Well, the trip to Chicago was all for a Stargate Convention. It was actually fairly fun.
Lets start off from the very begining. Didn't do much at first, drove to Edmonton (3 hr drive) and stayed there at my Aunt's house for the night. Took a plane to Chicago on United, and arived there 3 hrs 35 minuites later. The weather was just... perfect. In Edmonton, over night, we got a nice and strong thunderstorm move through. It had gone by the next day, and it was a cool 15 celsius (it was originally 28 before the storm). So, we get to Chicago with little turbulance and only end up circling once (not a long holding pattern, thankfully). And, the very next day, that exact same storm moves south enough to hit Chicago, and we feel the exact same storm all over again. It hadn't really lost any strength either. After that, the weather remained fairly good at a hot and humid tempature of average 35 degrees during the day with a humidity of no less then 50%. Can thank lake Michigan for that. Imagine a bunch of Canadians used to cold, dry weather ending up in a hot and humid environment... Not fun. Spent much time in the hotel because of this (though it didn't help all that much, was hot and humid inside, despite the air conditioning.)
First two days we took to explore Chicago a bit. Wonder of wonders, I forgot most of my oral hygiene equipment back home, so had to visit the mall. So we had to eat at the mall too. But the trip there was far more irritating then this. Heres why.
At the hotel, we meet a darker skinned fellow with a muslim name. Since the Hotel's complimentary shuttle service apparently does NOT go far into Chicago's core (We stayed at the Manheim O'Hare hotel. Its a nice enough hotel, just don't trust their shuttling department to recommend good cabbies). And we fell for what is mentioned in perenethesis. So he recommends a "good" cabbie, and I'm using this word quite sarcastically. This particular cabbie decides to go EXACTLY the speed limit. Naturally, most of the traffic of Chicago is constantly passing us. Worse then this, I'm very certain he took the most inderect route to this particular mall possible. The whole trip there ended up costing about $42. American. Remember the exchange rate when I got that cash? It was .82 Canadian to American. So add that to there. No small amount of money. And this cabbie promises to come and pick us up again. Guess what. He ends up being busy, so he sends his brother to take us back to the Manheim hotel in O'Hare. Now this guy is off duty, driving a regular, unmetered car. Supposedly he's a cabbie. And he speeds us all the way back to the hotel at I swear almost double the rate the first guy did. And since it was unmetered, he demanded we pay the amount that his brother got. So, trip that should have taken $20, or at least not more then $30, one way, ended up costing a grand total of $84. Joyus day, I want to shell out for the damn cabbie. Not to curse out muslims, but I think these 3 where in on the looting of clueless tourists. I should also add that a cabbie also took us a bit too far, we ended up in Rosemont, and ended up shelling out an extra $10 in fare. Though we think it was more accidental, and we where paying more for gas (He turned the timer off)
We also visit the local museum, whose name I also forget. We saw the Pharo(sp?) Tutenkamen exhibit, and the exhibit on Ancient Egypt. Additionally, we visited the Evolution exibit, which detailed the entire history of Earth from its very early formation, to the final stage that resulted in Humans evolving. Fairly good stuff. Also looked at some random stuff.
After this, the convention starts. First up, Dan Payne. Made some fairly good jokes. After him, Alex Zahara. Him too. That was the core of the first day, not much interresting happend. Second day, we saw Michael Shanks and Cliff Simon. Both where fairly good, though Michael didn't do a hell of a lot, and spent most of his time hidden behind security when he wasn't on stage. At some point, some of the women attempted to convince Dan Payne to take his shirt off, but to no avail. Perhaps the most interresting part was when somebody that was sitting beside me decided to bring a copy of Playgirl to Cliff for signing... and in it was a nude picture of him. Though genitalia was not showing. His reaction was "I was wondering when this would show up" And he just laughed.
After this was Don S Davis and Beau Bridges. Don came up with some fairly good cracks, I intend to state them.
"There are 3 things that you realize when you start getting old."
"Number 1: (I unfortunately don't remember)
"Number 2: Your memery starts to go. So first you forget to zip up. Then you get a little older and you forget to zip down. Then you get older and at some point you're standing with the fridge door open holding a jar of mayonaise, and you can't remember if you where getting it out to put on a sandwhich or returning it to the fridge so it doesn't spoil"
"Number 3: Never trust a fart. There may be a little more comeing along"
At the brunch, the lead security officer was whatching over this very same man. And this officer happens to be female. So she tells him not to run off, so that she can actually protect him. And he seys "Protect me from the charge of women? So you'll throw yourself in front of them?"
She replies with "Yea, that is my job"
So he replies "Well, if all the women in the room charge me, you can run up to my room and grab my prostetic."
Dirty old man. At this point she cracks up and laughs her head off. "All professionalism just went out the window" -She said it herself.
Additionally, at the end, Don tries to sneak out without his security escourt. So she catches him out of the corner of her eye trying to sneak off, so she yells "SNEAKY BASTERD!!" and runs after him, and he hears this. He turns around, looks at her, and just cracks up laughing.
Unfortunately, for the most part, the "talent" as they are called by security, obeyed their handlers and moved about as there where told... With one exception. Michael Shanks. If the conversation was good, he would just ignore them for a little while and talk with the group. He didn't stay as long as I hear Amanda Tapping did. Pity he never took off the hat though. Not even for the photo ops.
Other then that, it was an uneventful trip the day after to come back. We packed. We had breakfeast, we went onto the airport. Borded a craptacular plane. And heres another rant.
That damn dinky plane. I'm 6'3". My head was brushing, no, pushing against the ceiling the whole damn time. I had to bend over to fit into this puny pos. And the seats? Total crap. They barely leaned backwards (all of 6 degrees), and so close together, that my knee caps dug into the back of another person's chair. And this was for 3 damn hours. And 35 damn minuites. There and back. Not to mention the guy behind me, both ways, seemed to enjoy kicking the back of my seat. Oh, this wasn't a kid. I estimate the guy's age to be about 35. And he enjoyed kicking the back of my seat. Repeatedly. Unfortunately, there also wasn't anything better then what I already had. Great airline fun.
Other then that, it was another 3 hour drive home from the city, on the same day. Not much else of interrest happend on that particular vacation. Only that the return flight was 10 minuites late. And our ride decided to wander around for a bit. Now I'm here, ready to play OP2 and find the channel empty. Its late anyway, should go to bed. And thats my trip.
Oh, and I drank my first alcholic drink. A Smirnoff Raspberry.
