Philadelphia: Nov. 10

On Friday we woke up and tried to figure out what to do during the day. We decided to go to Center City (which is what those high-fallutin' people call downtown). Here is where I have to do 8 tons of research to figure out where the hell we went exactly. I have the general gist, but I still have to look at a map. (And ask Tom.)

We took the trolley and the subway to our destination. It was pretty much like other poob-lick transportation systems, I guess. We got yelled at for making the driver wait 0.005 seconds for us to put in our $2. The trolleys go on tracks on the road (which sucks if some asshole gets in the way, because they can't go around). They also go underground, like the el in Chicago.

First we went to the Liberty Bell. They have a security checkpoint there and the guard stationed outside seemed as bored and annoyed with his job as humanly possible. "LIKE I SAID...take everything out of your pockets! Everything!"

The Bell was sort of anti-climactic, I guess. The funniest thing was that we briefly named everything in the "museum" its name with "Freedom" in front of it, such as Freedom Bell, Freedom Chair, Freedom Document, Freedom Jefferson Davis, etc. By the way, the picture of him that was posted looks EXACTLY like Abraham Lincoln, so I unthinkingly said "Freedom Abraham Lincoln" and then felt really dumb.

Here is a picture of the bell showing the misspelling of Pennsylvania (it says "Pensylvania"). I don't know if there is a reason for that or if it's a total mistake. I'm inclined to think there is a reason. I also made sure to have part of a guy's legs and arm and a lady's hand in the picture. That is always a priority for me.





















Next we walked around the area a little bit. We passed over a sidewalk which had historical people's names engraved in it. Here is a sampling. I am making up the names, but see if you see anything funny.

George W. Roberts, Gentleman
Franklin A. Smith, Lawyer
John M. Percival, Gentleman
Thomas J. Wilson, Book-Binder
Dr. Andrew J. Thompson

There were a couple of things about that which we found hilarious. 1) That they titled multiple people "Gentleman." 2) That Dr. Andrew J. Thompson wasn't good enough to get a title (or that they considered "Dr." his title).

We passed by Benjamin Franklin's grave which was hilarious because you have to pay to get in, but it's right next to a giant opening in the wall, so you can see it well from outside the wall. So, there was a gathering around it inside the wall and another gathering outside. I found it funny and slightly awkward.

We went to a place called Elfreth's Alley, which is (somehow) the oldest residential street in the country. We discussed how that happened (i.e. when did they start deciding to preserve the houses?) but couldn't come up with anything. It's completely surrounded by a dense commercial and industrial area. Right around the corner was some company which said "Established in 929" because the 1 had fallen off. We joked that that modern-looking building had been there for over 1000 years and Native Americans had started the company.

Here is a picture of the oldest residential street in the country. There is a union jack hanging off one of the buildings. I believe people still live in some of the houses, and there also seemed to be a museum of some sort.






















Here is a picture of one of the doors. It really bothered me because the residents are obviously trying way too hard to be 18th century, or something. There is no way "Letters" was ever spelled like that.

















We went to a record store near there which reminded me of Electric Fetus here in Mpls.

We then walked a little more and sat down by the Delaware River. For your information, it separates Philadelphia from Camden, NJ. (From what I gather, Camden is every Pennsylvanian's favorite city.) Here is a photo taken from our resting spot of the Ben Franklin Bridge.

















Another one of some boats.


















Here is another one of Camden.

















After that we walked some more to a nearby area (South Street) which is pretty much a bigger version of State Street in Madison. We went to Tower Records to see if they had any cheap stuff, since they are going out of business. They didn't have anything good.

At that point I was getting ridiculously tired so we went back closer to Tom's abode to a restaurant. The restaurant we patronised was called New Deck Tavern. We had to wait a while, but it was worth it I think. Yum. It was extremely loud in there.

After that we went home and pretty much watched some screen-related entertainment and went to sleep.

Philadelphia: Nov. 9

Man, this is going to be difficult to write about. I've sort of been dreading it. But I'll do my best. So, as many of you know, I went to Philadelphia to visit Tom. The trip was from November 9-15. I was very lucky to be able to take a week off from work.

