I have been accused of some of the worst puns in history. These are characterized by a a conversation that is randomly interrupted minutes later by an outburst of laughter from me, followed by the joke, followed by an awkward silence from everybody except me. Sometimes I’m faster and the joke comes out almost immediately. Sometimes people laugh. It varies. But it’s always a really corny pun.

Once I was in a meeting at work and we were discussing changes to a database. After a few minutes of discussion with no progress, I said “I think we should table this” after which I burst into laughter. Of course, only people who are familiar with databases and Robert’s rules of order would get the joke, so it was pretty specific. Nonetheless, I couldn’t contain myself and for the rest of the meeting bit my tongue and refrained from looking at anyone. THAT is a Bobism; a joke or pun that requires some very specific knowledge of two completely separate fields. In this case, it was database structure (databases are made of tables of data) and Robert’s rules (a set of rules that specify how meetings proceed. An issue that is tabled means discussion ceases and the issue is resumed later). It is a good double entendre in the right crowd.

On vacation in Chicago I had another Bobism. Adam and I were talking about places to eat when Adam said we should eat at Jim’s because it was an institution among Chicago natives. I replied that I really like to do the local things and experience the native culture and not the touristy stuff. Then I said, “I guess you could say I’m committed to institutions.” Naturally I burst out laughing and sat in disappointment as Adam groaned and told me how only a very small audience would appreciate that joke, while secretly wishing he had come up with the pun himself (I can only imagine).

Those who have been around me have no doubt experienced a Bobism, and while they pretend to be embarrassed for me, I know they wish they had thought of it first. Anyway, I plan to use my “committed to institutions” line again in the future, and I hope by then the audience will be able to appreciate the Bobism.

A while ago we hiked up mailbox peak, where there was indeed a mailbox. I took the opportunity to test the postal system by posting two items: a letter addressed to myself and a netflix envelope containing a note and a blank cd. See my mailbox peak post for more. Upon returning from Chicago, I had two pieces of mail waiting for me.

The first was the letter I had sent myself. It had been postmarked from Seattle the 17th of June, just a couple days after I had put it in the 14th. It was a little worn, but still in good condition and unopened. I’m assuming someone took it and placed it in their own mailbox. To the person that did it, thanks!

The second one was far more interesting, though. Netflix has a strange process for returning cds that have been sent on accident. I had included my email address on the note inside the return envelope, which they used to access my account and get my address. They then printed a new sleeve with that address on it. They put the blank cd into that sleeve, and added a cut-out note. Oddly, this note has a grammar error in it, suggesting it hadn’t been thoroughly vetted by Netflix staff and isn’t used frequently. This then went into a slightly oversized envelope, and was stamped with a normal stamp. Further adding to the mystery, this envelope doesn’t have a postmark. How did it get through USPS without getting postmarked? Where did the envelope come from? The return address is Netflix’s main address, but not necessarily the address from which it was sent. It’s all very interesting, and it’s cool that Netflix went through all that effort to return the cd. It was blank, so I didn’t really need it back, and if Netflix is reading this, I’m sorry for costing you a few dollars for my experiment; you performed way beyond my expectations.

For the past week, I’ve been in Chicago on vacation. Immediately following is a summary of all the things we did during the time I was there. We did so much every day and night, and experienced a huge range of all that Chicago has to offer. It was a great trip, and I’m really glad I had Adam and Sarah to hang out with and show me around:

