McGinleys in Chicago, 20-22 July 2007

Michael surprised me with a trip to Chicago for the weekend. When I was in architecture school a few years back, some of my friends went on a trip to view the architectural marvels the city had to offer. Due to work, school, and lack of money, I was unable to go until now. I think it may have been worth the wait to see it with more mature eyes....well, mature, I don't know about, but it was definitely worth it to see the city with Michael.







Here's us in MARTA (Atlanta's not so convenient rapid transit system) on our way to the airport.


We got in about lunch time on Friday and took the Chicago Transit into the city...it was fantastic not to even have to rent a car. Here's Michael as we stepped out into our first view of the city from the underground subway. He's standing in front of Rock Bottom Brewery....and a Chicago garbage can...not the best set up of a photo that I've ever done.







We walked to the hotel and got some world famous stuffed pizza at Giordano's based on a friend's recommendation. We ordered the small pizza and both of us couldn't even eat half of it. Here I am taking a big, vulgar bite. (I didn't get a picture of Michael eating pizza...but there's a vulgar food snapshot of him further down...keep reading!)

Later on we took a stroll to the Navy Pier and saw a Blues Brothers cover band. Here are a couple of pics of us at the pier. We went on a ferris wheel (something neither of us had donw since childhood) and on a twisting-swing ride that I coined the "gut buster." We got a pic on the ferris wheel ride, but not while on the gut buster ride....the only thing I was doing with my hands was hanging on until my knuckles turned white. Here's a pic of Michael leaving the "gut buster."




That evening, we found a real Chicago Jazz club to go to called "Andy's." There was actually Blues playing and the guy was an older man who was flirting with all the ladies in the audience. He sang a song called "I'm a Hoochie-Man".....if that doesn't help describe him then I don't know what will. Michael got called up on stage with 2 other unsuspecting males and helped make the entertainment even better.

That evening, we unexpectedly saw a sign for another one of Chicago's cultural attractions....as Borat would say....."NOOOOT." It was a sign for the Jerry Springer show...Michael is pointing it out in this picture.












The next day we went on a riverboat architectural tour given by the Chicago Historic Society. Our tour guide was fiesty older lady with a straw hat that had birds on it. She provided some very funny ad-lib commentary along with her architectural narrative. Here's a picture of her...you can kind of see her fiesty-ness in her face...I just wish I had sound bytes.

Later we saw Millenium Park which has an awesome Frank Gehry pavillion (see pic on left) and a big reflective lima-bean like sculpture...you'd just have to see it.

We had lunch in the park...Michael had a big ol'

Chicago hotdog. This is gross, but he's burping in this picture. We continued the afternoon with a quick tour of the Chicago Institute of Art...fabulous.

On a much less sophisticated note, we also saw a mailbox that looked like R2D2 from Star Wars. We don't have those in Atlanta so we felt compelled to take a picture.

This picture of an Armenian restaurant is in honor of our friend James Partamian.




Later that night we went to an awesome Italian restaurant that was bursting with people. I swore to Michael that I could tell this is was where Italian gangsters came to eat. We had oysters, homemade pasta, a bottle of wine, dessert and cappuccino. Here's a pic of Michael's opinion of the dinner and the cannoli...and here's me with a thumbs up to my favorite drink...cappuccino.

We had a fantastic time and we've already decided we'd move there if the opportunity ever came up. If you have never been to Chicago...do it!

If you take every step deliberately, then if you fall, at least you'll fall forward.

part 2 of what seemed like forever

I found this old draft that I never got to post in May 2006. I never finished it, but here it is, Part 2 of what seemed like forever.

Chris and I passed more time comparing our slick field adaptation for a towel. I had used my pillowcase and he had found a roll of paper towels. He told me that luckily he had found an extra pair of socks in his back pack so he was able to change those out; simple pleasures.

Here's me on a C-17. It might have been 3 am, but I love traveling like this. We basically only had to share the plane with 8 other folks. VIP!

account of my journey home, part 1 of what seemed forever

I just typed this on my blackberry so I could send it to Michael for him to post since I don’t have internet access right now. Unfortunately, I was too quick on my blackberry trigger finger and accidentally deleted this...so this is from memory and I hope I captured everything I initially wrote. This is just par for the course for how the last 24 hours have gone...keep reading.......

