Another day another dolla.... wait a minute, I don't get paid.

It was dark long before I left Ogilvy today. I wasn't a big fan of that... makes it feel like I'm there until midnight when it's only five. So now I'm at the Chicago Semester office. I don't really have much to say. I've been interviewing people in different positions at Ogilvy... today I talked to someone whose job is "traffic manager". They're the person who schedules projects and makes sure stuff is getting done by when it needs to be done and is also the liason between the creative department and the account department. She told me that most of the people that intern at Ogilvy get hired. I still don't know if I'd totally like it as a career. That's okay though because I still have a year and a half of school after this. Right now I'm working my Monday night shift at the CS office. I kinda hope there aren't too many people around tonight. I'm hoping to get my reading done for Friday.

SOFA n stuff

I was blown away by the size of the Sculpture Objects and Functional Art show. We looked at stuff for almost two hours and I don't think we even saw a 1/4 of the pieces there. There were a lot of stinkin' rich people there. They get the best free stuff... like books and stuff. I just get postcards and business cards from the sculptors and dealers. They even blocked a section off for a while for invite only. The only cheese and crackers and stuff that was at that show was in that private section so we ran across Navy Pier to the American Dog hot dog stand for Chicago Dogs. (More about food)... I guess a chicago dog has mustard, onions, relish, hot peppers, a pickle, and a poppy seed bun... the main thing is that it has no ketchup. So good.

Today we had a group of 8 for basketball. Only played full court for a while... it's not as good of a workout with that many people, but still fun. Tonight I think I'm just going to play some games with Nate, Lisa, Sarah Versluis, and Andrew De Young and whoever else shows up.

I miss settlers. Apples to Apples is good though.

Just not near as good as Settlers.

Mmm. Settlers.

White Sox are the Champions of the World!

Last night was game four of the world series. The White Sox won. The whole city went nuts. The pictures I'm posting are a little blurry cuz I'm not so good at taking photos at night. One is of an example of the pride that Chicago has had (Look at two big buildings in case it's not obvious what I was trying to capture). The other one is of the street below my apartment window after the game. That block of division is entirely made up of bars on either side of the street. The cops set up road blocks so that the street would be a safe place to celebrate I guess. Once again, I'm not sure you can even tell what the photo is supposed to be of.... the street is full of happy Chicagoans.

Wednesday evening before the game I went to the Unisource paper show. The thing was crazy. So many paper books. I wanted to take all of them, but I don't really know what I would do with them. The French Paper Company has the coolest stuff as far as books and handouts. Check out their site at mrfrench.com (I haven't actually looked at the sight much...might be kinda boring if you're not into looking at different types of paper.

This morning was my groups third and final neigborhood visit to Austin. We broke up into small groups this time and I feel like that worked out a lot better than sticking together. I got my boots shined at a place called Shine King. The man who shined my shoes, Billy, was surprised to here that we have no such place in Sioux Center, IA.... "Y'all just walk around with dirty shoes then?". Then we went and checked out an apartment as if we were actually interested in renting. The lady was extremely hesitant. She made sure to let me know more than once that I'd be the only white guy in the neigborhood. I said I didn't mind. The rent is a lot cheaper than where I am now and the apartment is probably 3 times as big.

Tonight we went to the world premier of a play called Wheatley. It is the biography of a real person named Phylis Wheatley (I'm probably spelling the name wrong). She was the African American poet... i think. There were only four actors and at least a dozen characters, but they all kept up well. It was a really good show. I really like small theaters. I was in the front row. One of the actors couldn't get his jacket on when he was supposed to so he just threw it in my lap.

Tomorrow night I am going to volunteer to sit at the MCA booth with Young at SOFA. I don't remember exactly what that stands for...something about sculpture, functionable objects...and i dunno... anyhow I'm pretty excited for that.

Pictures from the weekend

The computer at work is much faster than my iBook, so I waited to upload some snapshots of the past few days and today.

I wanted to see where Threadless is located since I was only a mile away for my interview at Von Orthal puppets. I took a photo of their sweet van covered in stickers. Click the threadless link to buy a shirt from them and (maybe) get one of the stickers... they usually send a few with every order. The other pictures are of Everybody going nuts for their free Big Mac at the Bulls game and the Nuevo León, where we ate on Saturday night. And then there's a picture of me at work.