November 9 started out very early for me. I actually woke up at 2:30am because of a mistake in alarm-setting. Tom works until 2-3 my time, so I had requested that he call me to make sure I was up. But, he didn't have to. I let him know I was awake and then he went to sleep and I got ready. I rode in a taxi to the airport. It's a good thing I knew how to get there, because he didn't. (I thought I called the "Airport Taxi" for a reason.)

So, I got to the Port of Airplanes WAY too early. Then the flight was delayed by an hour. So I ended up waiting at the gate for probably about 3 hours? The flight was pretty good. I got the 3-seat row to myself (yay). I didn't sleep at all.

Then I arrived at the airport and needed to use the bathroom extremely badly. The only one I found was being cleaned (convenient). So I just went to get my bags and called Tom. While I was waiting for him to pick me up, a lady started talking to me and using my phone because hers was dead and such. She was interesting.

Well, Tom came shortly thereafter and we drove back to his apartment. Meanwhile we met some traffic. Some guys had decided that noon on a Thursday was the best time to replace some wires in the middle of a street. We laughed at some signs that were around.

I was just going to pinpoint where he lives, but a) that's not safe and b) does anyone really care?

We hung around the apartment for a couple of hours trying not to fall asleep and then decided to go for a walk. We walked around the area (West Philadelphia - damn you, song that inevitably gets in your head). We went through part of the University of Pennsylvania campus and I think part of Drexel (where Tom goes). We walked by what I believe is one of the oldest football stadiums in the US, and where Invincible with Mark Wahlberg was filmed.

A running joke that we kept having was overexaggerating how many important things happened in Philadelphia and how many important people were from there. Finally we decided that everyone is from Philadelphia except me and James Carville (who is from Louisiana). Also, basically every movie in existence was filmed there (we didn't discuss this as much as the important people, but it was implied).

During our walk we stopped at a pond next to "an architecturally important building" of some sort. There were toitles in the pond that were unbelievably cute. One was half wet from dipping itself into the pond. Two of them were on this log thing in the middle of the pond and didn't move the entire time we sat there. A guy took our picture for some local newspaper, so now there is a random picture floating around in some paper of Tom and me looking at some toitles.

There were a bunch of birds hopping around, and we discussed how males are usually the prettier of the genders, bird-wise. Tom called them "men" and I laughed for about 5 minutes. "Yeah, generally the men are prettier." HAHA.

Then we saw a guy peeing by a tree and we left. We walked back home and laughed at one stop light which has that alarm noise so blind people can know when to cross. Every time we went past it from then on we faked being completely confused about what to do.

We had pizza for dinner and it was yummy. Then we just hung around Tom's apartment for the rest of the night, probably watching "Curb Your Enthusiasm," which is my new favorite show.

I don't have any pictures from this day, but here is a picture of me and THOMAS, where he looks handsome and I look like a dead body.

Note

Tom is a sex god. Does anyone object?

Read this thing I just found on myspace

Isn't it sweet?

Hello, everyone -

It's Chris Walla from Death Cab for Cutie. We hope this message
finds you healthy and well. Things are nice out on the road - the
shows have been amazing thus far, and it's exciting to get to all the
towns we've never been to.

As you probably know, tomorrow - that is, Tuesday, November 7 -
is election day in our fair country, the USA. Whatever your
political leanings, be they left, right or center, make the effort to
get out and vote. There is certainly some combination of national
seats (some combination of house and / or senate positions) to be
decided in your state. And all the things that affect your town -
school and library levies, civic seats, ballot measures and other
referenda - will be decided as well. Voting is one of the few
chances we Americans have to put aside the static of the radio,
Internet and television and to speak decisively about the things that
affect us all. It's vital that we all do so in such a time of
transition and turmoil.

We're a very lucky band to have such committed and sweet fans. Thank
you for everything you give to us, and for allowing us to
occasionally say something unrelated to music, tickets, concerts or
commerce. Please VOTE on Tuesday, November 7.

On behalf of DCfC, thank you, and take care of one another -

Chris

Some information

I got some new shampoo and I love it.

 

I love Arcade Fire. Sorry, Tom.

 

My head kind of hurts.

Comcast

Comcast can bite me.

Ugh

Yesterday at work (where, incidentally, I am now) my former boss decided that she would give me this giant project. It's possibly the most confusing thing that exists on earth. And nobody has been able to figure it out. So, she gave it to me and was like "Here. Thanks." Also, oh, she failed to mention that a bunch of orders are waiting on me figuring this out, because the store pretty much shut down this week because of shittiness in setup. I am so frustrated I'm almost crying.

