Cast No Shadow

If you remotely love food, Chicago is the city for you, catering to nearly every palate and budget. Staying out in Oak Brook was a little limiting, and there was some good food around, like the staple Chicago Dog and cheese fries at Portillo's . You really can't go wrong with anything on the overwhelming menu. It can be intimidating to order there, since there's alway a crowd, which moves quickly, and the order-takers are very no-nonsense. We mainly chose to eat-in at the hotel, making a grocery run though sadly most of our groceries stayed behind, since we flew through the work and left a week sooner than planned. I didn't even open the bag of frozen shrimp! We ate our a few time in Oak Brook, but more by necessity or timing, mostly at the Oakbrook Center . On one of our fist outings to the mall, we grabbed a light lunch at  Mon Ami Gabi , where we fore-went the full meal and sampled some great smaller plates. It was cloudy and 50 degrees for our entire Chicago vis...

Quick post before heading out...got into town at 6pm Friday; no fun driving into the city! Hit the MoCCA Festival yesterday and met some designer vinyl icons of ours: Tara McPherson, Andrew Bell, Bwana Spoons, and Kaiju Big Battel. We're having a great time! And its not over yet! We don't check out until Tuesday. Here's some toy-related photos:

Drove up to Provincetown, MA yesterday to explore Cape Cod. Provincetown is not for the closed-minded, full of its own culture, home of artists and bohemians. And not a chain- or big box store in sight on Commercial St! Despite walking nearly the entire length of the main drag, we didn't fill up the car with purchases, and we passed on some good stuff including a dog bed that attaches to the back seat of a car (at The Recycled Retriever ) and a funky white stool. Instead we kept things low-key. At Yesterday's Treasures, I picked up Iron Man: Enter: The Mandarin #1, the entire X-Men Phoenix Warsong run, and X-Men Phoenix Endsong (with Variant cover for #4). Over at Map, a cool punk-rock store, LA found a Rogues Gallery "Salem" recovered vintage T-shirt and a button for her jacket. At Century , a home/personal design store, I got a sophistimicated bottle opener by Blomus, upgrading from the FSU fight song opener at home. We also bought our first alarm clock, t...

I get home and I just quit blogging, don't I? Finally, after pacing ourselves so it wasn't a last minute rush, LA and I finished all our write-ups from the Louisville market, coming in around 65 surveys. The deadline is tomorrow, so we rushed when the winter's last blizzard let up to FedEx the box, but DIA is shut down completely, so who knows when those surveys will leave and arrive in Schaumburg. It is such a relief to have those surveys done! Now I can move on to more important matters, like figuring out all the IRS stuff for our S-Corp. Wrapping up on Louisville, our last weekend in town, despite cold weather, was a good one. LA found a neat little area off Bardstown and we stumbled upon Lynn's Paradise Cafe , a wonderful little gem on a rainy Sunday afternoon with bright colors, fun wait-staff, a full bar, and the best breakfast since Memphis. Several of the menu items had been featured on a Food Network show, including LA's stuffed French Toast, to...

Would you believe that 1.5 hours out of Louisville, I blew a tire? One flat on the way out here in LA's car, and one on the way back. The spare is full-size, but a different size than the other 3 by like 1". Doesn't seem to make a difference. The current tires had a few miles on them when we got them a year ago, so its probably time to get a new set. Yay. There is also the matter of a slight 'hitch' at about 55-60 mph. Really I think its tied to 2500 rpms. At low speeds, that's the shift limit, I can't notice it. And while in Park, I can hold it at 2500rpm and the engine runs fine, but at high speeds, something just seems to 'bump.' I'm hoping A) its not the transmission B) somehow the Memphis Honda warranty extends to Colorado. Otherwise, I think I'm just about done with the Honda, as sad as it is to say, and about to look into trading it in. I'm starting to rethink dropping a used engine into it, but buying a car cross-count...

Another reason why Louisville is better than Memphis: 7% sales tax versus Memphis' whopping 9.25%! No wonder why the whole city seems like its in squalor. An extra 2%? Are you serious? Rush Limbaugh is still a big fat idiot, still claiming he wants Obama to fail. Doesn't he realize if Obama's plan fails, then America fails? You can disagree all you want with the President. I didn't agree with many of the Bush admin's policies, but I never wanted him to fail as a president. The whole Iraq war has been a disaster, costing many lives and dollars, but I didn't want his plan for war to fail, putting us in this mess. You know you're in a rough neighborhood when above the Neighborhood Watch sign, someone has scrawled "F*** the Police" above it. Thankfully it was early morning and below freezing, keeping most of the residents indoors.

