It's Cool, Man...

[I'm stealing this format from a friend and her "Perfectly Acceptable Ashley" series of blogs.]

It's cool...

...to loudly bump some new rap music that I'm into while leaving work and not caring what the smokers outside or other passersby think. Or shoot, I'll even be in the grocery store with my headphones in grooving down the aisles to the new Lupe Fiasco (specifically "Letting Go")... this takes me back to when Outkast's "Hey Ya" first came out and I was driving around in my truck with the windows down, trying to be all "bad ass".

...to get a laugh from a voicemail I got from a gay guy I know who seemed to have taken an interest in me for some reason, even though I clarified that I don't swing that way but still tried being a nice guy for the most part. But because I apparently offended him (not on purpose), I was dismissed with the following gem of a quote: "...the rice cooker [insert dramatic pause] is off." WTF... I didn't know I landed in some reality dating show. Hahaha...

...to provide a link to an author's blog because his experience is something I completely relate to as a former heavy kid who still has a hard time letting go of that mindset sometimes. But as he says, "It’s true we impress people with our supposed perfections, but we connect with each other in our flaws." That Donald Miller is a cool guy. http://donmilleris.com/2011/08/26/learning-to-love-your-flaws/ 

...to still be daydreaming about moving out to Chicago someday and thinking about ways to make it happen. I always thought I'd settle in San Diego, but that was before this travelphobe got a taste of life in another city and found it more vibrant and beautiful than he expected. Granted, it's only been one city, and I could just be in the "honeymoon" phase still, but my eyes have been awakened at least to the idea that SD doesn't have to be the only setting for my story. I mean, even my parents flew across an ocean and settled far away from their home. We'll see what the next chapter(s) bring.

Conquered

Ever heard of Mt. Woodson?

Because I hadn't... then again, I'm a native San Diegan who grew up in a conservative bubble whose parents are scared to let him ride a bike. (But I digress.)

It's off of Lake Poway, and is a nice strenuous hike where if you make it to the top, you are rewarded with the "potato chip". Which is a piece of rock shaped like a Pringles-chip, hanging off another rock. It's not like a cliff exactly, but it is a bit of a drop if you fall off the chip.

So here is what we set out to accomplish on Saturday morning:

Here is the before picture - suns out, guns out, hah.

A view of Lake Poway at the beginning of our journey...

The sun was out in full force, and we were hiking into it, and this being a hike up a mountain, the incline + heat made for a tiring sweaty journey. True to my long distance runs, the first part always sucks the most, and then in the middle, my mind starts going "let's do this" and wants to get it done. But the newbies I was with needed a little more time to rest and breathe, and to take pictures. Like with this rock formation:

I shall call it "Butt Rock".

Anyways, it sucked because as we climbed higher, we kept expecting to see it, only to be thwarted by another sign saying it was 1.1 miles away. But we made it! Seeing the chip in person, it was smaller than expected. But still a chore to get up on. Been wanting to go rock climbing, so I got to do a little of that so that I could take pictures like this:

I'm a wee-little man.

You can see that the chip juts off another rock, but while it may look like it from that picture, that bigger rock isn't directly underneath the chip. You look down and see a drop. Not as scary as the Skydeck from the Sears Tower, but still.

Rawk.

Anyways, we conquered it. It took us 5 hours to hike up and back, so just as long as a marathon run. My friend Suzy (center) did her first "plank" shot on that chip, so when I go back again (because I most likely will sometime in the near future), I'll have to copy. (Sidenote: when did I become somewhat outdoorsy endurance man? It's cool and strange at the same time.)

Thoughts from 30,000 Feet

(written from the plane)


Monday night, no idea what time it is exactly or over what state we're flying over, but I think we have about 2 hours left to go... which gives me time to recap the last two days, which were pretty mellow.

Day 6 - Sunday

I planned on spending the day alone and tending to my own adventures again. I even did my research and found an evening church service to check out that appealed to my Flood/Mosaic sensibilities. But per their wishes, I ended up joining the family for an AM service at a church that's (by my accounts) 50% larger than SD's The Rock (which is plenty huge as it is) - and I'm not a fan of mega-churches. Turns out they had a special service interviewing Blake Mycoskie - the founder of the shoe company TOMS.

