There was a phone number, presumably to that line, taped to the back of the phone at the end of the jetway. I resisted the urge to write it down and call at some random time.
Jul
17
Jul
09
I don't think there's a cream for that.
Rather impressive new freeway going in near the airport. Still sand and rebar.
Flying into Dallas / Fort Worth. The landscape is extremely flat. Dispersed intermittently, but consistently, are cities, circular in shape, that build up from the outside into a center of skyscrapers. They look like bumps. City bumps.
Dec
31
It's about time.
The delay on this post is excused by it’s content.
Word to the wise… Don’t injure yourself in a manner carrying the possibility of a neck or back injury. C-collars suck.
Aug
24
On the 1:15pm train to Pontiac.
Not exactly midnight and not exactly Georgia, but hey. We play the hand we’re dealt.
I got brave and decided to take a route to Union Station that involved both buses and the El. The Chicago Transit Authority has a Trip Planner on their site where you can put in the time you want to leave, where you are starting and ending, choose how far you are willing to walk, and whether you want the route that is quickest, has the lease number of transfers, or has the least amount of walking. They give you three or four different route possibilities, and I managed to find one that involved the train. So Andrew wrote down the bus stops and where we were headed on the train. We got on the first bus, got transfers and got off at exactly the right place. We got on the train, found out the transfers work there too. We walked up the wrong set of stairs, and ended up on the wrong side of the platform, but the lady there told us to take the train down one stop, cross over the tracks there to the other side and board the correct train there. And we did, everything worked great. So we’re on the train, going going, it’s wobbling, starting, stopping etc etc. Then at some point Andrew starts to get a slightly perplexed look on his face, and finally says, “I don’t think we were supposed to go this far.” We look at each other for a minute. And he says, “Union Station is at the base of the Sears Tower, and that’s way back there.” So I take the directions he wrote down, and I realise that all he wrote down was what it said about the train line as a whole, ie. “The Green Line to Cottage Grove,” which is in fact, the end of the line, not where we needed to go. I pointed out that the bus we were supposed to get on was at Adam’s and something, and there’s a stop on the train at Adam’s and something. So… We got off the train, and waited for another train to come back the other way. Now it’s been something like 20 minutes or something, and we were actually starting to wonder if I was going to miss my train. We were also wondering if the train we just got off was actually going to be the same train, and that we would have to wait until it went all the way to the end of the line and came back. The train finally came the other way (and it wasn’t the same train, heh) and we got on and went to the right stop. We ended up getting on a different bus than the route suggested, but it was the same bus we rode from Union Station when we got to Chicago in the first place, so we knew where it went. We got into the station and found my train.
Aug
23
Close your eyes and listen.
I walked to the aquarium twice, once with Andrew and once alone. I walked back long the water. Near the aquarium is a marina, in which a number of sail boats are moored. All the sails were down, and as the wind rippled the ropes and cables, it tapped the hooks and clasps against masts, making such an amazing sound. It sounded like a hundred tiny wind chimes, spread out over the water. There wasn’t much sound from the streets or the city… Just the water and the wind.
Aug
21
Just hazard a guess and start walking.
Hazard being the keyword. This is after all Chicago. Which size-wise eats every major city in Michigan for lunch. Including an appetizer and dessert.
The train ride was essentially uneventful. We took advantage of our free beverages. Somewhere close to Chicago, we had to wait a few minutes while traffic up the line cleared, and then we continued on, and got to Chicago pretty much on time.