 

The problem here is that I almost never work in the store that the problem is in, and I'm petrified of doing something wrong. I really want to go in and clean it up, but I just have no idea what's going on. I'm so angry at the whole situation.

 

The plus side is that I was able to get almost all of the orders to go through, but the main thing she wants me to do is still looming out there like a black hole. AAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHH. How does this happen? It's just month after month after month of carelessness and laziness on the part of everyone. After a while your store ends up a complete piece of shit and forces orders to fail because it's so incredibly crapped up. You need to keep on top of things like this so that gigantic problems don't happen.

 

You can't even imagine how messed up this is. I mean, think about it. I'm a smart person and I'm at a complete loss. Anyway..........I'm just going to leave it because if I look at it anymore I'll burn my own skin off with my new office heater.

 

My sister sprained her ankle the other night and I had to take her to the emergency room.

 

My cable went out again.

 

I am angry. I am going to stop writing now.

Long time, no "blog"

Not much has been going on around here, really. I've been immensely enjoying the weather, which has been mostly cloudy and below 40 (aka my favorite weather). I absolutely love November and I can't wait for it to get here. It even snowed a couple of times.

Um...I've been reading Catch-22?

I watched a few movies this weekend, none of which were really good enough to even mention right now. I actually really want to watch a movie I just saw over on my shelf. It's on VHS. I haven't watched a VHS movie in a long time, which is kind of sad.

I went to Kohl's today and was extremely annoyed at almost everything they had. I did manage to find a coat, which is what I went there for. I am kind of annoyed with the two coats I have because one of them is extremely noisy and the other is a little too...really, really wintry. The coat was "55% off." I say that in quotes because who knows how much it's "supposed" to be? I have a feeling Kohl's really marks up their retail prices so that their own prices look better. Alls I knows is I am very happy with the price I paid and that's all. Kohl's has some really weird stuff. I can't even believe some of the stuff they have.

I watched a pretty boring movie this morning that had Blythe Danner in it when she was younger, and I couldn't believe how much she looks like the current Gwyneth Paltrow. I wonder how the Paltrow-Martins are doing. I do not wonder enough to actually go look.

Jesus Christ, I just remembered my website. I'm going to make a conscious choice to re-forget about that now.

I'm really pissed off that I have to go to work tomorrow. I am going to Philadelphia in two and a half weeks. Thank god for that thought...I think if I had to go to work tomorrow without some kind of thought like that I'd saw both my hands off.

Genius

I can't believe my genius in making one of my cell phone ringtones be "Calling You" (the Jeff Buckley version). It is great because the lyrics are "I am calling you." WHAT? JEFF BUCKLEY IS CALLING ME? FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE?

I went to a coworker's wedding yesterday. It was hysterical to talk to my coworkers who were there, because we were absolutely ripping on everyone else who wasn't there. It is the most interesting thing to work in an office sometimes. Everyone secretly hates everyone else. I wonder if anyone hates me. I bet there are times when ipod guy hates me. Hopefully not all the time. I'm a pretty mellow person, and many of the people I work with are not. For instance, I know a lot of people don't like Dan or ipod guy. Anyway, it's just a hilarious, confusing, and frustrating web of relationships. I am lucky enough to be on a "side" where I can pretty much see everything. Ah, office politics.

I just ate 5 sausages in about 20 seconds. That has to be a record.

Sigh.

The wedding otherwise was ok. It was pretty small. I can't say it was the best wedding I have ever been to, but at least it gave me ideas to put in my ever-growing collection of wedding ideas. And yes, I have one. I wonder if I even have it right here. Hmmmm...no, I don't think I do. I wonder why it is that girls plan their weddings for their entire lives. It's some kind of weird instinct. I know it's not a human instinct because weddings are not something that humans need to survive. It must be one that we gradually evolved into. Haha, it's funny imagining if throughout time wedding planning was a naturally selected trait. Anyway, alls I knows is that I definitely have my ideas and have even gone so far as writing them down in a notebook somewhere, which is conveniently lost. One of them from yesterday is having a buffet instead of a served meal. I think that's an excellent idea. You'd waste so much less food. Or at least, the food you'd "waste" would be salvageable as leftovers because it would have never been served as opposed to coming from someone's plate. Plus, guests wouldn't have to worry about making anyone feel bad by not eating anything. SOOOOO. Next subject.

