A whale of a trip

Karen (Drew's girlfriend) and I are both from the New York area, and so we both grew up with pretty much one name in the ice cream business: Carvel. Around here, people know Carvel pretty much exclusively as Those Cakes You Can Get at Jewel. Recently, I discovered that there was a single Carvel in Illinois - just one! Of course, one's opening soon in Wilmette, supposedly, and of course that's way, way closer than the actual one - which is out in the middle of exurban nowhere, Geneva, Illinois. Alma, Drew, Karen and I headed out there today, and it took a long, long time. To give you an idea of how far this was (40+ miles): we had to get onto I-90 W, take that out to near O'Hare and get onto 294 S, take that to 290 W for about 8 seconds, then get off onto North Avenue... and then take that west for something like another 30 minutes. It was kind of ridiculous. To put it in another perspective, we drove through three counties - Cook, DuPage, and finally Kane - to get to Geneva, and even crossed the Fox River in St. Charles. This was way the crap out there.

To make it worth the trip, I had both the My Mom Got This Every Single Time We Went to Carvel Special (vanilla soft serve with chocolate sprinkles) and a Flying Saucer. Drew and Karen joked (I think) about opening up their own franchise. Fudgie the Whale was in the house, but, sadly, Cookie Puss did not put in an appearance.

On the way back, we stopped at a mini golf course in West Chicago, because if you're going to drive 80 miles round trip for freaking ice cream, you might as well play some mini golf and make it worth the trip. Long story short: Drew won when I bogeyed the last two holes. Drew had two holes-in-one and Alma had one. The par was ridiculously low. Details can be found on the mini golf page, because I know you're all itching to read them.

We finished the "Hey, This Turned into a Double Date!" day with a nice dinner at Blind Faith. I was pleasantly surprised with the quality of the teriyaki grilled tofu, and I found - to my amazement - that the Blind Faith salsa is remarkably similar to the Toro Loco salsa (if perhaps a bit spicier). I subsequently found out that Blind Faith sells not only their salsa but their salad dressings - including their vinaigrette, which I have previously declared one of my favorites - by the half pint. I got a half pint of each after picking my jaw up off the floor. I'm pretty sure the waitress thinks I'm a crazy man.

All in all, an amazingly packed weekend (though technically it contained three days, and if Friday had been Saturday then today probably would not have happened). I haven't had a weekend that packed that didn't have a connection to something related to school (quiz bowl, WNUR) since... I don't even know. Probably some family vacation back during high school. I think I need to have more fun more often.

Not starring John Wayne and Henry Fonda

Friday was one of the longest days, at least in terms of how it felt, I've had in a long, long time. I took the day off from work so that I could go to a party in Wisconsin with Alma. Let's get to the action:

10am: I wake up a little later than planned. Quick shower.

10:30am: On the road to Milwaukee, with Alma driving. She plans to see if one of her colleagues can offer us a ride so we don't have to drive the whole way to the lake where the party is taking place.

12:00pm: We arrive and go over to her workplace. People are still to drive up, but the distance to the lake isn't as far as we thought, plus I point out that it's usually easier not to have to rely on someone else's schedule. We decide to drive up ourselves and I take the wheel.

1:00pm: We arrive at the lake and take the short boat ride over to the island where the party is taking place.

It was a really fun time. I don't usually get to do this kind of outdoor stuff, and I really made it count. They had a paddleboat that two people could get in and pedal around, and a kayak. Alma and I took two spins in the paddleboat, one a brief trip to and from the nearest island, and the second a longer trip around the island we were on (which, while not gigantic or anything, was easily the largest island in the lake). I also made the same two trips in the kayak, giving me a pretty decent workout for both my legs and my arms. (I'm just guesstimating, since I can't zoom in close enough in Google Maps, but I probably did around a mile in both the paddleboat and the kayak.) The kayak, which at first I was a little nervous about because I wasn't sure I would have any idea how to do it, was amazing. I spent the entire trip around the island mostly thinking, "Holy crap, this is so fun" and "I should totally do this more." Alma says you can take kayak lessons in Skokie (on the Chicago River itself), so that may be something we pursue. We also did a little bit of wading/swimming, but the lake was pretty green and murky so it was a lot more fun to be on than in.

I slathered on the sunblock, of course, as I hadn't spent this much time outside at the height of the day in a while. At one point, I swore I could actually feel the skin on the back of my neck burning - however, taking a look at myself after getting home, it was clear I hadn't taken on any significant color. I do think I burned the top of my head a little bit, though; it's hard to get sunblock on that skin because of all the hair, and yet there's not enough hair to really keep the sun totally out. Alma doesn't think it looks very red at all, but it's a bit tender to the touch. I think any future prolonged outdoor excursions will have to involve a hat.

