Greetings from Chicago

The general lack of updation hasn't been huge, I suppose, but noticeable to me. Man, I haven't hardly been on the internet at all. It feels oddly liberating. Hah, not really, but whatever. My brother Paul and his wife have generously taken me in for however long during Christmas break, so I've been living it up here in the northern suburbs of Chicago.

Departure

The drive up was pretty cool. My nephew Ethan asked if he could ride with me. I thought it was kinda cute

Ethan: Hey Patrick, can I ride with you?
Me: Well sure, if it's alright with your mom and dad.
Ethan: He says yes!

Paul ended up taking the skyway and I followed him. I think it's my first time ever actually driving through that part of Chicago--all other times I had just been riding. It wasn't terribly crazy. The roads were nice enough that I was able to snap a few (blurry) pictures of the Chicago skyline.

Onan the Eccentric

Tuesday was quite action packed. As Paul and I and the boys went out to Woodman's in Wisconsin, we passed by a Ford dealer. I noticed there was a Ford GT. So Paul turned around and we stopped and looked at it. So there you go--a Ford GT being sold right in humble Antioch.
We then drove by some property owned by an apparently eccentric man who has a sum of money. He built himself this giant pyramid. If I recall correctly, his name is Onan. That's a good creepy Egyptian name to go with a big pyramid in his yard.



Of course, as we drove past Six Flags Great America, we had to stop and see the roller coasters. Ethan loves roller coasters. He seriously knows about as much as I know about them, if not more, and he's three years old.
Finally we made it to our intended destination to pick up some groceries.

Beer Can Chicken

or Chicken on a Throne

Wednesday, I got to see Paul's creative cooking go into full-swing. He told me once that he figures we gotta eat, so we may as well have fun with it. That's how he explains cooking fun meals, and preparing them in your own kitchen a little spicier or different from how we might normally, even though it's a little more work. So anyway, the main dish for lunch was Beer Can Chicken, or chicken on a throne. It's somewhat humorous to see, if not a little blasphemous to the carcass of the chicken.



Later that day I wanted to go to Gurnee Mills to pick up a video game since the local Wal-Mart didn't have it. Ethan heard this and wanted to come along because close to Gurnee is--dun dun dun--SIX FLAGS! He came along with me so we could go see the roller coasters at Six Flags

Then we had a good Ikea

Thursday, everyone went to Schaumburg west of Chicago. Known for its limitless array of strip malls. We all went to Ikea while Amy was looking at bridesmaid dresses with some friends of hers. I was thinking maybe we'd have to come up with somewhere to go after Ikea because I really wasn't all that sure how exciting it would be. But man, I'm sorry I ever doubted. Ikea is absolutely awesome. They specialize in furniture and home furnishings. Sounds boring, yeah, except these are swooby furnishings. And everything is at great prices. You could easily furnish a whole apartment for under $800 and have it look like a million bucks. I'm definitely going back before my life is over.
Later that night, I had some engaging and thought-provoking conversation/debate with Paul into the wee hours of the morning. We were mostly trying to settle some 400+ year old theological squabbles. While neither of us exactly won, some won more than others, I suppose, and I learned a lot about my own personal position on many things as well as how good that position is.

It's a Cop Thing

The intended destination this time was an Indian grocery store. But we had to turn around because Paul forgot some bills that he needed to stop by a bank and pay for. Then we realized we needed gas. And after that, Amy remembered that two items she put on hold were in the library, so we also swung by there to get those. Then we could head towards the Indian grocery store. But alas! First we passed by Six Flags, meaning Ethan wanted us to stop and look at the roller coasters. Then we picked up some samosas, looked at roller coasters, paid a bill, and looked at roller coasters some more. We were listening to Beverly Hills by Weezer pretty much the whole time because Ethan loves that song. That album was one of the items picked up at the library--because Ethan likes it.
The other item picked up at the library was Die Hard. I had never seen it, so I was naturally intrigued. It's really a pretty awesome movie, especially when compared to The Brothers Grimm. I just can't imagine they had one, nay, two (maybe more?) sequels for it. I mean, all that terrorist stuff and fighting them off is pretty much a once-in-a-lifetime thing, Bruce.

Ringing in the New Year

Today my services as a child sitter were employed so Paul and Amy could go out and have themselves lunch together. They got back and after a while, Paul and I started messing around with the guitar, experimenting a bit with beats and whatnot. Then Amy made some appetizers--fondue, crab rangoon, and the samosas, and we all sat and watched Napoleon Dynamite. Well, most of us sat. Ethan and Adrian were all over the place. Mostly Ethan though. And now here I am, ringing in the new year by blogging. If you read through all this, congratulations! You have shown me that I am vain enough to believe that people actually care about events that happen in my day.

Here are some pictures as a reward for reading all that.

Merry Christmas

This will be brief, and not really about Christmas. The title just seemed to fit.