• Thursday night - arrived late at 11:40 despite taking the hour earlier flight. Had to check baggage. ugh. Adam and Sarah picked me up, we talked till 2.
• Friday - DuSable African American museum, lunch at Jim’s (sausages). Mario Kart. Picked Sarah up at work, ate at Pint, bar hopping near Sarah’s work and Wicker Park.
• Saturday - Breakfast at Valois. Bike ride with Sarah. Taste of Randolph St. festival. Book store at Lincoln Square, then The Grind for dinner. Mario Kart, Sex and the City, clubbing, Flash Taco.
• Sunday - Watched last of Sex and the City episodes, watched all of Flight of the Conchords, others got up at 1. Couldn’t find a restaurant - Al’s, Wishbone, others near Randolph. Greek Restaurant was open and very good. Checkerboard Lounge for jazz after
• Monday - Breakfast with Sarah at home, then Library. Adam dropped us off at MCA, but it was closed. Walked Michigan Ave to Lego Store and Ethel’s Chocolate Lounge, then to Chicago Board of Trade, met Adam at Fed Reserve. Lunch at Al’s Italian Beef at 4. Back to apt. Kingston Mines for blues music.
• Tuesday - MCA with Adam, Michigan Ave again, lunch with Sarah at Earwax Cafe, Gino’s East Pizza, Jersey Boys
• Wednesday - Chicago History Museum, met Sarah for lunch at Milk&Honey, field museum, navy pier, cirque shanghai, made soup.
• Thursday - Saw Adam and Sarah off, looked up apartments, caught up with email, left the apt, took slow bus to blue line, met Sarah for lunch at Pot Pan Thai, delayed flights, spent night in Denver airport.

And now, the detailed version:

For the past week I’ve been in Chicago on vacation. It was a forced vacation of sorts; I’ve been working too many hours, so I had to take some time off. Fortunately, we have flex time, so it was a week of vacation that didn’t use my vacation time. I used frequent flier miles to book the trip, and I was staying with friends, so the major expenses associated with a vacation were already taken care of.

I left on a Thursday afternoon and got to Chicago just fine. There was an earlier flight to Chicago, so I thought I’d capitalize on it and see if I could get in an hour early. I got on standby, and even had my name called. Once I got on the plane, I was put into first class seating, but there wasn’t any overhead storage, so my bag had to be checked. No big deal, I figured, as I’d still be arriving early and getting a first class seat. Unfortunately, the person who had my seat arrived, so I was almost screwed. There was a counting mistake, and it turned out there was accidentally still an available seat in the back, so I was sent back there. Then the plane was delayed significantly; we didn’t take off until my original flight was scheduled to leave. I arrived in Chicago not having saved any time AND having to wait in baggage claim for my bag. Ugh. Adam and Sarah met me at the airport and we drove back to their apartment, then talked for a couple hours before going to bed.

Friday Adam and I went to the DuSable African American Museum. It was interesting, but a little thin. Afterward we went out for lunch. I really like experiencing the local stuff off the tourist path, and we both felt like sausages, so we went to Jim’s right off the highway for sausages and fries. They came with hot peppers on the side. Curious, I took a bite, and immediately after swallowing had a bout of hiccups that took careful concentration and breathing to overcome. Back at the apartment we played a lot of Mario Kart until it was time to pick up Sarah at 3:30. We parked the car and started wandering around Division and Milwaukee. We had drinks at each of a number of places along the way, eating dinner at Pint, and continuing on to Wicker Park. It rained a little, but nothing serious. we got home and went to bed.

Saturday the three of us went to a place down the street called Valois, which is a great cafeteria-style restaurant, except that they made it in real-time. By the time we got through the line our omelets and sausages and hashbrowns were all ready. Sarah and I went for a bike ride down the path on the lake shore. We went south to South Beach, then turned around and rode back. It was a pleasant ride, with no elevation change and very little bike traffic. We found a festival that looked interesting, so we went to Randolph St. The festival wasn’t as cool as we had hoped; an odd assortment of vendors, food and beer, and very little to do. There was some live music, but we weren’t into it. We decided to go to Lincoln square up North and saw the throng of people leaving the baseball game and crowding into the bars. We had a nice little dinner at The Grind, and went into a tiny bookstore in Lincoln Square that had stacks of books everywhere and no organization or even easy way to squeeze through the aisles. It was cute. We drove back to the apartment to get ready for the night, then watched some Sex and the City episodes and played Mario Kart. We went out clubbing, and were supposed to meet a group of people for a 21st birthday party, but a hangup at the club had us not on the list, so we went somewhere else to wait for the rest to arrive, but their plans changed, and we ended up just the three of us. At about 4am we left and stopped at Flash Taco for some food on the way home. I wasn’t tired yet so I watched another episode of Sex and the City, then slept on the living room couch.

