Peter Kupfer's Blog

Good Thing #14 — February 15 — Isaac Enjoying the Pool

Today’s good thing had to be wacthing Issac playing in the water at the water park we are at. He was quite adorable and fun. Video is coming.

Trip to Wrigley

Today we decided to go to Wrigley Field for the Road to Wrigley minor league game between the Kane County Cougars and the Peoria Chiefs. We chose to go to this game because Ryne Sandburg rocks and he is the manger of the Chiefs and becayse for the ticket price of $10 you can’t find a cheaper way into Wrigley Field. We went down with the Glinkas and decided for and extra $25 per person we should go on the tour or Wrigley Field Before the game.

We drove down to the Cumberland Blue Line Station and took the el down to the Addison station and got off and took the bus the rest of the way in. I tend to prefer taking the CTA over Metra because you have a lot more options in terms of times. When you take Metra, if you are leaving at night the trains only run at like 9:30, 10:30, & 11:30 and so if you miss one you are stuck for another hour. Also, during the week, the CTA is almost always cheaper and just as fast.

So, we were able to get Isaac on his first el and first bus ride in one trip.

When we first gt off of the train we weren’t sure which way to take the bus, but luckily there was a sign.

We arrived at the field 15 minutes late, luckily the Cubs seemed to expect this and they had enough tour groups to handle the late crowds. The tour was pretty nice. It included a historical overview of the park and then we walked around to various location starting with going on the field. This was a good chance to take Isaac on the field and get a shot of us together standing on the field.

Next on the tour we made our way up to the press box. On the way, we stopped in the sky boxes and learned more about the field and the history of the Cubs. At this time, Isaac let us know that he needed a diaper change. Well, there were no changing tables in site, so we decided that we should change him on one of the tables in the patio arrow in the upper deck. After that we went up to the press box and got to see where Ronnie and Pat sit when they do their broadcasts.

We went out and sat in the bleachers and got a close up look at the scoreboard and then the tour was over. Overall, the tour was nice. I was disspointed because it was a gameday we were not allowed in the clubhouse or in the dugouts.

After the tour we traveled over to Harry Carey’s for dinner. The meal was nice. The highlight of that part of the trip was that we got to see Ernie Banks. I wouldn’t have none him if I had seen him, but people started to saying, “Look there’s Ernie Banks,” so I took his picture.

After dinner we wandered around the neighborhood and then headed into the game. We had decent seats in the right field bleachers under the upper deck. You could the see the field fine but you couldn’t see the sky or where the fly balls went. There were TVs there and I thought they would play the game on the field there, but the actually played the Cubs game which was nice (even though I had my walkman to listen anyway.)

One of the side hopes of the trip was to see Ryne Sandburg, my boy hood hero, and get his autograph. Unfortunately, he was busy with his friends at National City and the line to get near him for the brief time he was available was very long.

However, while walking down to see him, we were stopped by a CBS 2 reported who asked if she could video tape Isaac and inteview me, which she did. We were then on the 10 o’clock news which was probably the highlight of the trip.

The game itself was pretty boring, it is single A baseball after all, and the Chiefs attempted to keep all of the atmosphere of a minor league game at Wrigley. I can appreciate the attempt, but some of the antics didn’t seem to really carry over. For instance the T-Shirt toss only included the first 50 rows so half of the crowd was left out (even though they had a T-Shirt cannon before the game.) Some of the mascot antics were amusing. They had these neat bobble head type guys there and some crazy green guy that break danced with the 3rd base umpire and stole the 3rd baseman’s glove and threw it in the stands. Once the Cub had their game in hand, we decided to head home.

The trip home was somewhat exciting. We took the red line to the blue line back to Cumberland which took longer than the bus, but is pretty normal. Once we got in the car the madness started! Our route home should have taken 48 minutes to get home but due to some misadventures, the actual trip should have taken 1 hour and 59 minutes but probably actually took closer to 2 and a half hours.

I think the problem was two-fold. First we failed to stay on 294 right off the bat. I tried to follow the signs, but apparently I missed. So, we ended up taking 90 really far west out by Huntley/St. Charles. Somewhere around here, I said, “I think we made a mistake.” We tried using the map, but we weren’t sure what to do, so I just started going North. According to Google, pretty much every choice we made after that was the least efficient. We worked our way north and east trying to find diagonal roads when we probably should have just gone on straight north and east roads

Anyway, we ended up in Barrington Hills at some point where there were some amazing houses along the Fox River. We were trying to follow Algonquin Rd and then prarie road, but prarie road seems to not exist and there was a detour that we didn’t think we needed to follow. So, we drove past the Road Close sign. Gina said, “What will happen if we go past the sign.” I said, “Well, nothing will happen, but part of the road might be missing.” Sure enough the road really was closed. So, we turned around and their was a hand written sign on the back of the road closed sign that said, “Duh, it really is.” We felt kind of stupid.

After that we went back and followed the detour after driving on some spooky streets (which were even more spooky since we had recently passed through Sleepy Hollow, IL). We found route 14 finally (I wasn’t sure if we were ever going to get of Barrington Hills) and then we made it home and watched the 10 o’clock news replayed at 1:35.

In all, it was a great day and I will remember it for a long time.