One of the gifts I received is Matthew Henry's commentary on the bible. After cracking it open the first time, my first thought is how comforting it is to see a man, who hasvfaith and wisdom that I have immense respect for, point out the troublesome parts of my life, explain why they are troublesome, and shows from the bible how God's grace, mercy, and promise of salvation come in.

SSINFO et un film (ou deux)

Grades got posted on SSINFO this morning. I'm mostly not disappointed.

The past couple of nights were pretty cool. Monday night I went over to the Elder's with some folks and played some cards, had (a little) popcorn and wassail, and watched the greatest movie of all time, A Christmas Story! If anyone reading this hasn't seen A Christmas Story, I advise you to hang your head in shame. Then go watch it.

Last night I went to see Flightplan with Allen and Zach and a couple of Northsiders. The movie was actually better than I expected. For those of you who don't know, it's a movie about a woman who takes her daughter on a huge new airplane and her daughter ends up getting lost. They start with some mundane asking everyone to check and see if a little girl is next to them because there's a worried mom looking for her, and no one sees her. As things develop, it turns out no one even remembers seeing her daughter. Ever. And there's no record of her even boarding the plane! Dun dun dun. I remember the trailers from way back when, thinking that the movie looked like a parody of itself the way the protagonist started off all calm, but sorta neurotic, and ended up going completely ballistic and ended with a dramatic shot of her smashing a fire extinguisher into the camera. While it was somewhat comical how crazy she was acting with the lengths she was going was a little funny when I don't think it was meant to be. But over all, it was a lot better than I expected.

At some point in the movie, a conspiracy was devised that involved a couple of Arab guys. You know it was inevitable. A movie about fishy circumstances on an airplane, there's gotta be something up with the Arab guy. The consipracy was hatched on shaky details, and eventually the conspiracy gets pushed aside. That was the only really obvious agenda being pushed--that Arab guys on an airplane don't necessarily mean bad news. My experience flying tells me that whenever there's a lone Arab or a couple on a flight, people share nervous glances when they think no one is looking (or even when they don't think no one is looking). How many of them actually cause a scene? Virtually none. We're just paranoid. For a good reason? I'm not even totally sure.

A while back, we were paranoid of SARS (10% chance of death, symptoms include high fever and overall feeling of discomfort according to CDC). Now that the media has settled down, we've looked at the facts and see that more people die of the flu each year, and the flu is far more common. In the same way SARS was hyped, plane hijacking is hyped too. It's hyped at least enough that we think twice when we see a Middle Eastern man on a plane when we're really pretty safe.

Just my theory anyway. So I think there were much worse things Hollywood could have been pushing in the movie Flightplan.

In other news, it looks like I'll be heading to the second home in Connersville this afternoon where I'll stay until a few days after Christmas, and then it will be off to stay with Paul in Chicago until school starts. Assuming he doesn't kick me out before then. Yay!

CLEAN!

Ok, so maybe I have been known to like things to be clean. So I seized the opportunity to clean my car out a little. I found about six writing implements under the seats and in various places. My glovebox is going to be full of pens at this rate.





Before







After


VIVE LA DIFFÉRENCE!

Back home again in.. Indiana.. oh wait..

So I'm back home again. In Indiana. But I never left Indiana so that's a moot point. Anyway, I'm bored so I uploaded some pictures from Green Gables for everyone to enjoy.

We'll begin with some incriminating photos of Ross Cerbus doing something that would surely upset his mother. He didn't seem worried at my threat of posting it where his mom would surely see it, so here it is!


You'll shoot your eye out!

On to other things

People running barefoot in the snow

Praise God!

I went from getting a 64% when I took the practice math final (which doesn't count as a grade) to getting a 93.5% on the actual final! That really does exceed my expectations by quite a bit. I appreciate all the prayer.

And it feels good to be done with finals. What an odd week and a half it has been. I've not experienced anything quite like it before. It was kinda fun, though. There was no work to do for classes, so I had some extra time for leisure, then it was time to study and that got done, and in breaks there was fun stuff to do like watch Star Wars over in my RA's room. Over there I learned useful information such as how long a parsec is. It's pretty darn long.

All I have left to do now is work tomorrow morning, and Christmas vacation can officially BEGIN!

Moolah for the laundry

Now I know why they call it dead week.



That's all my money for doing laundry. You know, Micah said something about laundromats being a place to find dates. The laundromat in the basement of Cary isn't so good for me.

Emoticon!

I should be in a class right now.

But I'm not because I thought I did my math homework but I really didn't.

I deceived myself. So I had to do my math. Now it's too late for psychology.

:'(

In other news...

I have stolen Stephen Roberts's soul.

It's gettin' cold outside

This isn't even the first snow of the season, but it's the first time I could wake up and look out the window and see it and get all excited. The first time, it was 5:50 in the morning and I had to brush that lovely snow off of cars and then wash them. So it wasn't as neat as it is now.

And you can still see grass poking up, but you know, I really don't care! Snow rocks!


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