It's nice out today. Next subject.

Nothing left to say. Goodbye.

St. Louis Part VI: Zoo

I really need to just finish this. It is the #1 thing that is bothering me in my life right now. This is probably going to be not interesting at all, but at least I have pictures and maybe like 2 stories. We really enjoyed anthropomorphizing the animals. Too bad you can't hear the voices we gave them, but you can see what we said.





"God, it's hot."




"Doo doo doo...just walkin' around...doo doo doo"


"Hey! Where are those goats! We can't let them see us!"


"Man, check out this stick. This is the best tasting stick ever."


This giraffe was getting quite a bit of attention because it was eating leaves out of people's hands. I fed it one myself.


This ostrich yelled at that gazelle a couple of times because it got in its way. Hehe.


"Hey! I'm a bear!" (You REALLY need to hear my voice for that one).


"Whatcha doin'?" Man this is a hysterical picture. I got an extremely close picture of the penguin that's pointing, because it walked over to the side and was staring at me, but I seem to have misplaced it.




"Check me out, I'm a polar bear" (another one where you have to hear the voice). This polar bear was also doing the model walk. We also decided it was way, way smarter than the other bears, especially the "spectacled bears."


I don't know what else I can write. I don't think I can physically say any more. The St. Louis airport really threw me off. Parking at the airport was $36 for 3 days and 2 nights. It was a good trip, but way too short.

Whiteboard

God, it feels like I haven't been on my own computer in ages. I am killing some time because these jerks have started using the "fitness center" during "my" time. It's too bad it isn't more normal to have more than one person in there.




Here is a picture of the whiteboard in the office ipod guy and I share. There's my nametag above it and my desk is behind that wall. I've been wanting to share this for a while because it is so interesting to me. It became really popular recently to come and draw on it. If the office looks dark, it is because we keep the lights off and use lamps. Here are some highlights of our whiteboard.

- Monkey Dance Party by Dan
- Cave drawings and Loch Ness Monster by myself and ipod guy
- MST3K stuff by me
- Sideshow Bob (bottom left) by ipod guy
- The title of our office, "The Cave of 55°" which was later changed to 62°-65.5° when I brought a thermometer in. Today it topped out at 68, and I hear it'll get much warmer over the winter.

grumble x 5

here is something that will really get a person on my bad side. do this in order, as a guy i know, and i'll probably dislike you for a long time.

1) come in my office and start blabbing about television shows
2) discuss how great magnum p.i. was
3) in the same breath, rip down all science fiction shows
4) after hearing that stargate sg-i is my favorite show, continue to protest that it's a horrible show
5) stick around for a long time blabbing even more about how much you know about stuff

seriously, that's what he did. he went off on how bad all science fiction shows are. now, ok. i understand that some people don't like science fiction at all, but that's a lot different than saying it's "all shit." i'd like to see him watch battlestar galactica and say that's shit. seriously. that's one of the best shows i've ever seen in any genre, bar none. and picking on a show that i JUST said was my favorite? that's just mean-spirited. i wanted to argue more, but he's the type of person that can't be argued with.

also, according to him, if it's not on a mac, it might as well be blown to smithereens because it's completely and utterly useless. not only useless, but total shit as well and the scum of the earth and evil. etc...you get my gist.

St. Louis Part V: Sufjan Stevens (and My Brightest Diamond)

I don't know how I managed to get Brighton and Emily to go with me to this, but I am glad they did. Maybe it was simply asking. Who knows? Anyway, St. Louis, much like Chicago, has a thing called "The Loop" which is where this show was. The Loop in St. Louis is, I believe, in the midst of Washington University. Once we got there we tried to find a restaurant and finally settled on a Mexican restaurant. I am still not sure what it's called, because the storefront said one thing, the menu said another, and the check said yet another. That was funny.

The show was at a place called The Pageant:



I really enjoyed our seats. The only thing blocking my view was a railing. The gradation of the seats was pretty good. B and E may have had head blockage, but I was on the aisle, I was on the ava-aisle. (A little Avalanche humour). The merchandise table was hidden and we only found it thanks to Emily's new-found Korean boldness. All three of us bought a shirt (they only had one available). It was $10 and that's why we all bought one. It has a very comic-book looking picture of a sky blue Avalanche (the truck, of course, not the Colorado hockey team or the natural disaster) and it says "Ride the hatch!" I was hoping they would have more choices, but OH WELL.

