Tuesday, May 15th, 2007
I’m in Chicago’s O’Hare, waiting for my connecting flight to Boston, when I receive a very strange phone call from Micah.
“Hi, can you tell me who’s phone this is?” said the voice on the other line.
Uhhhh, sure I can. Ass! And I then proceeded to make fun of him for his lame attempt at trickery.
The phone ended up being with airport security in Wichita.
NOW WITH PHOTOS!
ONE WEEK AGO
With Amtrak’s recent service expansion in Illinois, I decided to try the previously unimaginable: a day trip to Chicago on $20.
My train was to depart from Bloomington/Normal at 7:30am Tuesday, dropping me off in the Loop at 10am. Thirty minutes late, I’m breathing the exhaust and taking in the squealing brakes that Chicago offers. First stop, Goodwin’s for lunch. It’s a subterranean sandwich place on Franklin St. in the northwest end of the Loop, unassuming and invisible to anyone but business regulars from the nearby financial district.
I’m jetting off to Boston for a few days, then to Wichita to see my brother graudate graduate high school. More later!
SAT. UPDATE The trip went extremely well… working on photos/text/video for you!
These words describe me at 3:56 a.m. Sunday morning.
infuriated / livid / zonked / limp / downcast / apathetic
Trying and failing to post video on the Journal Star’s website until 3:30 in the morning can be very, very detrimental to your well-being. I apologize to the Sunday readers looking for three videos that Matt shot and I edited this evening. We stayed much too long as it is.
I have only extremely foul words for the entire experience.
“Laughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion. I myself prefer to laugh, since there is less cleaning up to do afterward.”
-Kurt Vonnegut
Tortellini torture
I’m usually cautious of Peoria’s restaurants, wary of their bland dishes and perplexing hours. Today proved to be a bad day to throw caution to the wind. Come with me to La Gondola Spaghetti House. You shouldn’t, but you must if you are to empathize. A nondescript, family-owned Italian place in the Northpoint Shopping Center, La Gondola is a no-frills eatery that caters to take-out orders. Famished from my adventure in car repair, I stop inside and order their tortellini. Let me say that I am normally a fanatic Italian lover, growing giddy at their plentiful use of cheese as much as that man on the corner craves his 40-ounce malt liquor. I’m deep in reading when my food comes: a pile of reheated tortellini, piled on a styrofoam plate and topped with gloopy goulash sauce. Oh SHIT. I ate that $6 plate of institutional crap, sobbed a little in the backseat of my car afterwards and drove away.