Sunday I was up at 9am. I watched a DVD of Flight of the Conchords, which was pretty fun. Then the others got up at around 1. It was a lazy afternoon. We eventually got out of the apartment and went searching for food. Oddly enough, everything was closed in Little Italy, so the original Al’s Italian sausage wasn’t going to happen. Neither was Wishbone, which is right next to Oprah’s studios. It took us a while, but we finally found a Greek restaurant that was not only open but enormous and crowded. We had some really good Greek food. We dropped it off at the apartment, then went out to a place nearby called the Checkerboard Lounge, which is a jazz club. The band was ok. The saxophonist wasn’t very good, and whenever he did a solo he’d ignore the rhythm and just play as many notes as he could as fast as he could. The singer and trumpet player were great, and the keyboard, drums, and bass were rock solid. They played some tunes I knew and some that I hadn’t heard before. We left a little early, and stopped by the grocery store for ice cream on the way.

Monday morning was pretty lazy. Sarah and I had breakfast at home and talked. Adam got back from his meeting and picked us up. We stopped by the library to get some museum passes, then Adam brought us to the Museum of Contemporary Art and dropped us off while he went to his next meeting. Unfortunately, the MCA is closed on Mondays, so we took a long hike along Michigan Ave, stopping at a mall for Ethel’s Chocolate Lounge and to ogle the statues at the Lego store. We continued our hike to the Chicago Board of Trade. The observation deck to the trading floor isn’t open to visitors, except for some academic groups, so I tried to see if I could make a convincing case to the security lady, but she shut me down before I had the chance to spin my yarn. Still, there was a visitor center, so we perused that for a while. Then we went next door to the Federal Reserve, where they have a small museum. There was a movie, and the docent was someone who had been in the business for a while and had some interesting stories and opinions, so we listened to him for a while, too. Eventually Adam arrived, and we finished up at the reserve. There were free bags of real shredded money, so I got a souvenir. We hadn’t had lunch yet, and it was nearly 4, so we tried again at Al’s Italian Beef, and this time managed to get some sandwiches and fries. Back to the apartment, where we played some more Mario Kart before going out to a place called Kingston Mines for some live blues. The place was free to students, so I used my old student ID to get in, and it was set up with two stages and two bands. First one stage would play for an hour, then the band on the other stage played for an hour. It was a good time.

Tuesday Adam and I had breakfast, then took the public transit down to Sarah’s office and walked to the nearby Earwax Cafe for lunch. Afterward Adam and I took a long walk downtown to the MCA, where it turned out it was free on Tuesdays anyway. Some exhibits were closed, and it was a lot smaller than we expected. Naturally, some of the contemporary art was just odd, but there was some really cool stuff. We had tons of time to burn, so Adam and I walked up Michigan Avenue, eventually getting to Daley Plaza, where we met Sarah. By this time it was 5:30, and we had tickets to see Jersey Boys at 7:30, so we considered some dinner options. We took the bus up to Gino’s East pizza and had a really good four cheese pizza. Then we took a taxi to the theater and found our seats. Jersey Boys was amazing. It was such a good show and even though we didn’t have the best seats and half the cast was understudies that night, it was still really impressive and enjoyable. After the show we caught the bus home and went to bed.

Wednesday we dropped Sarah off at work, then went to the Chicago History Museum. It started off slow, but once we got to the main exhibit hall, we were there for hours. There was so much stuff about Chicago and its history. Such a diverse and interesting past. There was one thing about the museum: they seemed to take credit for everything. For example, there was a big thing saying that a university in Chicago had a huge part in the development of the atomic bomb. Even the text said the university was responsible for the first sustained chain reaction and that then the scientists went on to develop the bomb. But they didn’t say the scientists had actually gone on to join many others at the national laboratories like Sandia, Oak Ridge, Los Alamos, and Pacific Northwest National Lab to develop the bomb and the nuclear material used. Plus, the accomplishment in Chicago was only a small step towards the bomb, and it took a few years of serious research and development outside of Chicago to create the bomb.

