O'Hell International Airport

Yes, my friends, another day at the nation's most miserable airport, ORD, or O'Hell international. If I were Butch O'Hare, the hero this joint is named after, I'd be wicked pissed that this crapper was named after me. I'm on my way to Bismarck Municipal Airport, but the HEL gods (my new abbreviation for this place) have decided to delay my flight multiple times. Now, not only do I not get to see my cousin Matt for a couple of hours, I am going to be late arriving in Montana.

Ok, check this dump out. This sign is clearly posted in the bar at which I am currently sitting. I shit you not, this is for real.

Mayor Daley's Dumpster Task Force? Are you kidding me? For anyone familiar with Chicago politics, this is also known as Mayor Daley's buddy who owns a trash dump service and now has a sweet deal to make money. Of course you'd want a "Dumpster task force" to enforce and inspect the food and restaurant safety in a city. Who else would know more about cleanliness?

On to the bathrooms. All the faucets in the so called "green" city's airport are the lovely Sloan touch free automatic faucets. (Daley calls it that, everyone else knows what a crock that is-I lived here and they didn't even have recycling with the trash. I suppose Daley's dumpster buddy doesn't have a recycling business yet). You know the type, the ones like this:
Well, the ones at HEL, in "our green city" have 2 very annoying features. First, the water pressure is so low, you can barely get your hands wet. Forget about trying to wash the soap off. That's becasue Annoying feature #2 comes into play. The little sensors are crap on this thing. When your hands are underneath and moving around, the faucet decides to shut off on you, pretty much the whole time your hands are there. In fact, if you remove your hands from said faucet, the stupid thing turns ON! Quick, race to put your hands back under, too late, it's off again. I bet Daley has a little camera on his PC that he can look at me and turn the water on and off, sort of a candid camera type thing. I'm sure he's laughing his ass of whenever I try to wash my hands.

One positive, the guy who shines shoes over in the F wing across from Chili's does an amazing job on shoes and my boots. $6 well spent.

Chicago Visit, September 2009 Chicago, September 2009 Chicago Visit in September

We took a weekend trip to Chicago at the end of September. There was a fried food festival at Elizabeth's sister's place, plus she had a baby shower on Sunday. Here are some snaps of the city. Here we wee the infamous "bean" at Millenium park downtown.

My Favorite skyscraper, the John Handcock Tower. The old Chicago water tower on the left.

And the BEST museum in the whole city, the Field Museum. There's sue in the foreground getting ready to eat some visitors, or perhaps the elephants.

Acadia National Park

The second weekend in October, we went up to Acadia National Park. We had been watching Ken Burns' excellent documentary on the parks and were jonesing for something that only the Dept. of the Interior could deliver. The foliage was a bit early, but still worked out. These pictures were all taken on my 50MP analog camera, a Contax 645. Click on the pictures for bigger versions.

Sand Beach, Acadia NP. Sun peeking through the overcast skies with the light hitting the trees.

Carriage path through the woods near Jordan Pond.

Opposite shoreline of Jordan Pond.

Seal Harbor, ME at sunset.

Live blogging!

The blog name has been a bit mis-named as of late, since I have been waiting too long to post. This post is live, well, at least I'm currently on this trip while posting this entry. Here, I'm just north of Copenhagen, shooting pictures with my 45MP analog camera while my friend Tore takes my photo with his 12MP digital camera equipped with a fisheye lens. I love Denmark, luckily, I get to come here a lot for work.

Who smokes pets?

This one is found at a rest stop in New Hampshire. Since there's no sales tax in NH, maybe they can't afford a comma or two. Or else, some weird shit goes on in NH, smoking bare feet pets in buildings. Must smell terrible. Someday, my friend Dave and I will publish a book about strange signs. This one will have to be in it.

Quetico Canoe Trip, 2009

The first week in August, I took my annual canoe trip to the north woods. This time, we went into Canada, to the Quetico Provincial Park. This was a 6 day trip, we did about 50 miles round trip. On the trip were Allen, my regular canoe partner, and my African-American friends Shelver's, Graham, and his two boys Michael and Christopher (they are from South Africa). This would be their second trip to the canoe country.Here are a selection of photos, you can see the whole lot of them at THIS LINK

Early morning after our first night in the woods. The mist was rising from the surface of That Man Lake.

Why not try a sail? It worked, even though the winds were light, we took about 45 minutes of sailing to go 1 mile. With higher winds, it would have been even more fun.

Here we are on a mirror smooth lake, all to ourselves, somewhere near Bell Lake.

The group photo, R-L Allen, Michael, Christopher, Graham, and me. I wish I could go back now!

Corn Fest, 2009!

We took a trip to Chatham, IL to partake in the annual Corn Fest! Here's my dad and his dog Sophie. I think she is walking him rather than the other way around.

That's King Lutzo, AKA Andrew Lutz having a ciggy treat in the neighborhood.


Juliette and Andrew enjoy some of the sweet corn down at the fest. Yummy.
We harvested some Cascade hops from my dad's house. That's me on the ladder, Dave in the foreground. Later, we made a homebrew with the hops. I still haven't tried it yet, but my dad and Dave's dad both like it.