Rainy Sunday

This weekend was nonstop insanity for me. Friday afternoon after class I went to Cynthia Von Orthal's puppetshop to do an interview. I'm going to write a paper about her and puppets for Arts in the City class. Then I went to the Chicago Bulls game. It wasn't terribly exciting until the very end. They went into overtime tied at 99. The excitement was mainly because everybody had a coupon good for a free Big Mac if the Bulls won the game with a score of over 100. They did indeed win and we all won free Big Macs.

Saturday morning I got up for some three-on-three basketball. I had no idea how incredibly tiring full court basketball is compared to half court... especially with only six people on the court. Saturday afternoon everbody on Chicago Semester broke up into groups and went to different museums. My group went to the Museum of Mexican Fine Art. I was really surprised with the number of pieces. Then we stopped by a few galleries on an open gallery walk in Pilsen, the Mexican neigborhood. For supper we stopped by Nuevo Leon for Mexican.

Saturday night we went to DanceAfrica at the Chicago Theater. DanceAfrica is a whole bunch of dance groups performing everything from traditional African dance to modern hip-hop breakdancing and even some strange sort of ballet. The dancers were probably the best I've ever seen or ever will see.

Midsummer Nightmarish Dream

I always think that I am pretty open minded about most things like art and theater. I'm not going to say I was thrilled to be going to the Joffrey Ballet performance of Midsummer Nights Dream, but I didn't go in thinking it would be like a stereotypical nauseating, boring-as-watching-linoleum-curl ballet that you see on TV or in the movies. Oh, but it was. I'm sure everyone in the show put a ton of work into it and deserves tons of credit, but how long can people seriously stand to watch people run around on their toes like that? I guess I also have a hard time understanding why someone would take a Shakespeare play, which as far as I know are known for their clever scripts, and strip out all of the speaking. I guess I didn't really know what a ballet was. I thought it was a musical with extra dancing. No. They don't talk. They just float around. It struck me as silly.

Oh well.

So it goes.

Guinness Ad

This may not exactly jive with your beliefs in history and science, but it is a sweet commercial.

The cokes from the machine here smell like campfire. I don't understand. Campfire is one of my favorite smells, but cans shouldn't really have a smell.

Threadless is looking for Holiday help... that'd be sweet, but I don't think they work on the weekend, which is the only time i would be able to work. That would be a sweet job though.

Go Sox!

People aren't really working much today. They're just talking about last night's game. I guess it's the first time in 46 years that the White Sox made it to the World Series. The city of Chicago is going nuts.

The play on Thursday night was great. The theater is similar to the Globe theater where Shakespeare's plays were originally performed. The play was set in modern times. The costumes were all great. The set was very simple. No backdrop or anything. Mostly just chairs for props. The lights came up on the audience during the courtroom scene to make everyone part of the play. I didn't get any good shots... check out Nate and Lisa's photos for a better idea (link in the sidebar). I got a picture of them though! There is only one row of seats in each of the balcony levels.... no tall people to block your view.



The weekend was pretty uneventful... Took it easy, played some board games and card games and even some basketball. I'm no good at basketball, but it's still fun. After church on Sunday I went to this big crazy warehouse building where a bunch of artists have their studios. It was really cool. They have an open-studio day annually where you can wander around into their studio/galleries, check out there stuff, and grab some cookies, cheese, and wine. Lots of awesome sculptures, paintings, and photographs. Actually, I didn't even know they had that event or that there were even other artists in the building - I was just going because the incurable theater had announced that they would be showing the stuff that they're working on for the upcoming puppet show The Nutcracker and the King of Mice. Cynthia Von Orthal, who I've mentioned in a previous post, is directing the show. I'm really looking forward to seeing it.

I guess I get to go to a 2 hour meeting this afternoon. I haven't really been to any meetings other that the weekly monday status meetings since i started here. I'm kinda looking forward to it, believe it or not... I have very little interaction with other people at my job. I just come in, sit at the computer, work, and then leave... most communication is over email... even to someone sitting 3 feet away.

Wireless in Cantebury

I finished my paper much quicker than I expected. So I was going to go down to Starbucks to post, but the place was packed. It turns out I can pick up someone's wireless in Lisa, Amber, and Sarah's room. They are watching Fear Factor on TV. A guy is trying to eat a worm-filled bismark... it's pretty nasty. I still have to write in my journal tonight, but I needed a quick break. Check out Nate and Lisa's blogs...they seem to post a lot more photos than me... much easier to read than my endless ramblings. Tomorrow night is Merchant of Venice at the Shakespeare theater at Navy Pier.

