I've had pretty bad luck with major electronics just quitting on me: computers, mp3 players, vcrs, and an xbox. My 360 has been fine for the past eighteen months, then last week not so much. Figured I was better than the "red ring of light." Wrong. I don't use it that much, just the occasional dvd, halo, or guitar hero - so I expected it to last awhile. Ah well, whatever. No real complaints here, I just think its funny since this keeps with a trend of mine.
I headed east last weekend, out to Detroit. I didn't head there so much for the city. That said, I got to check out Detroit in all its...glory. After encountering non-existent highways and almost getting sent to Canada, we were forced onto surface streets to downtown. Between the streets and actually being downtown, it's safe to say that Detroit has seen better days. This is an obvious statement, but it's different being witness to the disinvestment. Got to hang out around Greektown for a bit, but even there it wasn't as vibrant as I would expect for being in a city center. The food however, was pretty good...even had some flaming cheese.
The suburbs (which served as home base) were a different story. They're much better off and actually offer more stuff to do, unlike the city. Grabbed some Mongolian bbq and a standup comedy show in the northern suburbs. The show was pretty good, imo...especially since I'm a fan of sketch comedies. Checked out Ann Arbor and some of the UM campus. Campus is pretty similar to UIUC, without as much open space. But the nice thing about theirs is that downtown blends pretty well with and leads into campustown, unlike Chambana and UIUC. I would have no problem spending a night out in Ann Arbor, as opposed to Detroit. As for the town, I had some Cuban brunch and their variation on eggs benedict. Specifically, there were fried eggs served over pork, plantains, and a pancake - good stuff. Also headed out to Lansing and caught some Dark Knight on Imax. Amazing movie - Heath Ledger does an outstanding job. Plus as a fan of Chicago, it was cool seeing different parts of the city and knowing where they're at.
It was a nice little trip for me, especially since I got to hang out with a pretty good friend. As for the metro area, I would probably rather live in the suburbs than Detroit. And I think that's saying a lot about Detroit, since I consider myself a city person.
I've had my bike for about 2+ weeks now and have been making pretty good use of it. My longest rides have gone for 37.5, 33, and 29 miles - though I probably average 20 per ride (including the first one). I've been on probably about ten rides for 220 miles, and it's pretty good exercise. It's cheaper than a gym membership ($75 once) and I'm outside for a few hours. I also get to check out the city: neighborhoods, beaches, and whatnot.
I've ridden all 18.5 miles of the lakefront path and have started moving inland on occasion. Riding along the streets, I get to see stuff that I wouldn't in a car. Plus, I get to stop whenever without having to worry about meters or zoned parking. As for being in the streets, I feel pretty safe riding along them. The only place where things are kinda dicey are downtown's lower level streets (pic) (a lot of them have multiple levels). Traffic moves pretty fast and it's a dark, confined space - just not very pedestrian/bicycle friendly. (On a side note, it does clear up a lot of delivery trucks topside. NYC's traffic flows pretty well, but trucks stopped on streets would get annoying after awhile. Also, there are *no* alleys in Manhattan...meaning that trash is literally piled up on sidewalks. Never realized that before.) Aanyway, I digress...
So, the Schwinn's the counter to my diet of unhealthiness. I've been noticing a difference in my hill power and biking distance the past few times, so that's gotta be a good sign. Or in the words of Tobias Funke, analrapist: "Huzzah! This is joyous news!" One weird thing though, for the first few miles of a ride my quads are not that happy. I've found the longer I keep going, the less complaining comes from them. After this, fluids and food are the main issues.
Below I threw in a map of where I've been. Like I said, I've been heading off the lakefront trail and am trying to check out different neighborhoods. Hopefully I can keep this up to some extent during the school year. Winter might be a different story. Currently though, the man upstairs just turned up the heat. Went for a morning ride today to beat the heat and still ended up going through three large McDonald's Gatorades and two regular ones.
Last Saturday, there was a beer tasting festival called Alefest held just outside of Soldier Field. It had a steep entry fee at $40, but it was good for 20 servings and a free tasting glass. Plus it wasn't like light beer was being served. The closest regular beers were Sam Adams and Goose Island (Chicago brewery).
There were quite a few local breweries from around the country: Brooklyn, Cleveland, NorCal are ones I can remember off the top of my head. Then there were plenty of imports as well. I never realized the variety in beer - somewhat out of habit, but mostly out of cost. Granted, I can't really remember everything I had, but most brews were distinct from each other. What made things nicer was having people with who actually knew stuff about beer.
Here are the more unique ones I can remember: a bubble gum tasting one (not so good); a "white" beer (looked like champagne and kinda bland, but still decent); a red beer (don't know the style, but it was okay). They had a few Belgians there too, so that was a nice bonus. They like to make a lot of stuff floral, but kinda strong (around 8-10%). I found an Asian brew (Thai) that I hadn't had before, plus I got a button out of it. And since alcohol was being served there was of course food...whoever made the pub chips has earned themselves a customer.
The crowd was a bit more diverse than I would've imagined, especially with respect to age. There were people our age of course, but there were definitely people around sixty also. The average age was probably around thirty, which is higher than I would've first guessed. It made for some good entertainment towards the end, seeing older folk all boisterous and stumbling.
I got back a few days ago from the east coast. It was a nice little trip - flew out to DC and picked up a friend's car. Since he had siblings in both DC and NYC, we had places to stay and reasons to visit each. Even though it was short, it was a pretty good trip.
DC
Home base was just northwest of Georgetown. Nice area, although the apartment was not so much. Embassy Row is along the way to the apartment from Reagan. That was kinda cool seeing all sorts of different countries represented. But apparently the cost of living is pretty high where we were at - $1500/month gets you a not so impressive place. And in Georgetown, small rowhouses were selling for over $1 million.