My Brightest Diamond consisted of a girl who sang and played various instruments, two violins, a viola, and a cello. Occasionally other instrumentalists would come in as well. All of the people in the band also performed with Sufjan the entire time. I thought the main girl was very talented. B and E did not like her at all. They thought the music was a little weird. Actually, that band reminded me a little bit of Amiina, or Amína, or whatever they are now called. The girl sounds like a combo between Bjork and Tori Amos.

Sufjan was so good and SO adorable. My favorite thing of all was that he always clapped with everyone else when he was finished with a song. His voice is so pretty. Everyone in the band was wearing butterfly wings, and Sufjan wore hawk wings. He commented that in this tour they were called "His Majesty Hawk and the Chinese Butterfly Band" or something like that. I know for sure the band is called the Chinese Butterfly Band because I later saw it online. He said that the theme of a lot of the songs he had decided to play was flight and flying and stuff. The most interesting thing was that when he was playing guitar he would sort of rock back and forth so his wings would go back and forth. It was actually very mesmerizing and beautiful in a way that only Sufjan Stevens could pull off.

Here are songs he played, in no order. I am sure I missed a couple, but that is ok.

Jacksonville (the crowd loved this one)
Chicago (if he seriously did not play that it would have to be because of a David Bowie-China Girl type situation).
Casimir Pulaski Day (which was extremely different than the album version, which I expected. It was pretty upbeat, considering it's a song about death. P.S. Missouri has a Pulaski County. Yay, my favorite Revolutionary War era historical figure!)
Predatory Wasp (etc etc etc, whatever the entire title is)
They Are Night Zombies! Aaahh! (etc etc etc) (That was like a karaoke thing where the words were on the screen. It bothered be because they were WAY off).
Detroit
All The Trees (etc etc)
A Good Man Is Hard To Find
Transfiguration
The Dress Looks Nice On You (which Emily liked. I would like to clarify to Emily that this song is probably not about Jesus, as I said it was, but it might as well be because 90% of that album is).
Abraham
Mr. Supercomputer (which was abbreviated because he "couldn't remember the words")
A new song called Lord God Bird or something like that (I thought it was very, very pretty)

I don't know, I wished he'd have done more from The Avalanche (and less from Seven Swans) because The Avalanche is (weirdly) my favorite of his and it's also his newest. But that's ok. As long as he did CP Day. I was actually really pleased with Detroit, and Predatory Wasp (etc etc etc) was REALLY good. Before that song he told a story that apparently gave him the idea for the song, which may or may not have been true. The story was pretty much the story in the song, except that it was him and not a fictional song character.

Here are some pictures of the adorable, lovable, and sweet Sufjan Stevens, which I took with Brightons much-better-than-mine camera (thanks so much, B!).









This next one is my masterpiece. See if you can tell why. I hope not, but you probably will be able to tell. If you click on it, you will be taken to a larger, crappier looking version.



Well, the deal with that is that I Photoshopped about 10 pictures together. I couldn't get a photo of the entire stage because of the railings. I think it turned out ok. If I remember correctly, the thing on the screen is supposed to be a butterfly.

I guess that's it for that. The three of us really enjoyed it. I am so very happy we were able to go. It was one of the best shows I've ever seen, probably because of the non-blocked vision, the fact that I love him so much, and the fact that he just seems so sweet. Hope you enjoyed. Up next is the zoo.

St. Louis Part IV: The GATEWAY Arch

After we were done with the Boat-an-eye-cal Gardens, we were completely exhausted (at least I was). I could barely even walk to the car, but I did manage to make it there. Brighton then drove to the downtown area (or at least what I believe to be the downtown area). We drove past the arch and tried to find a place to eat, which was apparently really difficult. Finally we just parked in a ramp and went to buy tickets for going up in the arch. We asked the people there where eating places were and they told us. The ticket thing was this cart that was parked in an area near the arch. We laughed at it because it had a gauged out part. We decided that someone had gotten angry at it and jammed a model of a Pyramid at Giza into it. Later on we decided that someone had gotten angry and jammed one of the sections of the arch into it. We joked that some measurements had gone horribly, horribly wrong and the section was way too small. "Shit, I measured in millimeters! You said it had to be METERS?" And then they didn't notice it was way too small until they got it up in the scaffolding and tried to put it in. "When I was on the ground and held it up, it looked like just the right size!"

