I just finished watching Happy Feet and I really enjoyed it. The movie seems to be a cross between The Ugly Duckling and The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Mumble is a duck whose egg is dropped during incubation. The most important thing in the life of a penguin we learn is to be able to sing in order to find a mate. Mumbles, we learn, lacks the ability to sing well, but he can really cut a rug (this is an old term for dance.) Well, Mumble is shunned from the penguin community all of his life because of his “happy feet” and isn’t allowed to officially graudate from penguin school.
While this is all happening the penguins and other antarctic creatures are going through a fish famine. The leaders of the penguins say that the great “guin” is angered by Mumble slacker ways and his dancing and is punishing them with no fish. Mumbles learns from a large bird and a treachorous encouter with a walrus (or possible a large otter) that “the aliens” (humans) are causing the problem.
After being exiled from the emperor penguins, Mumbles sets off with 5 penguins of a different breed to find the source of the problem and exhonerate his name. The travel a long way until they eventually find a large fleet of fishing boats that are taking the fish. Mumbles companions are content to turn back now because they have proven the Mumbles is not to blame, but Mumbles actually wants to help fix the problem. So, he jumps into the ocean and starts following one of the boats. He is briefly successly but ultimately ends up trying to chase the boat until he ends up in, what I assume is, Australia.
Here he ends up in a zoo and interacts with aliens. He tries to reason with the aliens, but they don’t seem to understand anything he says. He ends up becoming depressed and hullicinating about his family back home. Eventually one little girl comes up to glass and starts tapping a dancing beat and Mumbles starts to dance. This gets the attention of the whole crowd and Mumbles is ultimately sent back to his home, but he marked with a homing beacon. I’ll leave the rest for you to watch.
The animation in this movie is really good and they weave music and dance into the movie in a really fun way. The voice acting is good especially the role of Noah, the patriarch of the penguins, who is portrayed by Hugo Weaving (Agent Smith from The Matrix.) I would reccomend this movie for anyone who enjoys animated films. Towards the end the movie gets very emotional as Mumbles is temporarily separated from his family and we are not sure what is going to happen. The movie also tells a good story that could open a dialog for parents and children.
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.
Posted in Issac and Trips 1 year, 7 months ago at 11:27 pm. 2 comments
I plan to write a more thorough review later, but The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants is a FANTASTIC movie and I would who heartedly recommend to anyone who likes movies that have a deeper meaning and can teach you something. I cried several times during the movie and it is really very touching for a movie about 4 16 year old girls. Lots of good life lessons. It is very reminiscent of Joan of Arcadia. (Incidentally the star of Joan of Arcadia, Amber Tamblyn, puts in a fantastic performance in this movie.)
Have a good one.
I don’t particularly care for air travel. I have been on 5 flights now, and every time I feel like a sardine. I suppose it is better than driving, but I think the answer is either to perfect the human fax machine, or to learn to apparate.
The clouds were cool though, and I have lots of fun pictures of those. They will hopefully be useful in general science.
I will see Mickey (he’s so fine) tomorrow, YEAH!