Our journey home seems never-ending and we haven’t even made it half way. Last night (Wednesday) Chris and I reported to the passenger terminal at our base in Iraq to catch a flight to Kuwait. The rest of the team had already left earlier Wednesday morning so it was just the two of us sitting on a wooden bench outside the holding tent along with a flurry of military personnel walking around waiting for their outgoing flights. It started raining a little at first and then it got a bit windy with larger raindrops. After waiting about 2 hours and seeing the lightning we heard the weather was to the point that outgoing flights were grounded. A couple of hours later our flight was given the okay and we grabbed our luggage and made our way onto one of 4 buses taking passengers to the aircraft ramp. We boarded a C-17 with over 100 other military personnel. Less than an hour into the flight, the message on the loudspeaker informed us that the plane was being diverted to Al Udeid, Qatar because of the poor visibility in Kuwait. Apparently Chris had slept through this announcement so when the plane landed and people started standing up, he asked someone if this was the Kuwait stop (the plane was supposed to continue on after stopping in Kuwait).
Not much after 3 am, we arrived in Qatar and dumped our luggage in a holding tent waiting to hear the fate of our night. We learned that we could get onto a flight before lunch....we would spend the next few hours in a crowded passenger terminal on non-ergonomic rows of metal chairs. We went across the street to the grab-and-go trailer where we were each issued a brown paper bag and allowed to choose 2 sandwiches, 2 drinks, 2 snacks, 1 bag of chips, and 1 piece of fruit. We returned to the pax terminal and wedged ourselves into some of those uncomfortable metal seats. A couple of hours later, we heard a message over the loudspeaker announcing that the flight would be delayed until after dinnertime because of the weather. Ugh. Unwilling to stay here for another 12 hours, we called a couple of our co-workers who are assigned to Al Udeid. Audrey and Tom (from my February Iraq trip) came and picked us up and drove us over to transient housing. It was so good to see familiar faces through our exhausted eyes. They dropped us off and we checked in where we were each assigned a tent and bunk number. At this point we were hot, sticky, exhausted and just wanted a place to sleep horizontally. Unfortunately all we had with us was our computer backpacks, our helmets and our vests. Since we were originally supposed to leave earlier in the day, we had already turned in our baggage to be palletized. This was a blessing because we didn’t have to keep track of it and haul it around, but it meant that we didn’t have access to any of our clean clothing or toiletries. I couldn’t think of a shower now anyway, I just wanted to lie down.
It is so bright here that it is blinding when you enter or exit a building. I was blinded by the dark contrast of the dim lights inside the female tent. It took me a minute to make out the numbers on the bunks. I walked all the way to the back right and found I had a top bunk. I put my bags down, removed my shoes and crawled up. Oh, the construction I had seen upon arriving at the transient tents....just happened to be right outside the back of my tent. It was tough to get any kind of uninterrupted sleep. I remember waking up once, actually paying attention to the loudness and wondering how in the heck I had actually been able to fall asleep to begin with. It’s crazy what your brain allows when you’re exhausted. After falling asleep and waking up a couple of more times I finally decided to wake up at 3pm. I got up, put my shoes on, got my toothbrush and toothpaste, pillowcase and walked to the “Cadillac” (latrine). The tent was cooler than the outside, but it was still warm so that I was still sticky and sweaty. I brushed my teeth and took a rinse shower (no soap, no shampoo), dried off with the pillowcase and put my old clothes back on. I surprisingly felt better at least being able to get rid off of the top layer of ick.

Chris and I met up and walked to the dining facility. It was so hot that neither of us felt much like eating. I mostly ate my salad and downed a couple of cold drinks. Speaking of cold drinks, Al Udeid is an R&R facility for the military in the Middle East so there is a pool here and personnel are allowed to have 2 alcoholic drinks per day. Issuing the drinks is highly controlled and the rules are very strict. When you arrive, you are issued a drink card which is stamped when you get a drink and pay for it. So, after dinner Chris and I thought we’d each get a drink and chill out. I haven’t had a drink since New Year’s Eve so I actually didn’t even want one; I was worried that even a single beer would affect me given the heat and probable dehydrated state I was in. My worries were quenched when we got the door of the club and saw that it was closed from 4:30 to 5:30 for cleaning. It was 4:57. This place is open 24/7. Would you believe that it is closed for 1 hour per day and that is exactly when we showed up? Did I mention par for the course? We wouldn’t have time to wait until 5:30 and then have time to get back to the pax terminal to check in for our flight. We hung our heads, got our bags, boarded the crowded bus and are now sitting on those darn metal chairs again watching ESPN. I don’t really watch ESPN so it’s just on in the background. Chris found a couple of books to read. Well, actually, he found one book to read and another one was a prop for a picture (which i accidentally deleted...or Chris purposefully deleted)...a cheesy romance novel with a pink cover and a Fabio look-alike on the cover. It’s funny to think that this book is in a military passenger terminal...I guess to some folks, this kind of reading makes the time pass quicker. It’s been about an hour so far and we’re still sitting here hoping that our flight will actually leave tonight.

Sorry, no pictures to post with this one....pretty miserable so not feeling as hammy as usual for the camera.

Erika is on her way home

She has had one helluva time getting where she needs to go these past few days due to events that may or may not have included sandstorms and runway lighting failures and nearly two days worth of waiting to get on a flight to get to the right country, but she should finally be home this weekend. Oh, and she was just hanging out with JP at whatever place they may be that I can't say that's on the other side of the world and is very hot. Such a small world! Of course, he's on his way to fight for the next year and she's on her way home (for a few weeks at least), but how neat for good friends who live right down the street from each other to be able to cross paths on the other side of the world and spend some time together.

May 2006 Sunday, continued

this is old...from May 2006 and it's part 2 of the blog called Sunday. It's not that interesting, but sometimes work in Iraq is just that, work.

We had another tour of a big airfield hangar still here from when the base was built 25 years ago. Pretty cool. Then, we had Taco Bell for lunch. Yep, there's one of those here, believe it or not. Although, they are out of lettuce so all the soft taco supremes were missing the whitish-green shredded lettuce they typically have; no big deal, I don't think that adds much nutritional value anyway. We've been sticking in the conference room working most of the afternoon and evening and the rest of the team left to go eat dinner while I stayed behind to get some work done....and type this on the blog. Before dinner we took a few minutes of respite and Mylinka wowed us with a couple of card magic tricks and we shot some photos. I think we realized that we had a lot of pictures of things, but not many of us actually being here. So, here are a couple pics of us.

Sunday Morning

Here is our team: bright and early on a Sunday morning...well, not early really, but very bright.

Take care of your Mom's and grandma's today and make them feel extra special. We have 2 mom's on our team here and although we can't take them out for a fancy dinner here, I think we may go to the Turkish Restaurant on base.

Happy Mothers Day, Mom!