit. Bobtail has very tasty (Intelligentsia) coffee, and excellent ice cream as well. They don’t serve much in the way of non-dessert food, but there is a Potbelly Sandwich Works right across the street. takaza and I will probably hit Potbelly at around 7 PM for a quick dinner if anyone wants to join us there. If you’d like us to save you a seat, just let me know, here or by e-mail!

Finally, I’m looking forward to Friday. I’m pocking up Dan at work at 4 PM and we’re going…somewhere. I’m not sure where, and he’s not telling me, but I know that we’re going to be spending a lovely weekend away, just the two of us. The last time we did something like this it was wonderful, and I can’t wait to see what he’s come up with this time!

What We Did On Our Weekend Vacation

As promised, takaza and I retreated to the Hoffman Estates La Quinta on Friday after work for a weekend of relaxation and planning. Once we had a chance to decompress a bit we took to the car and went in search of dinner. Our wanderings took us to Woodfield Mall, and while we briefly considered trying out the new meat faucet there, we instead opted to cheap it out and resorted to the food court instead. After that it was back to the hotel to relax and sleep, eventually.

We were up relatively early on Saturday. The plan was to research the FRAC route, though we were racing the weather to do it since the forecast predicted incoming steady rain starting that afternoon. We had a couple of funny things happen that I can’t really talk about since people who will be participating in FRAC will be reading this 🙂 Maybe later. Anyway, the rain started to pick up at about 2 PM so we called off the scouting (we got about 75% of the work done, I’d say) and instead went in search of what is alleged to be the best hot chocolate in Chicago. We tried it, and we’d have to agree – extremely tasty!

Since the rest of the day was shot for FRAC research, we gave siriuswolfstar to see what he and simbalion were up to. It turns out they were just a few blocks north of us, so we met up at North Bridge Mall and amused ourselves with a bit of window shopping (and taking some amusing pictures in the process). We wound up grabbing a table and just chatting for a good hour or more, which was a nice break after all the walking we had done all day. After we parted ways, we headed back to the hotel. We weren’t feeling hungry until late, plus we were too lazy to actually drive anywhere, so we ordered pizza and pasta for a local joint. We have a winner for Wuffmeet, I think. The tortellini alfredo that I had was enough for three people, and I think it would nicely supplement any pizza we order.

On Sunday I snuck out early in the driving rain and spent some time at a nearby Panera having breakfast and reading the paper. Around 11:30 I went back to the hotel to find that Dan had just woken up. We got packed up and checked out and talked to the front desk folks to make sure that everything was in order for Wuffmeet. We then went made a Sam’s Club run to check prices for Wuffmeet budgeting, then a stop at American Science and Surplus to see if there were any useful knickknacks that might come in handy at our upcoming conventions. The rest of the evening was spent relaxing at home and catching up on Tivo.

Not too exciting for a weekend away from home, but that’s just fine by me!

Stay Home? Not Gonna Happen

Gosh, this seemed like it was going to be a nice calm week when I made my last post. Yeah, right…

Takaza got the word on Tuesday that he was going to be going down to his employer’s St. Louis, Missouri, branch to help out with some training there. Once they got the scheduling worked out, I went to work to figure out how I could get down there economically and we could hang out for the weekend. Flights were out at this late date – the cheapest I could find was over $100. Amtrak, though…they even had a schedule that worked for me. A nice bonus was that I found a great website that posts discount codes for Amtrak (typically these are the ones that are mailed out to their Guest Rewards program); that netted me a quick 25% off.

So, for $60 I’ve got a business-class seat on the Route 305 – State House train from Chicago-Union Station to St. Louis, departing at 5:15 PM on Friday and getting in (theoretically) at 10:43 PM. I say theoretically because, looking at the last week, the train arrives somewhere between five and thirty minutes late. Eh, it’s worth it, I think. We’ll be down there through Sunday afternoon, and Dan will be at the regular Friday night Furry Coffee gathering. On Saturday we’ll be hanging out with ramalion and K and hopefully tygercowboy and company as well. Sunday we’ll do lunch with my sister’s family before driving back to Chicago.

Also, in a nice “Power of the Internet” moment, I just spent the last ten minutes or so using Google Maps to talk Dan through a detour off of I-270 around a nasty accidenton the Illinois side of the Mississippi River that had stopped traffic for miles. It was very odd to be talking to him and relating what he was seeing real-time to landmarks I saw in the satellite photos.

Going back a bit earlier in the week, I did have my physical health assessment at the gym on Monday, as I mentioned. The good news is that I’m not quite as bad off as I thought I was – I weigh a little less than I thought I did and my nutrition is “average” where I thought it would be “poor”. The bad news is that apparently, for a 37-year-old I have the body of a 50-year-old, according to their “Body Age” testing thingy. Yeah, that’s something to work on, I reckon. I’ve got another appointment on Monday evening to set up a program for cardio and strength training, and then I’ll be good to go. I’m such a creature of habit – once I can get a good regimen going, it’s pretty easy to stick with.

Oh, and finally, two cool items from today’s paper of interest to roho, genet, and feren: a comparison of stir-fry restaurants in the Chicago area, and a nice review of my favorite tea house, Infini-Tea.