So, I must have been out of the news loop or something but on August 8, 2004, Dave Matthews Band just happened to be in Chicago. This is two weeks or so before the nice trip up there I just had. I’m not sure if they were playing there or not–I’m sure just about all of the city right now wishes they hadn’t even heard of DMB. Anyhoo, as they were passing through downtown on one of the bridges over the Chicago River, they chose that very moment to dump all of their tour bus sewage. The slimy, grimy and stinky **** wound up splattering all over a tour boat going down the river. Many passengers were on the top deck of the boat, and were therefore caught in the crap. Chicago definitely now has a rather miffed outlook on that band–and they’ve certainly gone down on my list of reputable bands. Pictures were not only taken of their bus as it passed over the bridge, but there were many witnesses on hand. The band and the driver of the bus continued to insist that the incident never happened and that they were nowhere near the area.

So, that was quite the note to begin my trip on 🙂 Everyone in that town was still ranting about it by the time we got there on the afternoon of the 22nd.

The rest of the trip was quite groovy. I have pictures up on the site. It was quite the relaxing trip.

There wasn’t too much new at the museums. There was a kewl exhibit at the Museum of Science & Industry about film-making. It was a really kewl interactive exhibit that let you star in a movie trailer. I had a minor role, sitting in a cafe as an extra. hehe.

An interesting exhibit at the Field Museum was about the reign of Qianlong in China. I’m certainly no aficionado on Chinese history, but this exhibit was quite interesting–if not a tad bit nationalistic regarding China. Still, the artifacts were quite awesome, along with the history of the emperor.

I hadn’t been to the Adler Planetarium in a while, and it was quite kewl going back. There weren’t really many new exhibits there, but we did get to see a digital omnimax movie about Egyptian constellations. It seems as though just about every polytheistic society in history has their own set. Some of the shapes correspond to each other, too. The Orion constellation, star-for-star was an Egyptian constellation that personified a god known as Sah (known as the glorious soul of Osiris). The Egyptians were not only a society of mathematica exactitude, but also had as interesting a mythology as the Greeks or Romans.

Cubbies lost to the ‘stros on Friday afternoon 🙁 It was quite the schlacking of 15-7. Kerry Wood gave up 8 of those runs and Kyle Farnsworth proved that he is having real issues by giving up 6 runs in the 9th (5.12 ERA now). Still, it was fun being in Wrigley. The Cubs had a few exciting moments and, if the pitchers had been worth anything that day, 7 runs would’ve won it. They’re still in 1st place in the Wild Card Race, in a pretty serious playoff run. They’re 1 game ahead of the SF Giants.

So, that’s pretty much the trip in a nutshell. I’m glad I had a full week off to not worry about anything. Now I can’t frickin wait for D*C later this week 🙂