October 21, 2004
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Oh wow, what a long, fun and interesting day. I don’t know where to begin……..why don’t I just start at the begining.
Danel and I had plans to leave at 9AM today to go downtown.
Unfortunetly, she was almost an hour late. Its ok though. The plan, and
this was how she wanted to get down there, was to go to Oak Park and
take the CTA from there. We arrived and got on the 10:52? train. It was
about a 15-20 minute ride, so it really wasn’t that bad. I had on my
anti-Bush shirt, which made for an interesting day, but to start off on
the train, there were some people on the train that were laughing at it
and saying it was a cool shirt.We got off and went into the Thompson center. Danel wanted to show me
the view from the top.We took the elevator to the top floor only to
have a security card tell us we couldn’t go up there. We tried the 15th
floor and got the same result. So, we left. We got out in front of the
building and there was some huge Halloween thing going on, complete
with singing a a guy on really large stilts. It was a neat little
thing.
After that, she wanted to check out Marshall Field. We walked around
there for a while looking at shit, it was nothing too cool, but it was
nice to see. Nothing of real significence stood out, so I will just
skip the rest of this part.After Marshall Fields, we headed for Millenuim Park, it was my first
time there. What a cool place. We looked at the new bandshell which
looks nice. Then we checked out the bean, which is one of the more
funky things I have ever seen. Its really sorta hard to describe, so I
suggest you see it yourself. All I know is that there was this cute gay
guy with beautiful eyes there showing around his parents. We walked to
the big thing with the faces, which normally has water runnning down
the side of it, but didn’t. Instead, all of the water was on the ground
between the 2 large things. The water actually looked sorta neat, and
was just enough to cover the bottom of my feets, so I was able to walk
around in there. Cool.After that, we headed down Michigan Ave. I wanted to go to that
neat store with the weird name that is next to the Tribune Tower. On
the way there, we were stopped because there was a boat passing through
so they had to put the bridge up for it. This was the first time either
one of us had seen that, and it was actually really cool to see. I know
it sounds sorta boring, but it was neat. We continued our walk
eventually making it to the store. They had this neat little globe
there in which you can press a place and select another place and it
would tell you the distance and how long it would take to get there. It
also had all sorts of fun facts about, well, every place in the world.
This globe was really cool until I saw the $160 pricetag, but to be
honest, I think it might have been worth it. I mean, when I touched
Australia, it played the Australian national anthem. How many globes
can do that?After that, we went to lunch at the Billy Goat Tavern. I have had a
taste of their burgers at the Taste of Chicago, but had never been to
the resturant itself. It is an experience. Obviously, I know the store
of the curse with the Cubs and what not, and I have seen the owner, Sam
Sianis on TV several times ( he has that really large nose), but this
was my first time there. Its not too big, and is on lower Wacker in a
dark, dank building. We stepped up to order and Danel asked for a
cheeseburger, and the guy said “double? doublecheeseburger? How about a
doublecheeseburger? Have a double” He would a goofy, fun guy and would
do this with each person that ordered a single burger. When I ordered a
root beer, he asked me for ID. Fun stuff. We got our food and sat down.
This was good stuff, a good quality burger, I enjoyed
it………….oh, and I did have a doublecheeseburger. While we were
eating, the owner with the big nose walked past us and went to the
bathroom. He gave me a pleasent look and I gave him a look back. What a
nice man, or so it seems. During our meal, 6 guys from Boston walked
in, all wearing Red Sox stuff. I over heard them say that they came to
Chicago to celebrate the Red Sox big victory.After Billy Goat, we went to the Lego store. It was pretty damn cool.