There was also plenty of food and conversation to be had, so it was a good time all around. Eventually we decided to head back to the mainland. Astonishingly, we ended up only spending about five hours on the island, but it really felt like a full day's worth of activity - and indeed, when you compare it to most of my full days, it was at least that much and really a lot more.

6:00pm: Was the day over yet? Not by a long shot. We left the lake and headed back for Illinois.

7:00pm: Driving back down I-94, we decide that we might as well stop at the Mars Cheese Castle, just to see what the deal is. In a word: disappointing. They do have a lot of cheese, but honestly, they have just as much non-cheese food and an entire section just of Wisconsin-themed tchotchkes. Cheese is expensive, so we ended up not buying anything. Three highlights, though:

1. Wandering into one section of the Castle, Alma asks, "Why does it smell like cheese over here?"

2. Right as we arrived, a bus arrived to let off 50+ elderly people. Apparently the Mars Cheese Castle is an intriguing tourist destination even though it's really just a big store. (They supposedly have an art gallery, but I didn't see anywhere it could have been while in the place.)

3. On the way out, two women stop us to have their picture taken with the "Mars" sign on the side of the building. Clearly they had not been inside yet. Seriously, I was expecting a lot more.

7:30pm: We suddenly realize that one of our last unexplored mini golf courses north of Chicago - Kenosha's Congo River Adventure Golf - is on the frontage road just as we get back onto 94 after getting gas. We immediately turn around at the next exit and go back to play some mini golf.

The Congo River is a decent course. It's not mind-blowing enough to justify driving all the way up there under any other circumstances, I think, but it's very playable and has a reasonable par of 45. I put together a round of 38, my lowest score in relation to par since I started keeping track of mini golf scores, while Alma shot a very respectable 53 that included three holes-in-one (I added two more for an astonishing total of five). Her score would have been better if not for a 6 on the 15th hole, which was a par 2 that featured an awkward uphill shot around a jutting "rock." Her first three tries came back, and the fourth bounced past her and all the way down the slope behind the start of the hole, nearly into the parking area. It was a pretty steep slope, too, but I went down and got the ball with no problems. (Alma: "Ball is in parking lot. Would you like to play again?") Thank goodness there was no one close behind us. If you want to see what each hole looks like, click here for their virtual tour.

8:00pm: Back on the road.

8:30pm: Dinner at Chili's.

10:15pm: Finally back.

When you consider how full this day seemed - and was - it's mind-blowing (at least, it was to me) to think that the whole thing took just twelve hours. It felt like an entire weekend, and it wasn't even Saturday yet! Alma declared this our replacement 2.5-year semiversary weekend, since we didn't actually get the chance to do too much last weekend. It made sense to me. A long, perfect day of nothing but having fun with the woman I love. I couldn't ask for any more than that for an anniversary present.

Stunned.

In the car this morning, I flipped from the CD player over the radio at about 7:42, just in time to catch the morning show on ESPN 1000 coming back from break. Usually it's the national show, but today, I believe in anticipation of the weekend Cubs/Sox series, it was local.

Coming back from break, the guys introduced Barry Alvarez, on the phone from Madison. This seemed like something of a strange interview choice; it's not exactly college football season at this point, and anyway Alvarez, while a coaching legend, is no longer the coach at Wisconsin. The reason soon became clear, however, as the hosts mentioned "the loss of a member of the Big Ten coaching fraternity."

My mind considered the possibilities. Did Paterno die? He's pretty old. That would certainly have been big news. But I was entirely unprepared for the impending answer, four syllables that flew out of the speakers like a punch to the gut.

Randy Walker.

I didn't have the same level of experience with him that others did, particularly some of my former WNUR cohorts. Rudnik's post brought me to the verge of tears, and I'm not a big crier when it comes to this sort of thing. He says it better than I could, certainly, thanks to his personal experience. And I'm sure it helps that a lot of said experience came during what will remain as Walker's banner year with the Cats, 2000, the year Tim Long and Damien Anderson had us dancing and hugging and yelling in the studio during the Wisconsin game (my first ever work for WNUR), the year of Pearl's quote (after Wisconsin) and Mittelstadt's yelp (after "Victory Right" against Minnesota) and the Michigan game and everything else. Nemo's post is a lot shorter, but it's good as well.

As for me... I just have a hard time believing it. Because of the nature of the job, Walker seemed to coach under the constant threat of the axe, or at least various calls for it; never mind that, while he never made a Rose Bowl, Walker was the most consistently successful Northwestern coach in at least 50 years. At any rate, I don't think any of us thought he'd leave us this way - in the summer, two months before the new season, not long after signing a four-year extension, felled by an apparent heart attack at 52.

