trippy's mind drool

Junk drawer for things I find or think are cool. Topics may include anything but will usually be some kind of gadgety stuff or relate to geocaching.

Saturday, August 20, 2005

Our Day In Chicago

Had a great day out and about in Chicago today. We experimented with the local train from Roselle to downtown Chicago so we'd know the best ways to get down to the city when friends & family come to visit. The train to Chicago leaves the Roselle station every hour at 17 past the hour. It's about a 45 minute train ride downtown and the parking at the station is $1 on the weekend!

Took the bus from Union Station to Navy Pier and spent the day putting around there. Had lunch at Bubba Gump Shrimp restaurant (saw Forest too...) then walked down to the end of the pier. There was an air show going on so we kept getting buzzed by fighter jets, pretty cool :)

We cooled off at Charlie's pub for a while and then went to see the Children's Museum (being children ourselves... right?) and it was pretty cool. Andrea left a message for the kids... and she means it! (see picture above). The museum was excellent. I loved it. They have this water room where all the kids put on rain coats and play in this giant river of water with boats and pumps and they can make dams and release the water and.... and... and it was super cool! Then there's this room where you make foam airplanes and crank them up about 35-50feet in the air and they they fly back down. Awesome.

Very cool day. Slept a little on the train home. But for $5 a person round-trip on the weekends (actually... $5 is a weekend pass I think... ride all you want for a weekend) and $1 parking - it's a great way to get downtown. Last train leaves Union Station around 12:40am bound for home so you can have a nice, long day out if you want.

Driving downtown's a hassle, parking is expensive, and traffic sucks. I doubt we'll ever drive again given the choice.

Friday, August 19, 2005

Just can't stop

Once you blog, you can't stop. Just a note to post this funny screenshot. Captured while spellchecking the last post:

New Dog

Introducing Lucy, our newest addition. She's about 12 weeks old now. We brought her home and just a little while later he kennel cough turned to pneumonia. So she's like... the most expensive dog ever now :) Spent 4 or 5 days in the emergency pet hospital in this doggie incubator with IV antibiotics and a nebulizer.

But, she's a great dog and I guess when you amortize that cost over the life of a dog it's not even as much as cable :) And cable can't even eat its own poop! So how smart is cable?

She's a cocker spaniel/shihtzu/poodle mix. (Man I hope the spell check on blogger works) Very sweet dog but she can become a monster. She likes nylabone bacon flavored bones, going outside, and long walks by the ocean. That's all. She's fuzzy and cute and we're happy to have her.

So I guess....

I will start using my mind drool for more than just geocaching foo. I just got a new Treo 650 phone with data access which makes snapping pics and blogging them (apparently) a breeze. Ever just walk along and go "Man, wish I could just snap that shot and upload it with a little text." ? Yeah... me too ;)

Alright so not everyone is as lazy with their blogs as I am. Although I have to say, blogger.com's stock went way up in my mind when they added the ability to upload photos. What a great feature. To me, a blog is useless without it. Because yeah... I can tell you about my life, but I'd rather just show you. I'm lazy like that. A picture is worth 1000 words so it'll save me like... lots of words and stuff.

So I'm figuring all that phone-->blogger stuff right now. But I have lots to update on. New house, new dog, new wife. Stuff like that.