Anyway, we made a running joke out of saying everything comes from Chicago and that all cities are suburbs of Chicago. After the museum we drove to meet Sarah for lunch, this time going to a place called Milk & Honey. Adam and I then went to the Field Museum. I was pretty tired from the Chicago history museum, but we pushed on. The Field Museum was amazing. It was enormous, with so many exhibits, and so many interesting things to see. We didn’t have passes to the special exhibits and we wouldn’t have had time to see them anyway. Adam had to leave for a meeting, so I blitzed through the rest of the exhibits before I had to leave, too. I left the museum and took the water taxi over to Navy Pier. I got a couple cookies there to tide me over, got a few postcards, and picked up a couple tickets for the Cirque Shanghai show. Sarah met me at the pier and we found our seats for the show. For only $15 it was worth it, but it was certainly no Jersey Boys. The acrobats had a lot of really cool acts. After the show we took a long walk for fun and chatted. Eventually we made it to the bus and got back, picking up the car and going to the grocery store for some ingredients. Then Sarah and I made a nice soup until Adam got home around 9:30. We ate, then went to bed.

Thursday morning I woke up to see Adam and Sarah go off to work. Adam had some exercises to go to, so I said a final goodbye. Then I packed, caught up on some email, perused some apartments in Chicago, and watched the Daily Show. A little after noon I got on the bus and took a very long ride downtown, sitting in the same intersection for about 20 minutes because of traffic. Then I caught the subway over to Division and met Sarah at 1:30 as she took her lunch break. We went down the street to a nice place called Pot Pan Thai. After lunch we said our goodbyes and I continued on the subway to the airport, checked in, and managed a small fire at work while I waited on my plane. Unfortunately, a refueling tank in Albuquerque was broken, so my plane was delayed significantly. It kept getting pushed back until it was impossible to make my connection from Denver to Pasco. At that point I scrambled to see if I could find another way to get to Denver on time, but with no luck. Two and a half hours after my plane was supposed to take off, it left the gate, and an hour after that it was finally off the tarmac and in the air. We arrived in Sioux Falls, then the plane was turned around within a few minutes and we were off again for Denver. We got in at 11:30, so I had missed my connection by many hours. Fortunately I had been re-booked on the next flight, but it wasn’t to leave until 8:40 the next morning, so I was stranded for the night. The customer service line was at least an hour long, and there was nothing open in the terminal, so I took the train to the other terminal, where there were a few places serving limited menus. Late at night the airport is in a strange state; the cleaning crews are taking care of things, and people are strewn about the terminals trying to get comfortable on the floor or in the seats with fixed armrests. Nothing is open, but the escalators moving walkways and security announcements are still chugging away endlessly. Everything and everybody is in a zombie state. I fed my zombiness by watching Plan 9 From Outer Space, then caught a couple hours of restless sleep. I caught my flight Friday morning and had a tired trip back to Pasco.

I recently got a Playstation 3, partly for watching bluray movies, and partly for playing GTA4. It’s a great system for movies; starts up way faster than my HD-DVD player, better playback options, and my newest favorite playback feature: 1.5x. With 1.5x, the movie plays faster, but still with sound. The voices are still understandable, so I’m not really losing anything, and I can get through a 60 minute movie in 45 minutes. For particularly bad movies I can just bump it up to 10x and blaze through the bad parts. I just watched a horrible 97 minute movie in 50 minutes, and I don’t think I missed any details. I may be watching at 1.5x a lot in the future, but it worries me a little; if I get used to 1.5x, will that affect my attitude towards the speed of real life? Will I get frustrated when watching movies with others because it goes so slowly? Am I really capturing the essence of a movie by kicking it up a notch?