After a wild year last season, featuring outstanding offense and equally weak defense, there was no question that Walker should stay, not like after a 3-9 year in 2002 (his only really bad one after his first year, when it was still Barnett's guys). Even with player losses, Walker made you feel like you had a puncher's chance; even in 2000, Northwestern was never the most talented team in the conference under his leadership, but they were nearly always competitive and sometimes quite dangerous indeed. It's sad to think that, come August 31, someone else will don the headset - probably Jerry Brown or someone else from within the current staff - and it's one of life's truly twisted coincidences that Northwestern's first game this season is a game at Miami-Ohio, which would have been Walker's first game there since leaving to join Northwestern after the 1998 season.

As Rudnik says, the best tribute to Coach Walker would be a winning season, or at least a very competitive one, despite the departure of Brett Basanez and a lot of untested talent at the quarterback position. I hope they can do it. Randy Walker may not have brought a national title to Evanston, but he brought everything else a football coach possibly can - and it would mean so much for the most recent group of his players to win for him. Even if they don't, though, it won't be a disappointment as long as they play how he would have wanted - if they play hard, and they play right, they'll have done their jobs. The only disappointment is that Randy Walker didn't get more time to keep doing his.

I remember when I lost my mind

In what has to be considered one of the biggest put-ons in history, Danger Mouse claimed in an interview with the Observer that the name of his act "Gnarls Barkley" has nothing to do with noted basketball player Charles Barkley. To wit:

Danger Mouse grins. "There's no story behind it," he says ... "The name doesn't have anything to do with anything."
Not even Charles Barkley, the basketball player?
"Nope. It's just like everything else on this record. There was no conscious decision about stuff."

This is, of course, utter horseshit. How could it not be? The odds against this level of coincidence - especially since "Barkley" is not a word on its own - are so high as to render it impossible. Barkley, for his part, has apparently called himself "flattered" to be the group's namesake, so maybe Danger Mouse - who I'm sure learned his lesson about other people's intellectual property with the Grey Album - can stop lying through his teeth. But he probably won't.

With that in mind, I've come up with a list of names that Mr. Mouse can use for his next project, should he choose to go a similar route. I should note that none of these names is based on the name of any actual person - they just sort of came to me. (Wink!)

Gym Brown

Crank Thomas

Roses Malone

Flan Musial

Bomb Seaver

Astrolabe Ruth

Moraine Wade

Feral Owens

Barrio Lemieux

Dill Pickelson

Light up, light up

After my whining about new albums from bands in January, it worked out pretty well for me this year. Guster's new album just came out, Snow Patrol's dropped a few weeks ago, and the Long Winters' comes out in late July. The Shins' has been mentioned as August, but since Guster's went from April to June and the Long Winters' from "first quarter" to late July, I'll believe that when I see it.

Anyway, I should pick up Guster soon (though I'm weighing waiting until Putting the Days to Bed - the Long Winters LP - is released on July 25 and ordering them both from Amazon, which ought to be several dollars cheaper and I doubt the Long Winters album will be easy to find anyway), but I did already get Eyes Open, the new Snow Patrol. I've listened to it through a couple times. Early impressions:

Track 1: "You're All I Have" - The stylistic brother to Final Straw's "Spitting Games," which is one of my two favorite tracks on that album. I'm a little surprised this wasn't the first single since it's so bouncy and radio-ready. I also appreciate albums that kick into gear right from the beginning (which is how I usually start my mix CDs, as well), so Eyes Open has that over Final Straw, which starts with the marginally draggier "How to be Dead."

Track 2: "Hands Open" - When I first heard this on the radio, I wasn't a fan, but I've since come around. It's not as major-key happy as "You're All I Have," but it's still pretty rocking with a catchy chorus. I may be alone among SP fans in finding the hipster name-drop of Sufjan Stevens to be a bit tiresome, but the song isn't really any worse for it.

Track 3: "Chasing Cars" - And here we slow it down a little. Sort of. It starts off sounding sort of like a Reindeer Section song, but Lightbody ramps up the intensity in each successive chorus. By the time we get to the third, the song has built itself into a virtual anthem, before dropping out again for the last chorus repetition. It's low-key and epic all at once.

Track 4: "Shut Your Eyes" - This one keeps reminding me of Peter Gabriel for some reason. I think it's the little wobbly sound in the chorus that sounds sort of like the one in "Sledgehammer." Anyway, I love the pace of the song, and the chorus is a perfect change in tune from the repetitions of the verses. The airy backing vocals late in the song are also enjoyable. Unlike other tracks on the album, this one never picks up, but it doesn't have to.