One more picture

Which would be more inconsiderate... if I posted a picture of somebody while they were eating or if i didn't include them. At first I thought the first one would be more rude... but I changed my mind. This is Annie, Nate, and Lisa eating Korean. The girl in the picture in the previous post is Megan, Annie's roommate.

Yet another post about Asian food

A few weeks ago I promised Young I'd go with him to eat some Korean food. It finally worked out with everyone's schedule last night (kinda... I should have been doing homework). It took us almost an hour to get there and around two to eat. We didn't get back until around 10pm. It was an interesting experience to say the least. Young taught us the correct way to eat Korean: You start with a big piece of lettuce. Put a wad of rice on top. Add meat and sauce and wrap the lettuce up. Stuff the whole thing in your mouth at once. Had I known I was going to have to put the whole thing in my mouth I would have made my first one a lot smaller. I probably looked like the guy from Blue Man Group when he had like 95 marshmallows in his mouth at once. The stuff that is closer to what I'm used to (beef, chicken, and Bacon) was pretty good. I had a hard time eating the octopus, squid, and shrimp. And even though they are a chicken product, I didn't touch the gizzards. The buffet was pretty big. You can get egg rolls, kimchee, sushi, and all kinds of stuff that's ready to go. The meat on the buffet is raw... you have to cook it yourself at your table. Near the end of the meat section of the buffet is a turtle and goldfish pond They are just pets I guess, they probably wouldn't have appreciated it if we'd cooked them. Young did most of the cooking because he is the Korean expert. Apparently I was the only one familiar with the idea of having one color tong for raw meat and one for cooked meat since I've worked at Hardee's. Oh well...I'm not sick...yet...

I don't normally make eye contact with my food...
The table has a nifty little grill built in.
Young holds his chopsticks the Korean way. Nate holds them the Japanese way. I hold them my own way... until I get to hungry to stand it and grab a spoon.

Best. Weekend. Ever.

I feel bad for my family for the times that they've visited and I didn't really know what to do. I had a few things picked out ahead of time because I've known the whole time I've been here that Meg was going to visit. I apologize in advance if this post is long... i'll do my best to summarize.

I picked Meg up at Midway on Wednesday night. I had a bunch of stuff planned for the night, but hadn't thought about the fairly substantial amount of travel time so all we did that night was go for Chicago style pizza. We went to Gino's East... not the most famous place, but many sources said it was the best. I didn't like how finely the peppers were chopped (more like Pizza Ranch than Pizza Hut) but other than that it was really good pizza. I ate way too much (2 pieces... this isn't like Pizza Hut or Pizza Ranch pizza). and was stuffed for hours after. Then we went and walked down by the beach.

On Thursday we stopped at Starbuck's for muffins and coffee (Thanks Dan!). Then we went to the MCA. I was a little disappointed at the size of the place. If they have any sort of permanent collections, they aren't on display right now. The Dan Flavin show was kinda cool... seeing other peoples' art always makes me want to try new things... Flavin's art consists of various colored flourescent lights and the space they inhabit.

After checking out the Flavin show we caught up with Young in the park across the street. A pigeon had just made a huge mess of his pant leg... I felt kinda bad cuz he had to get back to work... but it was pretty funny... you wouldn't think such a small bird could..... ah, nevermind that...changing subject... so then we went to Chinatown to grab some lunch and browse the little shops.

Later was the Toulouse-Lautrec & Montmartre show at the art institute. The whole time I was looking at the paintings I was thinking about the board game 'Masterpiece'... about half the paintings in the game are hanging on the walls of the Art Institute in Chicago. Lautrec's painting in the game was the one that nobody ever really wanted because it has the ugly lady with the green face. Grandma Haan's favorite painting in Masterpiece is also there... can't think of what it's called though. Wood's American Gothic is currently on loan back in Iowa, so they had a different one instead, which I actually like quite a bit better.

After the art show we headed for the Abbey Pub for the Mates of State & Ida concert. For some reason it never occured to me that I should tell Meg to take her I.D... I totally should have known since it was an 18 and up show, but we had to take a cab to run back to the apartment and get back in time for the show. That may have been a blessing because the band that opened the show, the Manners, was awful. We caught a song or two and that was more than enough. Ida was very different than any band I've ever seen. They were ok... they had one song that I really, really liked. Mates of State was, of course, incredible. There is so much talent in just the two people the make up the band, a married couple. She plays keyboard and he plays drums. They both sing.