So far, Louisville is a pretty great little city. And when compared to Memphis, wow! We took a few days last week to catch up on write ups (we finally finished on Sunday) and do a little exploring. We found a great little designer toy store, Ultra Pop , over on Bardstown. They carry a great selection of Kaiju, lots of which I've seen on sites like Super 7, but never in person. The owner was very helpful in tracking down a hard-to-find piece, even it meant we bought online and not from his store. Not to say we didn't buy from him....we got 2 UK series Dunnys, including the Triclops clear head with the umbrella, the green Ox 3" vinyl Ugly Doll, and Mini Pegura . I was initially unsold on it, but after seeing that Japanese GID, I was sold. Its like a lightbulb! We saw The Wrestler over the weekend and both really liked it. It was so gritty and raw, it felt more like a documentary instead of a movie. Rourke deserved his Golden Globe for sure. The Watchmen comes out th...

Today was a good day in Memphis. It started with sleeping in, a quick workout for me, then a fabulous brunch at Owen Brennan's across the street. Perhaps the best brunch we've had. We were joined by our boss and Shram & his fiance. There was nothing on the buffet line that wasn't excellent. Some standouts: biscuits & beef tip and mushroom gravy, shrimp, oysters on the half shell, eggs Benedict, grits, smoked trout, Petit Fours, eclairs, bananas foster, and mimosa's. I can't believe we waited this whole time to get over there. I've seriously been full all day. The restaurant was authentic New Orleans (without the trash) with great decor and even a small jazz trio near the front door. After a nap, we went over to the comic shop, where I picked up KOTOR #38 , Terminator Salvation 1 (movie prequel), and Hellboy: The Wild Hunt #1 . The new artist for KOTOR, Dean Zachary , will be signing at Comics & Collectibles on Wed, but we will be long gone...

Not much of a weekend here in Memphis, due to my cold. We got out a little in our immediate area, but have yet to visit Beale St or get any bar-b-que. In my neverending quest for good beer, I tried Abita's Amber and was not impressed. It wasn't bad, but not great. However, I did find a good pale ale, Kona's Fire Rock. I only saw it at one store in Greensboro, and doubt I'll ever see it again, but I would recommend it. I like a good pale ale, but one that's not too hoppy. Dogfish Head's 60 minute is way too bitter; I'd almost hate to try their 90 minute. So far my favorite is Boulevard's Pale Ale, but you can only get it in the mid-west, so my national favorite is from Sierra Nevada. Due to a limited selection at the liquor store, I got Dogfish's Indian Brown Ale, but find it too caramel/coffee tinted. That same store did have a 750 mL of Rogue's Double Dead Guy Ale, a Silver Medalist at the 2008 World Beer Championships, bought in part beca...

This was definitely a Murphy's Law trip, consisting of a flat tire outside of Salina, some punk-ass front desk kid at the Holiday Inn Express in Lawrence threatening to kick us out, doing 40mph on the freeway outside of Louisville on icy roads and watching the van next to us spin out of control, and Greensboro accommodations not necessarily up to standard. Thankfully, most has been taken care of....new tire, plugged another one, refunded our hotel stay plus 15000 points, no bad weather on Monday, and reservations across the street at the brand new Residence Inn starting tomorrow. The details are long and boring...well the Holiday Inn Express story is intriguing involving a swim team, barking dogs, threats of animal control and the police, and culminating in a 1215am cell phone call from the same jerk, Jaimie. Thankfully, the management company who owns that Holiday Inn called first thing on Monday and made things right. We're probably driving through Lawrence 3 more times this ...

Amid all the baby-related flurry of activities lately, life still manages to march on, and LA and I are once again called away from our home for a 3 day drive across the country, after spending 4 days away from it in Denver. We delayed our trip by one day, so we could have a chance to catch our breath, but it was hard to catch with everything needing to get done: bathe Maddie, tint the VW windows, car wash for the VW, gas up the Honda, pack for 2.5 months, clean house, pack lunches, burn audio books, see friends at the last minute, chiropractor visit, eat, sleep, get up and drive 24+ hours to North Carolina. We'll barely be able to unpack there, since the market is due Feb 1, before backtracking to Memphis for a month, then backtrack more to Louisville, which incidentally we're staying in on Sunday night. We're trying to get out early this morning so we make it to Lawrence, KS with daylight and energy to meet Dana and her new boyfriend for dinner. We've got McCormac...