This weekend a group of friends and I celebrated Nick’s bachelor party by hiking up Mailbox Peak. It’s not the most traditional way to do a bachelor party, but it was fun. Saturday morning six of us met at Ryan’s house, and by 8:30 we were on the road. We met the seventh at the campsite because he had to travel from Seattle. We left one car and most of the gear at the campsite, then drove to the trailhead of Mailbox Peak, which was only a few miles down the road.

This is a view of the whole mountain. We started at the bottom and walked all the way to the peak. It was about 3.3 miles from the beginning to the top, with a 4000 feet elevation gain.

We knew the trail would not be easy. That kind of elevation gain in such a short distance meant really steep going, and it was further complicated by an unmaintained and muddy trail. There was even a sign warning us at the trailhead.

After a few hundred feet up, there was a clear split in the group. Some of us were doing great, while others were dragging behind. We waited for them, and when the arrived we offered to take some of their gear. Doug gladly gave me his camera and lens, which I put in my backpack next to the tripod I had already been assigned. With food, water, and a spare shirt, as well as some safety stuff, my pack was probably the heaviest, but I was fine with it. Everyone said I needed the weight to keep me from blazing ahead.

The trail lived up to the sign; it was constantly rising, and with the roots making steps sometimes it was like climbing flight upon flight of uneven stairs. We tracked our altitude using Nick’s GPS, figuring out how much we had left to go and counting down to relief. We took a few breaks to let the others catch up, but made good progress. I was glad I had shorts and a tshirt; despite the cool weather I was still soaked in sweat. It was a pretty hike, though, and most of it was trees like the next picture.

Finally, I arrived with some of the others at the top. I had packed a sandwich, so I ate that, and passed my trail mix and beef jerky around. I brought a Netflix envelope stuffed with a blank CD and a note, so I put it in the mailbox to see if it’d get delivered, but also because it made a great gag. I also brought paper, envelopes, and stamps, and mailed myself a letter. I’m sure it’ll get delivered to me soon.

Sadly, the peak was covered in cloud, so we didn’t have a very good view. We made the most of what we had, though, and when the last guys arrived at the top we took some photos.

On the way down, we passed by some snow, and it beckoned us to ride it. We listened, and for about half an hour each of us took turns sliding down. The first time I did it on my feet, balancing as I skied down in tennis shoes. Next I started on my feet, then dove and rode on my belly, turning and standing right before the end. Ryan had some graceful runs, too, and Nick had fun bowling over someone at the bottom.

Soaked and stinging, we continued down the trail. We made really good time going down, mostly because it was all down, and the easiest way to do it was to jog gracefully, trying not to slip in the mud, and bouncing off trees to slow down. Along the way I picked up an empty water bottle. Then later I found a bandana on the trail and picked it up. Further still was a couple who asked me if I had seen a bandana. I said “Yep.” They said “How far back?” I said “About 12 inches.” Then I opened my backpack and handed the guy the bandana. He was very grateful, probably because it meant he didn’t have to walk all the way back up.

I waited at the warning sign as the rest arrived, and then we all went down to the cars. At the very bottom was a bottle of wine with a note that said “For the dude(s) who found my bandana.” What a great way to end a hike, and I had only picked it up because I didn’t want to see litter on the trail.

We got in the cars and went back to the campsite, set up tents, and had burgers and cheddarwursts. Starting the fire took a while with wet materials, but we got it started using a nacho cheese dorito. We talked for a few hours until we were bored with the fire, then went to bed.

In the morning, we made pancakes and sausages for breakfast, cleaned up our campsite, and headed back. We stopped at Miner’s in Yakima for shakes, and everyone was walking funny from sore legs. We were back home an hour later.

It was a challenging hike. I’m still sore, but I was surprised how much energy I seem to have when hiking. I can just keep going no matter how difficult it is or how much weight I have, and I’m not even using very good equipment: my tennis shoes are years old and have no tread, and my backpack is from high school and not designed for serious hiking. But it works for me, and I don’t know that I’d change it. In all, it was a good weekend.