I knew the gist of TOMS - that for every pair of shoes purchased, the company provides a new pair of shoes to a child in need in a third-world country. But it was interesting to hear Blake's story about what motivated him to do this, how it felt to personally place the shoes on a child's feet, and see how passionate he was about providing this basic need and the impact it would have on a child's life. If you're not familiar with them, you can read all about the company on their site: www.toms.com 

With the shoe aspect thriving (they've given out their 1 millionth pair), they had recently branched out to sunglasses, where the same One for One concept would apply. For every piece of eyewear purchased, they would give the gift of sight to someone in need (whether via glasses or a type of surgery). As we were exiting the sanctuary, my cheap pair of sunglasses we bought for the trip broke. And since TOMS products were available in the church lobby, my mom joked that maybe this was a sign from God, haha. And (to my delight) she offered to buy me a pair. 

Later on in the afternoon, we walked around the Lincoln Park Zoo, which is a nice free zoo but does not compare to the San Diego Zoo. (Point for SD.)

After the zoo, I convinced the group to stop by this well-reviewed cupcake place nearby, Molly's Cupcakes. I love the idea of this place. You have your standard specialty cupcakes on display, but you could also design your own (cake + frosting + toppings). The Yelpers were right, they were really good, much better than Sprinkles for sure. As I exited, I noticed this sign in their window and thought it was awesome.

Day 7 - Monday: The Return 

As for today, I ventured back downtown by myself one last time. I wanted to visit Wicker Park and sitting in a coffee shop with my book and laptop in tow, but that didn't happen. I did check out the Museum of Contemporary Photography, picked up some trinkets for a few people, and then ended up buying TOMS shoes for myself. So comfortable. 

And that's about it for this trip. It was great to experience the life of another city for a week. I've been a travel-phobe, so this was a nice step out of my comfort zone. It's definitely planted the questions of "do I want to stay in San Diego?" and "where else do I wanna check out?" I've got NYC in October, and who know what the next traveling adventures may be. London? The Philippines? Greece? Peru? To be continued...

Live.

Apparently this went around the interwebs awhile back, but it's new to me.

Chicago in Instagrams - Days 4 and 5

Day 4 
We got off to a late start, which allowed me to sleep in and catch up on True Blood... it's my vacation and I can do what I want! But after lunch, I finally got my wish granted and was allowed to take off on my own.

The family made their way to the planetarium (I still took a pic), and I split off and got on my very first city bus ride. First item on my list? Find authentic Chicago-style pizza! From my research and recommendation, I made my way to Geno's East, which was featured on "Man vs. Food", and ordered a few Jamison and Coke's to go with my Chicago-style pepperoni...

And I've decided: I'm not a Chicago-style / deep-dish pizza fan. It was good (thick and buttery), but I miss the thin NY / crispy crusts.

With that decided, I just took my time walking around downtown. I checked out the Chicago Water Tower, that survived the great Chicago fire...

I came across the Chicago Tribune building with it's statue of Nathan Hale...

On my wanderings, I came across my family again at the Marilyn Monroe statue. Apparently between days 4 and 5, this statue got vandalized... a tattoo on one of her legs. I wasn't able to go back to get an "after" shot though.

Did some more walking inside the shops of the Magnificent Mile, ate dinner, and then went up to the Hancock Observatory. This is the building that is similar to the Sears/Willis Tower (tall, two antennas, has a sky deck). Their "museum"/deck isn't as cool as the Sears Tower's, but we got to take in the Chicago skyline at night this time. Here it is from the 94th floor...

Day 5
Today I got up to an early start, got dropped off at the subway station by my cousin's house, and made my way back downtown.

Since it was still early, I found myself in the Theatre District - which was beautiful! Here's a shot of the Chicago Theatre.

Makes me so excited to get to Broadway!

I spent a few hours walking inside the Art Institute of Chicago, with all it's paintings, sculptures and miscellaneous pieces that tend to go right over my head. There were beautiful paintings by the likes of Van Gogh, and then you had this:

A pile of candy where they tell you to take a piece and enjoy.

I was skittish at first, but then the audio tour guide explained it all quite well. The artist is depicting his partner by using 175 lbs of candy (his body weight). And the partner has AIDS. Just as the pile slowly gets smaller, so too does the partner's body weight decreases as the disease progresses. (The story is a lot more eloquent via the audiotape. Not so much coming from me, and at midnight.)