Track 5: "It's Beginning to Get to Me" - Great, great chorus. I particularly love the "and no one knows what this fight's about" line. Other than that, nice song; the keel is perhaps a bit even but there's nothing wrong with that. Decent shift at the end into a strong coda.

Track 6: "You Could Be Happy" - The jack-in-the-box sound is interesting, if nothing else. The lyrics are perhaps a bit depressing in that Death Cab for Cutie way, but it's a pleasant enough song to listen to.

Track 7: "Make This Go On Forever" - At 5:47, it's the album's longest song, and one could accuse Lightbody of taking the title literally - except the driving chorus is so intense it's a very easy song to forgive. The sweeping power and (as usual) simple poetry of Lightbody's lyrics are a potent combination, and drew me in as had "Somewhere a Clock is Ticking," the closest song on Final Straw to this one. There is a shift at about 4:25 where the song turns back into one-guy-at-a-piano for the final minute-plus, which is a tad awkward but nothing terrible.

Track 8: "Set the Fire to the Third Bar" - Another killer chorus. I'm not sure if Martha Wainwright's guest vocal has a real point; it blows a bit hot and cold for me in terms of sound, since her voice can get a bit oddly squeaky at times, but the "lovers singing to each other" plot - at least, you could certainly interpret the style choice as having to do with such a song plot - helps the song's intensity, as does the pulsating chorus.

Track 9: "Headlights on Dark Roads" - I'm not a huge fan of the verses; this might be my least-favorite track on the album because of them. The choruses are much more enjoyable, but something about them bugs me; I think it's just the word choice, because Lightbody does have a minor tendency to use similar words a lot ("grace" and "clear" are a couple that always stick out; they're not exactly "orthodontist" and "calligraphy," but they're not "the" and "a" either). If I wanted to hear a dozen words show up in every song, I'd buy another Destroyer album. The "oo-woos" in the chorus work better in "You're All I Have," too. Still, not a terrible song at all, and when you can say that about the worst one, it's a strong album.

Track 10: "Open Your Eyes" - Second-longest track by just six seconds. With a slowly building pace and Lightbody's delivery of the chorus, it actually sounds a lot like a U2 song to me. Just before the four-minute mark, the pace builds to a sonic explosion of pounding guitars and what sounds like some strings involved as well, which then blasts through the final nearly two minutes until Lightbody reins it back in right at the end. U2 is definitely the best comparison, and it works perfectly on that level for me, the sort of song that can ramp up and rock an arena, even while retaining its soul.

Track 11: "The Finish Line" - Even lighter and airier than Final Straw's cool-down finisher, "Same," this is a nice sorbet to clear your rock palate, and proof that Lightbody can do thumping arena rockers for two-thirds of an album and still maintain his indie cred.

So, this album versus Final Straw? Honestly, I'm not totally sure. There's a lot of great stuff that I want to listen to over and over, but I don't know that it can ever resonate quite as much with me, since Final Straw was where I got on board. That's not the album's fault, though. It's an excellent album if you like anything else Snow Patrol have done, certainly, and in some respects the sound is more complex. Even if it's not Final Straw, I feel good in saying that Eyes Open easily deserves its place on the shelf.

Things 'n' stuff

On Friday - which seems like ages ago because I keep getting up early to watch soccer - Alma and I were at Navy Pier for a company party. Why do people like or go to Navy Pier? Most of it is just a big mall where everything costs twice as much as in real life. All that's left is a couple amusement park rides (we rode the Ferris wheel, which was fun, but was it ten dollars' worth of fun?) and one of the lamest mini golf courses I've ever seen in my life (we didn't play it). Alma kept wondering aloud why on earth this is considered a tourist destination, and I'm compelled to agree.

I went in to work early today so that I could take a two-hour lunch break for the U.S. game. Drew and I went to Houlihan's because the Bennigan's was slow in opening and clearly had a lamer TV selection in the bar. The Houlihan's bar was actually pretty well-stocked with U.S. soccer fans, although half of them came in a little late. We were closest to the door of the non-wall tables, so the following exchange or a variation thereof happened at least three times:

Guy: "What? A goal already?"
Me: "Koller header."
Guy: "...shit!"

That's probably a slight exaggeration, but that was the general mood. Drew and I got there about three minutes in, meaning we had barely gotten into our chairs when the first goal went in. The food was pretty good, but it came too fast, so I ordered dessert just to keep our spot for a bit longer (the crowd outside was insane; you'd think there wasn't anywhere else to eat in the Illinois Center). Guess what wasn't worth it. All my thoughts on this painful game are in the soccer blog.