Friday morning I went to class as usual. Meg came to the CS office where we grabbed lunch. We checked out the Watertower place shopping mall and target in search of hats, gloves, etc. We got to the Briar Street Theater early even though I took a few wrong turns on the way. The strange tube on the wall was hitting on Meg, but wouldn't talk to me... ushering was easy. The show was great. I laughed to tears at one point. If you ever have a chance to see Blue Man Group, do it. The only problem is tickets are $55... unless you call ahead and usher.

Then we found a café near the neo-futurarium, home of 'too much light makes the baby go blind' and had the best calzones I've ever had in my life. Meg's was eggplant... strage, but really good.

The show started at 11:30. The cost is $7 plus whatever you roll on the die. We didn't do so good there... I rolled a five and Meg rolled a six. It was worth every dollar and dot on the die, though.

Saturday morning I showed Meg the stuff I had hoped to show her on Wednesday. The weather was just a bit too chilly, but it was still a nice walk. We went to Millenium park, Grant Park, and Navy Pier. The ferris wheel at Navy Pier is a lot taller than it looks from the ground. we continued the Navy theme by finally finding a nice scarf and hat at Old Navy.

I reluctantly brought Meg back to the airport. She is safely back at Dordt now. I liked having my favorite person with me in my favorite city...

on my lunch break

I just went for a walk around the NW corner of the loop. I thought I'd been out for over an hour so I headed back. Turns out it wasn't even half an hour. It's really hot right now... so I got an iced coffee... it's just not the same as coffee... but it's too hot for coffee. What's a guy to do? I suppose there's always the option of frappachino... if i had 80 billion dollars to spend on coffee drinks. Right now I really am not in the mood to work on stuff. Prolly cuz Meg is going to be here after six tonight. I'm planning on taking her out for some good Chicago pizza tonight... after that she will be welcomed into my world of turkey and kraft singles on wheat bread. But thanks to all my connections (okay, my one connection... Young) I got passes to the Museum of Contemporary Art. Plus we're going to usher for the Blue Man Group on Friday night and see the show for free... so we're really going to get our money's worth out of this city this weekend. Also hoping to catch Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind if we make it there on time Friday night. Anybody who saw Nobody Move and Nobody Gets Hurt or was at Ethan & Laurel's wedding reception would recognize the style of the show... crazy! There's a good chance I won't post much, if at all, this weekend. This does not mean I'm dead... We have a ton to see in 3 days.

Finally... a real post

Well, I guess since I'm here at the office anyway I should make a real post on the ol' blog. Work has been going well... I guess nothing out of the ordinary going on there really. I have had a ton of homework to keep me busy though. I had to write a paper that was due today at 5:00 and I still have a bunch of reading to do. On Friday for art class we went and visited a Chicago printmaker by the name of Tony Fitzpatrick. His shop was really cool and the whole thing was a good experience. I hope to go back sometime if I ever get some free time to see what he's up to. That afternoon Tom, Mike, Rachel, and I went to 'Mother's Too' to shoot some pool. Later I played some Yoo-Ker (okay, i know that's totally not how to spell that, but at least you can tell what i'm trying to say). The next day I worked on a topic for my paper a bit and went to the Lincoln Park zoo for a couple hours. Then I met my parents and Kris at Navy Pier for supper at Capi's kitchen, an Italian place. It was good to see family again, but it was a pretty short visit. Parking in Chicago is a real pain in the butt (particularly the wallet region). I spent most of Sunday writing my paper. This afternoon we visited a neigborhood for our practicum class. We have to make a presentation on the neigborhood, Austin, to everybody else eventually. We ended up at Judi's house (she's the group leader) where we had an excellent vegetarian mexican dinner. I had someone work for me tonight at the CS office, but here I am anyhow... typing away at my blog. I have most of my plans in place for Meg's visit, but haven't really figured out for sure what all we're going to do on Saturday during the day and on Thursday. I am really looking forward to seeing her again. It's just about 10:00, so I better wrap it up her and start for the door... Hopefully I will post again sooner this time.

La Peña

This is the Brazilian jazz band that we saw last week at the old town school of folk music. They put on free shows there every Wednesday night for a few weeks. This week's show doesn't look like anything too phenomenal, but there is going to be a flamenco band there in a few weeks... I might have to go back for that.

Cynthia Von Orthal

K...this is old news... over a week old in fact... I haven't been able to upload it though. Looks like it might've worked this time. This puppeteer visited our art class. You can check out more at www.vonorthalpuppets.com if you're interested.