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).

Wrigley Field

I was born and raised a Mariners fan, and Seattle will always be my hometown sports team. Safeco is my favorite field, no doubt, but loyalty none withstanding I have wanted to witness Wrigley since boyhood. The home of the Chicago Cubs is one of the greatest stadiums in American baseball, and, according to ESPN’s Jim Caple there are only “three places that are quintessentially American: Disneyland, the Yosemite Valley and Wrigley Field (preferably for a day game).”

I plan on visiting Fenway Park (home of the Red Sox) before I die, and it hurts a little knowing I will never view a game at the original Yankee Stadium, but Wrigley Field is tops. And even from the Upper Deck, our seats were awesome.

Six photos merged together from where we were sitting. It looks a lot further away in the photo because of the panoramic view, but these seats were great. And $40 for upper deck is pretty pricey, but well worth it!

See, not that far away.

Me, Eli and Nils.

Pure bliss! The Cubs destroyed the Mets 11-4.

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

Chicago

Here are just a couple of the photos I’ve taken while in Chicago. I will throw some more up when I get back in town. Anyway, I’m really getting obsessed with panoramic shots (obviously…).

What’s more, I’ll be back in Chi Town in almost a month. But more to come on this trip in a day or so.

This is a pano from below a bunch of tall buildings.

One of the elevated trains… They filmed “Batman: The Dark Night” in Chicago and one of the scenes was near this corner.

Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field!! Such an awesome game!

There will be lots more photos to come, as well as a synopsis as the point of our entire trip and why I went from Portland to Coeur d’Alene to Spokane to Indianapolis to Chicago.

Coeur d’Alene mountains

Yesterday my cousin Gene told me about a 70-foot tall ranger station way out past Fernan Mountain. So, he took off from work early and we spent two hours driving up to the rickety old station, which hasn’t been used since the ‘70s. They’re going to tear the thing down in the near future because of the liability it poses (it’s old as hell and ready to break – but I still felt safe … for the most part).
Anyway, we got some cool photos of it, not to mention a moose sighting right off the bat. We chased it in the truck for about a quarter mile trying to get alongside it for a cool photo, but a truck came barreling in the opposite direction and spooked it up the hill.




And lastly, but definitely not least, this little Idaho-shaped rock:

June 26, 2010

Don’t forget that date. Because, as of this afternoon, next year on June 26 (or, as I like to call it, 6-2-6, or 6-26), is the day Holly and I are set to be married!

You see, today, Cathy (Holly’s mom), Holly and myself went to visit The Crystal Ballroom in downtown Portland. It was amazing. I had seen the website although I didn’t think much at first. However, upon our initial viewing, I was stunned. While I found out later that this venue has boasted bands from The Shins to The Grateful Dead, I was amazed by the sprung dance floor (more on that type of dance floor here).

Needless to say, Cathy and Holly were more excited than I. And thus, our wedding next summer will resemble something much more amazing than this previous wedding (which was held in the same ballroom):

Best Clunker

Yesterday I was playing on Facebook when I saw a status update from the movie “The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard.” It read something like this: Upload a picture of your clunker for a chance to win free movie tickets to see The Goods.

Well, I uploaded this picture right then and there:

Low and behold, the current status update for the movie’s official Facebook Page is this:

The Goods Live Hard Sell Hard Congrats to the first winner of our CLUNKER PIX FOR MOVIE TIX givaway! Jake D. is seeing the movie for FREE! Upload a picture of your clunker! New winners will be picked everyday until the 26th!

Hell yeah, baby!! I won!

Text Message Challenge

North Idaho College is hosting just that at the North Idaho Fair this month. It’s a texting competition divided into three age groups, where people are scored on speed and accuracy. I’ve mocked up a few designs, but they changed the theme to “So you think you can Text.”
So, I had to switch to a design reminiscent of this one:
Well, after my slow-ass computer crashed three times trying to render an 11x17 poster at 300 dpi, I finished this guy after four hours tonight. Let me know what you think.