Snakes!

For the two people who haven't yet heard, there is an actual, honest-to-goodness movie coming out in August that is called Snakes on a Plane. I know. But the fact is, the humor being generated in advance of this film guarantees that it will not become the anti-classic many think or want. It can't live up to the hype, and it's quite possible that, even unintentionally, it will not live up to a lot of the stuff created to riff on it.

For example, there's the below video. I think you have to be, in addition to a pop culture maven, a U2 fan - or at least somewhat familiar with the song "Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own" - to really appreciate it, but I don't know what percentage of my audience that really consists of. Hopefully it's pretty funny either way.

Spanning the Globe

Me: "Deal or No Deal" just proves that people know nothing about statistics. All we need now is "Pyramid Scheme: The Game".
Pam: How about "The $100,000 Pyramid Scheme"?

Perhaps it was fitting, in a "what are you talking about, these two things are entirely unrelated" way, that I was coaxed to pub trivia on the night Roger Clemens threw his first minor-league start after his latest unretirement. My attendance can be safely called "unreliable at best," thanks to work and the place's smokiness, but today I got off right on time and Jan had e-mailed me specifically to extend an invite, so I decided to brave the smoke.

Jan had split off from his usual Greg/Leah/Elizabeth team, with whom I had made all my previous appearances, and was playing with Pam and an evidently mutual friend of theirs named Dave, with whom I was unacquainted but who was perfectly cool. They adopted the name "Fighting Pike" in tribute to their old 1800 Club trivia name; in response to his shifted allegiances, the G/L/E team played under the name "Jan's a Dick."

We ended up winning - trailing Jan's a Dick by two going into the final, double-points round, we got two more questions than they did to win by two. The question highlight of the day for me was probably knowing that the Beatles' final concert took place at Candlestick Park, and also knowing a surprisingly high number of the answers (by which I mean, like, four or five) in the Bible verse matching round. I had a couple of bad second-guesses, but obviously none were disastrous. Ultimately I think it was a very balanced effort with everyone contributing, which is what you like out of your bar trivia team.

Fun times overall. And since the last two times I've been, I've been on the winning team, I am now owed two back dinners, so I pretty much have to go back. But we'll see how work goes. Even getting off at 6 is cutting it pretty close, though I suppose the ability to eat dinner at the bar for free helps that cause slightly. Really, the smoke keeps me away more than anything; this time out it wasn't so bad until some guy lit one up just behind my head, wafting smoke directly across my face and causing me to feel it all the way down my windpipe. Not good times.

For whom the toll bills

I had to do something that was sort of privately embarrassing today, which was make out a piece of paper with car, date and time information, and mail a dollar to the Illinois Tollway (ATTN: Cash Handling Division!) for missing a toll on Sunday.

I knew I was fairly low on change when I got onto 94 figuring, rightly, that it was the quickest way for Alma and me to get to Twin Links. However, I had thought - clearly remembering something entirely different - that there was a full toll plaza somewhere along the way, when in fact there was not. I turned out to have even less change than I thought (a robust 13 cents), so I stopped, drew out my trusty notepad (doesn't seem so silly to have one at all times now, does it?), hastily copied down the "No change?" number, and drove off.

As it turns out, I'm not even sure why they bother having a phone number there, because the number just instructs you to visit www.illinoistollway.com. Apparently they're setting up a missed toll online payment thing, but it's not ready yet. So I had to fill out the aforementioned paper, stick a dollar into an envelope (kind of silly to mail a one-dollar check, and anyway there were no instructions regarding to whom you'd make the check out), and mail it off (which I'll do in the morning). Hopefully it gets there in time - but with five business days to do it - in other words, it only needs to be there by what, Monday? - and only Downers Grove to reach, it should be fine.

All this made me wonder briefly about getting I-Pass, but I'm pretty sure that's aimed at people who use the Tollway more than twice a year. I suppose it would be an excuse to take 94 up to Alma's instead of 41, but what does that save me, five minutes? Ten, tops? I don't think that's even worth the $50 outlay.

Mr. Hammond, I think we're back in business

For the two or three people who might have noticed, the main BigFlax.com site is back up and running. As expected, it was a billing issue. Verio, I guess, used to have a billing system where it didn't matter if all your information was totally out of date, and then they changed to one where it did matter because no shit. But by that point we had moved and my mom had stopped using AOL, and so the few e-mails they did try to send went by the wayside.

At any rate, that's all worked out, and BigFlax.com is up and running for the foreseeable future. I believe the current lease, or whatever you'd call it, expires in 2008, so you're not getting rid of me for at least that long.