We walked around and found a restaurant, where I forgot to ask for my salad without dressing so it was too drenched in it. Emily took the fastest bathroom break ever at that place.

Then we walked back over to the arch area and started taking a million pictures. I felt sort of like a tool because it's so weird just taking pictures of a giant metal object. After my about 40th picture my battery went dead. I was EXTREMELY angry because that meant a) I couldn't get pictures at the top of the arch and b) I couldn't get pictures of Sufjan. So I just tried to get over it and decided it would allow me to concentrate better on what was happening as opposed to being obsessed with taking a picture. Here are some pictures I took outside of the arch. There was no possible way I could get the entire thing in, unless I went down to this lake where Emily and Brighton went, and I was too tired.







After a little while we went inside and I was shocked to find out that they had a security checkpoint with a metal detector and everything. Luckily we didn't have to take off our shoes. They have two stores in there as well as a museum and I think two theatres. We watched a documentary which was pretty entertaining. I swear to god I saw someone eating popcorn.

Then we went to the area where you get on the little pods to go to the top. There were a total of 4 people that had to escort us. That was weird. One of them took our picture (which was for a souvenir, not for security, I don't think). The last guy said, "Hey! Nice to be greeted by 4 ladies!" We later joked that he said that to everyone who came down. "Hey! Nice to be greeted by a man, his wife, their two kids, a blind guy, and his seeing-eye dog!" I am not sure how we started doing that, but at the time it was absolutely hysterical.

The top was interesting. I was mildly scared, but it wasn't bad at all. The windows were pretty tiny, which helped. It also helped that the thing didn't move at all. It sort of reminded me of an airplane.

The little pods you have to get in were weird. They reminded me of "2001: A Space Odyssey." They were ridiculously tiny, yet they supposedly fit 5 people. They were kind of jerky, too.

Oh yeah, a comical thing was that Brighton was trying to find anything that didn't mention the word Gateway. There was not a thing.

Well, that's that for that, and now I'm going to do the Sufjan entry.

An interesting situation

I hope this isn't going to sound conceited, but it probably will in some way. Lately at work people have been ranting and raving about my intelligence. It has been making me kind of uncomfortable.

1) People were ranting about how "good" I am at Photoshop and saying I am the best in the company. There are several things wrong with that. a) We have people whose job is to do graphics. There is no way I'm better than someone who does graphics for a job. b) Sure, I know how to use Photoshop, but honestly, I'm not that good at it. I can figure out the tools, but I'm not that insanely good if you compare me to the general population.

2) There is a certain percentage of each day that seems to be devoted to talking about how smart I am and how I am the smartest person in the office. Seriously. And talking about how I shouldn't be working there because I have too many skills or something. a) It's a similar thing to Photoshop. I know that I learn well and I am good at figuring things out and retaining knowledge involving what we do. I think the hugest thing at my job is just being able to figure stuff out and that's why I've done well. But if you compare me to the general population, I'm really not THAT smart. As I get older and learn more, I just realize how little I really know. Searching for a job really taught me that (the hard way). I thought, hey, I am pretty marketable and well-rounded. But when I was looking for a job I felt like I was being dragged through the mud and stripped of all my credibility and dignity and any self-confidence I had and everything else. So it's really weird to then be called extremely smart. Because if that was so true, why didn't I have a ton of job offers? Did I really do that bad of a job on my resume and in interviews? And why did I have SO much trouble in college?

3) Ipod guy, when he was done with his quota of talking about my intelligence for today, then proceeded to tell me I am a really intimidating person and it's hard for people to talk to me. Well, THANKS. I guess I knew that, but what do you want me to do? I don't really know how to be less intimidating.

4) People keep telling me I look nice in red. Thanks, I guess. Aboubt 80% of my clothes are red, so I guess that works.

So basically that's my deal. Feeling really uncomfortable because I think they are way overreacting, and because I don't know how to respond day after day. I guess there are worse problems to be had, but whatever.

