First time in Chicago

After multiple requests from family I have decided to update this thing. It is a lot harder than i thought to keep this thing updated regularly. Anyway this past weekend I was able to go into Chicago. I went with a friend Lucas who works at navy housing development about 45 mins away. We took the train right outside of base right to downtown Chicago. We didn't really know what to do so we started looking for real Chicago style pizza. We found a place and walked about a mile to it, of course it was closed. But right across the street was a place called Al's Italian Beef. It was one of the best sandwiches I have ever had. We then walked to the Willis Tower, formally known as the Sears Tower. Ended up waiting in line for about an hour to get to the top because the elevators were broken. So instead of getting on one elevator to the top, we took 3! One of which was a massive industrial elevator. We got to the top and it was incredible. It was a gorgeous day and you could see forever. The new addition there is the thing called the sky deck. It is a glass box that extends out of the 103 floor. You step out on it and you are standing on a 2 inch piece of glass looking straight down over the street. It is in the picture. It was a weird feeling. From there we walked down by memorial park, by the big Picasso mirror bean. It was cool. Walked on lake shore drive and ended up at Navy Pier. We walked there for a while and then stopped at the Billy Goat Tavern. This is where the Chicago Cubs curse of the billy goat began and was also featured on SNL... look it up. We then walked to one of Chicago's top 5 pizza places called Gino's East and had some of the best pizza of my life. On the way we walked the Magnificent Mile which was full of stores I don't belong in. We decided to catch an earlier train to get back home so ended up speed walking/slight jogging a mile or so to catch a train. We made it with about 2 mins to spare. On the way home our train hit a pedestrian at one of the stations. The man was not killed but we were delayed about 90 mins. Finally got back Great Lakes and crashed. Overall was a great day. Still need to see some of the museums, China Town, Little Italy, and Greek Town. Maybe this weekend.

Storm of 2011

The storm is here... It began about 3:00 yesterday afternoon with high winds reaching 40 plus mph. When this started to pick up, most of the office was sent home. Only a couple supervisors stayed with the last few kids. The whole base was shut down yesterday afternoon and is completely shut down today. The youth center where I work is considered essential personnel. This means we are the last place to close in case fire fighters, cops, emt's, guards, etc have children and need a place to bring them. It is so bad, that we are actually closed today, this means no work, but I can't go anywhere or do anything. Last night I sat and watched the storm slowly move in. Every hour it was getting worse and worse. At one point it was reported that winds were over 70 mph off the lake. My window is about 100 yards from the lake. It was pretty brutal. I was very excited to wake up this morning to see what the storm had brought. I looked out to see cars completely buried, plows attempting to plow the street, and enlisted navy wrestling. It is hard to put into words what is going on. We got about 2 feet of snow, but have drifts up to 4 feet in places. below are a few pictures of places right outside my hotel.

First Week

So I just finished my 3rd day at the youth center. It has been a whirl wind of events, but a pretty good time. On Monday (My first day) I began the day by doing some paper work so i can get my ID batch, got a tour of the cdc's (Child Development Centers) basically the day cares, met a ton of people and still trying to make my way around this place. Everything is an abbreviation or a number. All the buildings aren't named, but numbered. So I work at buildings 3110, or can't remember the others. Anyway I learned how the daily activities ran after school in the SAC (School Aged Children)and the youth and teen programs. The teen center we have has every video game system. 2 XBOX 360's a wii, play station 3, XBOX Kinect, which is soooo fun. The guy I work with, the teens and I have heated battles at track and field. Starting at 5 basketball practices start. I am basically doing what I did in Pullman. Overseeing practices, coaches. I also have been coaching a couple teams of all sorts of ages. The second day the T&C (Training & Curriculum Specialist)put me through a bunch of trainings. I got certified in a bunch of things which i can put on resumes. So that was good. Again did basketball practices and learned more about the system. Today, my 3rd day at work I got my first project. I updated the youth centers slides that are shown all over the base on t.v. They tell everyone about activities, clubs, etc going on in our center. I also spent about 3 hours shopping at staples and best buy today. The boys and girls clubs give us money to use in order to supply the kids with things to do in the center. We got money to buy stuff for kids and the office. So far it has been pretty good. Longer days than I am used to, but I don't have much to do outside of work so its alright. I'm looking forward to getting more involved

Welcome to the midwest

The long journey is in the near future. Mom and started our journey Sunday morning. Map quest, an atlas, and the GPS (Richard aka. Rich) in hand we began. The morning was filled will lots of rain, but no snow thankfully. We made it to Rapid City, South Dakota the first day. It was about a 13 hour drive. We got up early the next morning and went to Mt. Rushmore. We were just about the only ones their at 8 a.m. It was blue sky and sunny. Perfect setting, for a perfect place. We spend an hour or so wondering around the facilities there. Then head out.. Next stopping spot was Grandma and Grandpas in Traer. With stops at Wall Drug, and Mitchell S.D. we finally made it at about 9:30. It was great to see them, Grandma has not changed one bit. We got up and visited for a while then headed to Madison WI. A 4 hour drive seemed easy after the previous days. We got to see Susie, Dave and Christopher. It was great to see them all.

After mom left this morning I headed to downtown Madison. It is a pretty cool place. I went to the capital, a museum, and The University of Wisconsin football stadium. I then met Chris for lunch at a local bar and got a brief tour of the massive campus and what they call state street. It was a good day, and fun to see a big 10 campus. Defiantly a little different than Pullman. Tomorrow I am hanging out and going to the Wisconsin vs. Indiana bball game. Friday morning early I will head to Great Lakes and start the new adventure.