Anyways, here's a piece that's a mirror with the figure of an art student, so that the viewer can become part of the piece... as so...

Afterwards I made my way to the United Center, home of the Chicago Bulls. I've never been a huge basketball fan, but I was watching back in the days of Michael Jordan, especially in the team's second three-peat. So getting a shot of his statue was high on my Chicago list.

Then I raced over to see the Blue Man Group, which was a really cool production in the vein of Stomp, but had more audience participation and was pretty funny. I had no pictures though, as I turned my phone off during this part of the day to save battery life. Though while walking around afterwards, I did walk by a pub that had this sign outside.

And to that, I say "CHEERS!"

Chicago in Instagrams - Day 3

The historic Wrigley Field, home of the Cubs! I'm not a Cubs fan (nor am I a hater), but it was cool to check out a game in an old school ballpark. Such a different feel than the modern era Petco Park.

Even the scoreboard is still old-school with people inside changing the tiles.

Then we went to the Sears Tower finally! We traveled up to the Skydeck on the 103rd floor in an elevator that shoots us up in about one minute. Now if only the Tower of Terror dropped us from such heights... anyway, here's a view of the skyline from way up, with Lake Michigan in the background. Such a HUGE lake it doesn't seem like a lake at all.

The Skydeck recently installed these glass decks that jut out four feet from the side of the building, so if you look down, you see 1000+ feet to the street below you. When I first approached the box, let's just say some... things jumped back inside of my body, as tends to happen when I even look down from a bridge because I hate heights! And then I manned up and stepped onto the glass... then sat down and smiled nervously for the picture to be taken.

Then we saw there was another deck (there were 4) where they took the picture for you, and I did what other families were doing... I jumped up! Though I jumped probably a tad too early, my feet definitely did leave the ground; I was probably just landing when this shot was taken. I tried to get my little 9 year old cousin (well, great-cousin?) to join me, but he was too scared to step on the deck, haha. 

We set out walking a bit and we came across the Art Institute of Chicago. Seriously, the museums here look AMAZING. Like what you imagine a museum should look like from the outside, complete with lions adorning both sides of the entrance. We didn't go inside, but I hope to before the trip is over. 

The famous Cloud Gate, aka "The Bean", in Millennium Park with reflections of the people and the buildings showing quite nicely.

Me and the parentals

The whole group's reflection as seen on the side of The Bean

And Buckingham Fountain at dusk... reminds me of the fountain from the Friends opening credits, but much larger and nicer. 

Chicago in Instagrams - Days 1 and 2

"She's a brick... HOUSE." First observation in Chicago? Lots of brick houses... maybe there was an angry wolf who went around huffing and puffing.

The Sears Tower... now called Willis Tower. But that's like how SD's Qualcomm Stadium is still Jack Murphy to a great deal of us locals. (Of course, there's no comparison to that dilapidated stadium to this wondrous architecture that we'll be going up on Day 3...

The Field Museum... right across from Soldier Field (football stadium)... looks so incredible from the outside and I could've spent more than an entire day inside... it is home to...

SUE! This is Sue. The most complete T-Rex anywhere in exhibit. My first time seeing a dinosaur fossil, I expected her to be bigger actually, but still amazing nonetheless.

This is one of the side entrances to the Shedd Aquarium... which blows SD's Birch Aquarium out of the water. It even has an indoor dolphin show, so it has shades of Sea World (though Sea World is better). Still a great place to check out. 

Outside of the Shedd Aquarium, we took pics with the Chicago Skyline... I needed to grab one with myself using the Instragam, but my cousin's husband with his nice Canon and accessories took a lot more. I'll post those somewhere if he can get those to us.

Love the Chicago skyline! SD's does not compare. That's the Sears Tower on the left. Seeing such a grand skyline has me excited for New York in two months! 

In the evening, we walked down Navy Pier, which was kinda Belmont Park-ish, but much nicer and with more to do. And we booked an architecture boat cruise, which took us down the Chicago River. The river goes through the city and the tour guide gave us all this cool info on the history of the city and the different buildings. 

Cool buildings!

Another cool building! Props to Chris for telling me this was a Trump creation... and MUCH better than that uninspired gold building in Vegas.