St. Louis Part III: Botanical Gardens

I cannot stop calling this the "BOAT-a-NIE-cal" gardens. Similarly, I cannot stop calling St. Louis "St. Louis, Moe" because of how the state abbreviation is MO....

We got up somewhat early to go to the Boat-a-nie-cal gardens. That place was quite the place. They had a Chihuly thing going on where (can you guess?) Chihuly sculptures were strategically placed throughout the grounds. I took about 90,000 pictures there, for some reason. When I got back home and looked at my pictures, I was astonished at how many pictures of plants I took, especially because I held myself back quite a bit. It was a little ridiculo. So, here is going to be a collection of pictures that Tom will find extremely boring.

















My kindred spirit plant:



Here are some photos from one of the two rose gardens (which is also where I got the shot of that bee that I posted the other day):











When we were leaving, Brighton spotted this:



We slowly walked up to it and got very close before we finally just decided to leave. I don't think it ever ran away from us. Brighton and her mom decided that the garden keepers had introduced foxes to control the pesky rabbit population.



Here is a funny thing I saw on the ground:



And a bridge with a sculpture on it:

St. Louis Part I: Flight Hijinks (Not Hijacks); Part II: Cave

Part I: Flight Hijinks (Not Hijacks)

I really feel dizzy right now. Anyway, I was sitting at my desk the Friday we were supposed to leave and I got a frantic phone call from Emily saying that the flight was cancelled. Thank God she was on top of it, because she managed to get both of us scheduled on a flight the next morning at 7 am. I have no idea what I would have done if she didn't take care of it. I probably would have ended up going to the airport and finding out there that it was cancelled. So, Emily came to my apartment that night and spent the night, and we woke up at 3:30 and managed to get ourselves in gear and out the door by 4:45. Then we drove to the airport and parked, and took a bus and a tram to the ticketing area. I got an "amenities coupon" because the flight was cancelled, but Emily didn't. We later discovered that it was $35 off a flight, but Emily has frequent flyer miles, which we assumed they added to instead of giving her a coupon.

So then we went through all the security crap and walked approximately 11 miles to the gate. Thoroughly exhausted, we waited for the plane and then got on the plane and it took off, and landed. Wow, how unbelievable. Actually, it was a way faster trip than I thought. It took less than an hour. When we got there, we became confused about getting our luggage, but managed to do it. I'll just say right now that that is a weird airport. Brighton came and picked us up.

It was pretty rainy outside so the first thing we did was go to the Omnitheater, or as they call it there, the Omnimax. We saw a film about Ancient Greece and a film about Mt. Kilimanjaro. The Greece one was ok, but I fell asleep during the last 1/4 of it. The Kilimanjaro one was good. Our main concerns with the Greece one was that the preview for it had false advertising in it. "Join us as we search for the lost city of Atlantis!" When really they mentioned once in the movie that one guy thought that some island might be Atlantis. And following true Brighton critical form, we concluded after much debate that an entire elephant could not walk up to the top of Mt. Kilimanjaro and that bones were probably carried by people or other animals.

We then went to a barbecue restaurant, which was pretty good, except my green beans had a weird spice on them.

Part II: Cave

Then we decided to go to this cave called Onondaga Cave. Somehow we got on a road that was having work done, and got in one of the worst traffic jams I think I've ever been in. Brighton said it took an hour to go 7 miles. It then took another long while to get to the actual place. On the way there and back we passed through a rural area that had gotten hit by a tornado the night before. There were a few huge trees that had been completely uprooted and were lying on top of houses. That was a weird sight. We also saw a turtle walking across the road, and much to our enjoyment, Emily shouted out "Toytle!" (as in an old time NY accent). I laughed for about 15 minutes, and from then on whenever we could find a time to use that accent, we did. We made frequent use of the word "choich" for church, as well.

Here is a sign we saw along the way:



We had to watch a video that was unintentionally funny, and then went into the cave, which was cool temperature wise but extremely humid. Here are some pictures from the cave. They are pretty boring, because there's no way you can tell what you're actually looking at. This first thing was apparently 17 feet long, which I thought was insane.









After that, we drove back and had a wonderful dinner back at Brighton's household. Then we went to bed because we were exhausted. I got to sleep in David's sleep number bed, which was really comfortable.

weird

i hate how at times i am really ok with my life and then in a matter of hours i really am not. ughhhh.