NY Trip Update…

We are here in NY. We just got down with the Hall of Fame induction. Ryne Sandburg was good. His speech was very critical of today’s baseball players. I will post a more detailed story of our trip later, but here are some pictures so far if anyone wants to see them.

All current pics can be found at http://photos.peschtra.com.
Some of my favorites are:
Me with Einstein at the wax museum
Me with Cat Woman at the wax museum
Looking through a glass foor 800 feet up in Toronto
Frisbee Golf Star

Have a good one.

New Toys…

We are leaving for our New York trip Thursday and I bought a GPS thing today for the computer at Staples. It came with MS Streets and Trips and with a coupon it was $80. It was very exciting when it found us and put a little marker on the screen.

All for now.

I love spring break!

What a wonderful spring break day.

We went to Chicago for the day. We went to the planetarium. It turns out that teachers get admission and one show for free. So that was nice. The only bad part was the parking. We couldn’t find the garage we wanted, so we ended up paying $22 to park. (Hint: If you park at the garage on the corner of Wabash & Randolph, just go to Carsons when you exit the garage, because they will validate you parking saving you $3).

As we were walking to the planetarium from the garage, we stopped in Millennium Park and ate a little picnic. Then we went to the planetarium.

After that we walked up to the red line station (it started to rain, but not too bad) and took that up to a place call Joe’s Bar. It is a nice little sports bar with a lot of TVs and the bartender by use was HOT! We went there to see Joe Nicols perform for us. It was excellent. It was just him singing with one other guy doing accompanying vocals and playing the guitar. He sang all of his sings, plus a new one, My brain can’t trust my tongue, it was pretty funny, and Old McDonald (we did that as an audience sing along). All in all, it was AWESOME!

Then took the el back to the car and went home.

All in all, a great day!

Home Sweet Home

So, we are home. The trip was uneventful, but it was a little scary this morning, because we hadn’t been able to contact Hertz about out car (phones were out) but the people at Hertz national assured me that I could just show up and the car would be waiting (I was not reassured.) But I got there and the car was ready and it was good.

Disney is awesome! If you have never been, you should go. I know it sounds corny, but it really is magical. It is like Great America, but better in any conceivable way. Honestly, nothing would please me more in life than to be the director of the Magic Kingdom and be responsible for the magic. I don’t know how you get that job, or if it even exists, but I would like it. There was one point when we were watching the closing fireworks show over Cinderella’s castle at the Magic Kingdom that I was just so excited and happy that I felt a little like crying. This is not usually and just made me very happy. Then Gina and I switched hats and gave MANY people a good laugh. (If you would like to see the hats you can view them amongst our pictures at http://briefcase.yahoo.com/peschtra).

But like I said Disney is awesome. I would like to go back very often is possible. It is a bit much after 5 or 6 days in a row, but once a year I could handle it. Especially once I have kids it will be a common visit.

Anyhow, I can’t say enough good things about the trip. I would like to list my favorite things, but I have to start working in 3 days so I don’t know if I will have time, but I will try. If I don’t, you should just go and see for your self.

Exhilirating

Well, I am now a man. I tackled the nation’s tallest & steepest water slide and survived. The slide is 120 feet high, but what is more amazing is that it has an angle of 84 degrees! That is practically vertical! The people say you reach speeds of 60 miles/hour. I actually was floating off of the slide for part of the trip! It was very fun.

Missing Magic

As part of our romance package we got a couple’s massage. We scheduled it like 6 months ago and have had nothing but trouble. First they called me like a month ago and told me there was a scheduling conflict so I changed the time by an hour. So, when we showed up for it, they told us it was a day later. So, we rescheduled for 2 days later and when we showed up for that one the therapist didn’t show up! Now we have to waste an hour of our day. Maybe it was because of the storm, but this place (Grand Floridian Spa) is definitely missing magic. Normally, I would just say forget it, but we have this coupon that isn’t good for anything else, so they get our money either way. Perhaps that is what is most frustrating, I don’t know. I know it doesn’t help to worry and stress over things I can’t control, but this is just so infuriating!

Besides that, I will say that I am very nervous about this massage. I don’t get nervous on rides, but this is a very scary experience. Partly, because I don’t know what to expect, and partly because of the snooty environment that is created st places like this (much like the restaurant we went to.)

Post Storm

The storm left a lot of damaged around the area. Mostly from what we have seen there are just a lot of trees down. Only Animal Kingdom and one of the water parks got shut down so we are off to adventure. Disney gave everyone that was here Friday a free day of park visiting today.

I will say that the communication regarding this was a little hectic. The people at the hotel couldn’t extend our ticket, and the people at the ticket place couldn’t extend our hotel stay. We came to Disney our a Dream Maker package, so originally our ticket and our room were linked. It is apparently impossible to just extend the package, so it took a while to get some straight answers. In the end we extended our room and then found out this morning that we got out ticket extended for free, so all is well that ends well.

Off for fun, hopefully the parks aren’t too crowded.

Hurricane Charlie – pt. 3

Storm is for the most part past. I went around once we were in the light green area on the Doppler.

There was a lot of wind and rain here at Disney’s Pop Century Resort (C). However, there was nothing particularly cool.

While I was walking around, I found a few trees that were slightly uprooted, but nothing that can’t be fixed very easily.

All in all, I was a little disappointed in my hurricane experience, but I suppose it is better that it missed.