We walked in, and they have tons of huge lego statues………….for
example, a life sized Darth Vader made entirely out of legos. But, more
on him later. I have always been a lego guy. There were lots of kids
running around there, and there was this one kid, no older than 3, who
had a toy sword and he was pretending to shoot me with it. In fact, he
was chasing me around the store with it. Oh, kids are so much fun. I
was looking at a giant lego owl and I asked the little girl (about 8 or
9) next to me how long it took them to make it. I said it took at least
5 minutes and I would keep saying this to her to hear and see her
reaction. After a while, a couple of little boys came up, and I had
them all going on it. It was pretty funny. They insisted it took a
couple of days to make it, while I just said it took AT LEAST 5
minutes. Kids are so funny. They have no idea that I’m just goofin’
around and I know it took at least 8 minutes to make it. It got me to
thinking, so I did ask the employees how long it took to make it. They
told me that they didn’t know because they didn’t make it, but somebody
at the home office made it. I asked how I could get that job and the
response floored me. Apperently, building legos is a lot different then
when I was a kid. The people that design and physically build these
large lego sculptures have to get degrees in archetectial (spelling)
engieneering! Imagine, doing to school to become a lego builder! After
a while we left that store and I went across the mall to a place where
I bought a deck of playing cards that were round and had baseball teams
on it. I thought it was pretty cool. As we walked to go downstairs,
there was a bench with a guy made entirely out of legos on it. I asked
Danel if I should sit on his lap, and naturally, her reply was “sure,
but you have to touch his cock.” I was all set and ready to do it when
this family walks up and takes pictures with it. So after they left, I
sat on his lap, grabbed his cock while Danel took a picture. How
classy. What a thing to teach the kids, although I made sure they
weren’t around to see it.After that, we left and decided to head toward Navy Pier. We managed to
catch a trolly there, so we didn’t have to walk the whole way. We
walked in and went to a couple of stores before we saw some people
perfroming some show thingy. The guy in the show was just adorable in
his little sailor suit…………talk about hot. Danel really wanted
to go on a boat ride, so we bought tickets and walked around a few
stores for a while before boarding our boat. Up until this point, the
weather had been very nice. But once that boat got moving on the lake,
man that wind whipped up and it was PLENTY nippy. It was a nice little
ride though. A half hour for $10. Great view of the lake. And a great
view of the city.Next it was back into Navy Pier. We saw a really cool fun house maze
that I really wanted to go into, but didn’t really have the money to
spend. Instead we just looked at the cool ass mirrors which turned us
into midgets with really big heads. Danel thought this was so cool,
that she felt the need to take a picture of it. I don’t blame her
though…………it was cool. After that we walked around more. Navy
Pier had a lot of Halloween stuff, and they were actually giving away
candy. One of the things they were giving away was chocolate filled
peeps, you know, those birdy things you eat at Easter. They were
actually pretty damn good.We later made our way into a Children’s learning store. While I was
standing there in my anti-Bush shirt, some creepy guy comes up to me
and says “you know, if Bush gets re-elected, he is going to die in
office.” And I said “yeah, well lets hope it doesn’t get that
far……….lets hope Kerry wins.” The guy says “Well, even if he
wins, Bush still might die in office.” OK dude, now you are just being
creepy…………like he has some sort of plan to kill the President.
Shit, I hate Bush, but even I don’t want him dead……………..or do
I? No, no, he is still a human being. Plus, we would have Cheney in
charge, and we can’t have that.Still at that same store, one of the workers was showing us some really
neat balloon thing that you blow up and it makes a sound when you
release it. Its hard to explain, especially at 2:30 in the morning when
I’m tired as hell and have been tying for a long ass time. Just be
assured that it was cool as shit, and you should go there and check it
out.Finally, it was time to leave Navy Pier. Danel wanted to take the CTA
back to the Loop. We seemed to wait forever for the bus to pick us up,
but eventually, it did. While we were driving down state street, we
went past what looked like a bunch of protesters with a bunch of
political signs. I said to Danel “I need to be there” so we got off the
bus and walked over there. There were a ton of Obama supporters and not
many Keyes supporters, but they were all yelling and loud and waving
signs. It was right in front of the Channel 7 studio and they were
there because Obama and Keyes had a debate there tonight. I was told
that Keyes had already arrived (I would have loved to have tripped him)
and Obama was expected any minute. I was handed a sign and a sticker,
which I promptly placed on my shirt. There was lots of chanting for
both sides, and at one point, one of the Keyes supporters became very
adgitated and started yelling at the Obama people like some sort of
jackass and shit. The whole time, there was a newscamera filming
things, along with several newspaper reporters. During the whole
chanting and sign waving, even though I am for Obama, I did not
participate in any of it. I just sat there, holding my sign at about
waste level with my shirt on full display for everybody, including the
camera, to see. I kept getting dirty looks from the Republicans. But, I
just stood there, taking it all in. After a while, some of the dumbass
Keyes people showed up with anti gay signs, which made me boo and cheer
for Obama. Now, both candidates are black, but the funny part, is that
there are a majority of blacks supporting both sides. After a while,
Obama arrived. He moved past us so fast. He was a tall, thin, very
young looking man. Although he is about 42, he looks 30. For some
reason, and if anybody has the answer for this, please tell me, blacks
always age very well and look much better than whites. I don’t know why
this is. After he went inside, things chilled out a little, although
there still was a black Obama supporter standing next to me talking to
a reporter from the Chicago Journal (is that even a real paper?) who
was writing down everything he said. Somehow, this guy dragged me into
the conversation, and the 3 of us (and occasionally Danel) talked about
politics for about 10 minutes, and the reporter kept writing down what
we were saying. After a while, we told them we had to go and we went on
our way. Danel and I took the train and went back to Oak Park. What a
fun little day. I had a great time. I usually have a run-in with
somebody famous when I spend a day downtown, and today was no
different.
