Thursday, July 05, 2007

More Chicago and My Pick for President

Sunday was time for more exploring the mean streets of Chicago. I spent pretty much the whole day at Lincoln Park Zoo(website). I really should go to the zoo more often. I forgot how much fun it is, plus its free. And free is fun. I could watch the gorillas and monkeys all day. I love their facial expressions and the way they interact with each other.


Nice tiger shot


These camels were posing pretty excellently.

I was also treated to an unpleasant tour of the transportation options available in Chicago. We left the zoo a bit over an hour before I needed to be at Union Station to catch my train home. So we hop on the appropriate bus to begin our journey. This particular bus is completely full. To make matters worse, the back doors don't work, so whenever someone wants to get off they have to crawl over lots of people to get to the door at the front of the bus. This slows us down considerably, and eats up all the time that we had allotted. So we frantically get off the bus and hop in the nearest cab. I jump out of the cab and run all the way to the gate where the trains reside. At this point it is about 5 minutes before the train leaves. The lady at the gate lazily looks at my ticket and talks to me a bit about how late I am. She then mentally gives up and just says that I'm too late to board the train. Not cool. That being the last train of the day makes things a bit more complicated for me and my homeward aspirations.

The only place left for me to turn is the Greyhound bus station. The people here are a bit rough around the edges for my liking. The first thing that we are told at the ticket booth is "that bus is sold out for today". After much conversing, the bus guy says that I can buy a ticket for the next day's bus, and then hope that someone cancels for today's bus. Long story short, I just get on the bus without waiting, probably screwing someone else over who had a legitimate ticket. Sucks for them. Overall, I appreciated the trip despite the setbacks. Chicago is always a fun place to visit.

For those of you that don't live around here, Springfield, IL is currently in the running to host the premier of The Simpsons Movie(website). The city of Springfield is competing in a video contest with several other cities of the same name located all over the US. At stake is the honor of being recognized as the city with the most "Simpsons Spirit" and the right to host the upcoming premier. You can see the videos and vote for who you think should be the winner at the official contest website. Vote for Illinois!!!



Speaking of voting, I've been paying a bit of attention to the presidential hopefuls as of late. I think that one of the candidates really stands out as an intelligent statesman who actually has ideas based on facts rather than political nonsense. Ron Paul(wikipage) is a hardcore believer in the constitution and wants to trim the government back to its intended role. He is opposed to just about every kind of government spending and inefficient bureaucracy. He has stated that one of his first goals would be to eliminate income tax and the IRS(wikipage). Plus, I think he is just plain more interesting to hear speak. You can check out some of his views at his campaign website. Give it a look.

Here is Ron keeping it real on Bill Maher’s Real Time

There are several more serious interviews and debates on his campaign website. Check it out.

No comments:

Post a Comment