Art Institute of Chicago

I finally visited my first art museum. Oh, sure, I’ve been to a few, although I’ve never really spent time in them or truly cared. Why spend $18 to walk through a hall of paintings and sculptures when you can see them online for free?

Anyway, whilst dining and drinking in Indianapolis last Thursday, Nils, Eli and myself happened to run into a woman from Chicago who was pitching her business to us after a short while. She, too, was visiting Indy for a conference (not journalism, but museums). After a few beverages, she coughed up her membership card to the Art Institute of Chicago so that we may experience it free of charge – we just have to mail it back to her at some point.

It was exactly as I expected: Untalented photos blown up so big they looked cool (but still a photo even I could take); a 3’x3’ orange square; a green square of similar dimensions; large canvases with sprayed paint.

Long story short, I simply don’t comprehend how that is art. I have always believed art to be something difficult.

Nevertheless, I was excited to see a few paintings that I remembered from Art History at Oregon State. I was especially stoked when I saw a few Andy Warhol works, as my fiancée is obsessed with him. Here are some photos I took there (I had no idea they allowed cameras).

Chi-town

It took us three hours to drive from Indy to Chicago, and another two getting from the suburbs to downtown. Our hotel was insanely nice, and our guide, David (a colleague of Nils’), was an excellent guide – he also arranged for the killer deal at our hotel.

I ate Armenian food for the first time, got some sweet shots of skyscrapers and fulfilled a childhood dream: visiting Wrigley Field, home of the Chicago Cubs. (Those photos soon)

Here are the best photos from my camera during our trip, but Eli also took some nice pictures (see his blog here).

Willis Tower (formerly Sears), right, with the sun peeking through.

Main Lobby of the Willis Tower. All the flags represent Olympic teams that would come if Chicago wins their bid for the 2016 summer games.

This reminded me of Coeur d’Alene’s “Moose on the Loose” program.

This time it was posed. This time…

Three-photo vertical panoramic shot of the Willis Tower. It cost $24 to go to the observation deck, but the line wrapped around the block and we were told the Hancock Building next to our hotel offered the city’s best views – especially the women’s restroom, which we were unable to attain entry – and they were right.

3 i’s in 3 days: Idaho, Indiana, Illinois

After leaving Portland last Monday, I drove straight to Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, where I only had 3 days to see as many people as possible before leaving for Indianapolis. Sad to say, that didn’t work out very well, as I was poor when it came to mixing time with family and friends.
However, the culmination of those three days reared beautifully-smoked garlic- and beer-flavored results from my Grandpa’s smoker Wednesday night: four racks of perfectly smoked beef and pork ribs (See them hanging in Grandpa’s wholly customized Brinkman –-> ).
I loved them, my family loved them, but the true food critic of our family (Grandpa, himself) apparently loved them, also: “The best ribs I’ve ever had.”
Indeed, it was true last Wednesday night that perfection can often times be found on a plate.
We left for the airport Thursday morning at 4 a.m., my advisor from The Sentinel Nils Rosdahl along with the paper’s new managing editor, Eli Francovich. The reason for our journey was simple: The Sentinel had been named a finalist for the Society of Professional Journalists’ prestigious national award, The Mark of Excellence. We knew we weren’t winning first place, but the college still decided it would pay to send Nils, Eli and myself to pick up the award.

This is the three of us picking up our award at the conference in Indy. Eli and I were the only people in attendance not wearing a collar.

We spent just one night in the capital of Indiana. However, I did get to have a drink with fellow Poynter Alum Ashley Porter, who was at the convention to pick up her very own Mark of Excellence for Sports Video.
We left Friday afternoon; I mean, we tried to leave. But there was a major problem: Nils lost the keys to the rental car. An hour later, the bellboy saved us by checking his luggage room once more, and produced the keys from the floor where he stored our bags earlier. Alas, while we believed all to be well, we conversely spent the next hour covering two miles searching for the parking garage we parked in (at one point early on, we walked within a half-block of it).
Needless to say, we were exhausted as we left Indianapolis for Chicago, a trip that Nils thought would make a better two nights than Indianapolis.
Oh, how right he was!

Best Chicago Photo

OK, here is my favorite Chicago photo before I wait to upload the rest. Nils, Eli and I climbed up 96 floors (well, we rode the elevator) to The Signature Lounge of the John Hancock Building.

Long story short (I will explain the entire trip later), we looked at the best view Chicago has to offer from a bar:

PS: Click on the photo to view it much larger