We wandered around the Georgetown neighborhood for a bit. There are a lot of nice houses in the area, and the area is pretty quiet. Along the main drag, there's a lot of smaller shops/boutiques mixed with the bigger name stores. Not really what I was there for, but it was a nice walkable area. We eventually headed over to the Dupont Circle neighborhood and grabbed some lunch. There's a decent mix of offices, commerce, and eateries in the area. Grabbed some lunch at Panache, an Italian/tapas mix. The food was okay, but nothing overwhelming. Also grabbed some iced tea in the area. That's not usually my thing, but it was actually pretty good and kept me from sweating balls for a few minutes. On that note, it was in the mid 90s for the day...leading to spending about $20 on liquids.
Also did some touristy stuff, mainly wandering around the Mall, the White House and downtown. The only thing new to me was the World War II memorial. It's pretty cool with different theaters and their countries represented. The Philippines was represented, with actual island names engraved as a nice surprise.
We headed out to Baltimore to catch an Orioles/Royals game. Camden's pretty nice, with a lot of eating options along a promenade. Even got a free BBQ sandwich. But even better, there are a lot of vendors selling food and drink for cheap: $1 dogs and sodas, all of which can be brought in. The stadium was pretty empty, which was kinda depressing for as nice as it was. But since both teams sucked, there were a lot of runs scored to keep us entertained. It was probably around ten when we got out of the game and there were some unfriendly characters wandering as we drove through downtown. I hear the harbor area's nice, but I can't vouch for it.
Got back to DC and reset for the night, ending up around Georgetown about midnight. Since one of our crew lost a wallet at the game, we ended up bouncing between bars for service. We ended up at Martin's Tavern, which has apparently served every president since Truman. The other interesting thing is that every guy was dressed the same: khakis and a powder blue button up. The only variation is pants/shorts; shirt color/stripes/sleeves. One group was actually dressed identically as far as we could tell. On top of that, most of them were douchebags.
Overall, the neighborhoods were pretty cool. They were a lot more intimate and compact than I would expect for a city. Guess that's east coast style, before cars and whatnot. The only thing that sucks is cabs and housing are kind of expensive. One last random thing, DC loves traffic circles. They're in abundance there with all sorts of streets and traffic lights feeding into them. Who knew?
NYC
Home base was on Manhattan's upper west side, around 74th/Broadway. Pretty spacious place for Manhattan, although it runs $2400. Another place we hung out at was barely more than a studio for $2000. Ouch. Grabbed dinner in midtown at an Anthony Bourdain place, Les Halles. It was actually really good food, especially dessert. I've only had French a few times, but so far this place is the winner.
We caught a Yanks/Sox game out in the Bronx. The subway was insanely crowded and full of all sorts of personal space violations. It got us there pretty quick though, so that was good. The stadium is nice for it's history and whatnot, but the actual stadium is less than impressive. Guess that's why this is its last season. Anyway, we were in the bleachers and the rivalry wasn't as intense as I expected. It was more friendly trash talking than anything else. I will give Yanks fans props though, over 80% were wearing team gear of some sort.
Eventually got back to Manhattan and head back to midtown, specifically K-town. Had some damn good Korean, especially the squid and pork belly. I even did well with the chopsticks :) Of all the different drink places we went to, this champagne bar Flute was probably the highlight of the trip. They had a few shemales there, which was interesting. One actually repeatedly came over to our booth and struck up conversation. He/she was wasted, which made it that much more entertaining. As for the actual place though, it was expensive, but one of the doctors covered most of the tab. The place was done in a lounge/hookah style - very chill and low key. If I could afford it, I'd be down for that type of scene (sans shemales). And the champagne was damn good. I didn't even wake up with a headache the next morning, much less a hangover. I will say though, for being a city that doesn't sleep, we had trouble finding any food/drink places open at 3:30 on a Saturday night.
Before heading out, we had brunch at Sarabeth's on the upper west side. Pretty good fresh juice and omelettes. Which is saying a lot since I'd had brunch the previous two days. Got some cookies for the road from a local bakery, Levain. Hands down one of the best and largest cookies I've ever had. Partook in the walnut chocolate chip a few hours into the drive back. So good.
I used to think that Manhattan was so dense as to be unlivable for me. After this trip though, I could definitely see myself doing at least a residency there. Manhattan's kinda like a really, really large version of Chicago's downtown - which is pretty damn cool. I would have to seriously consider getting rid of my car though out of cost and convenience, which would be kinda tough. I like the freedom to go wherever, whenever for cheap. That's what I like about Chicago more than NYC...it's a more reasonable, livable city. Maybe Brooklyn's a different story, that's one borough I'd like to eventually check out. Either way, I could spend at least a few years in NYC.
As for the drive back to Chicago, there weren't all that many highlights. It somehow didn't seem like twelve hours of driving. Got lost in Newark for a bit, and ended up getting gas there. Since both Jersey and Oregon have full service gas laws, an attendant pumped our gas. However, he neither aired our tires nor cleaned our windshield like back in the day. Pennsylvania's actually a beautiful, scenic drive. Cleveland was about the halfway point, so we decided to try and get dinner there. No go...the city apparently shuts down around ten, if not earlier. A combo White Castle/Church's chicken was good enough at that point though.
Like I said, short trip but a pretty damn good one. I didn't take too many pictures, since we didn't do much touristy stuff. But here's Yankee Stadium.
I'm needing an infusion of new music and/or reading. Tried out some Last Goodnight, courtesy of the Seattle trip (and like it) - but that's about all the new music I've had for awhile. Oh, and I'll also take suggestions for a cheap, legal way to acquire said music...alltunes will have none of my trying to reload my balance. Gracias amigos.
