NEOBlog: Canonically Irrelevant

So, I was going to update this blog daily with details of my travels around the glorious midwest, however my laptop went out of commission while on the plane. Needless to say, I am heartbroken and downtrodden. I only hope Alice can be fixed soon, because NEOLab (the old desktop) is a big old clunker. With that said, it looks like I'll be doing my trip report in flashback mode.

The aforementioned failure of Alice on the plane marked the beginning of the excitement that could only occur on a trip to our nation's armpit (in case you were wondering, Texas is the nation's groin). You see, I had not yet completed my last paper that was due last Friday by the time my trip got underway, so I planned to finish it on the plane and e-mail it out to my professor. With a dead laptop and no means of finishing (or retrieving) the paper from Alice's hard drive, I went into a panic. Fortunately, the Chicago Marriott I was staying at had a "business center" with Microsoft Word and internet access, so I spent the latter half of Thursday and early morning Friday re-writing and turning in my paper. This was further complicated by the fact that, for the first time in years, I received the blessing of airsickness. The fun of the airsickness carried over into the rental car, and whilst sitting in beautiful Chicagoan traffic (you think LA is bad? go to Chicago) I had to qwell my desire to hurl.

For whatever reason, the massive "luxury" Chrsyler that had been rented for the trip made me consistently nauseous when riding passenger. This reached its pinnacle about halfway between Chicago and Normal, IL (yeah, the town is called Normal), when my mother was forced to pull over and let my stomach have its way with me and the side of the highway. Anyway, I drove for the remainder of the trip and was just fine.

You may be asking what the hell I was doing in the Midwest. Well, I was visiting baseball stadiums. Starting in Chicago, then moving south to St. Louis, heading back north to Milwaukee, and finishing off again in Chicago. You may think this is crazy. Well it is. I don't advise anyone to ever travel to the Midwest (ok, maybe Chicago) ever, especially if you're and OC type person. The air is hot and humid, and rain falls in sheets. On my way north from St. Louis, I was driving along when all of a sudden rain came down in buckets. I mean BUCKETS. For a time I was literally unable to drive and had to pull over due to the density of the rain. Then, quick as it started, the downpour ceased. It's like God decided to fuck with the minds of all of the hapless people who made the mistake of being born in hickville. I'm sorry, but I'm a California person, and seeing weather like that makes me appreciate my earthquakes. Like hell if I'm going to be on "Tornado Watch." Speaking of earthquakes, whoever the hell designed to highways and roads in Illinois needs to be shot. There's so much gridlock over there that it makes a commute up the 5 at 6 o' clock look like a Sunday drive. It's not like you don't have space to widen shit out there, you're in the freaking plains.

Despite what my complaining may seem like, I did enjoy the trip. Milwaukee was an interesting town with absolutely GORGEOUS chesse. Cheese alone isn't enough for Wisconsin to upset Camarillo as my new favorite place, but I suppose it helps. I'm a sucker for cheese. Also, if you haven't been to the Arch in St. Louis, I highly recommend it. Although the attraction is a tourist trap, which I usually hate, anyone who has the balls to ride in a Mercury-sized capsule for 5 minutes (it took less time to go up the elevator in the much-higher Sears Tower) only to be trapped in a small walkway with a few tiny windows to look out of and not go completely insane is a hero in my book. Speaking of the Sears Tower, that's kinda cool too, but the Malaysians beat it in height by a few feet several years ago so it's not the tallest structure anymore. And I suppose the baseball stadiums were nice too.

Seacrest out.