Having recently been through Chicago and Ann Arbor, a quick recap.

Blowin' through the Windy City Most of my previous trips to Chicago had it as the place to go through to get somewhere else (most memorably as the stop-over on a flight from Boston to Orlando, tickets bought through one of those supermarket register tape deals). This was the first time that I'd actually been in Chicago and actually did some Chicago-type things.

This meant on Friday seeing the Cubs beat the Rockies 6-4 in extra innings. Had unbelievable seats; face value $32, scalp for $25, about 30 feet from home. Missed the top of the first, but got to see 11.5 innings up close and personal. Saw Sammy go yard, Alfonseca blow a save by serving up Jack Cust's first MLB homer, and Moises Alou win with a walk-off 2 run job.

I also saw the future of homeland defense. The usher working the section in front of us (sections are refered to as "aisles" for some reason, but I'll use the more obvious term) was an older woman in her 60s, and she was relentless in keeping people out of her section who didn't belong, shooing people out of the actual aisle if they were blocking the view, and otherwise ruling that part of Wrigley with an iron fist. And who's going to argue with a midwestern grandmother? I'm thinking we get this woman and all of her friends to points of entry ASAP. Nothing could stop al-Qaeda colder than Nana's polite but firm no.

Returning on Sunday, we got kind of a late jump, so instead of doing a few different things we headed over to the Field Museum of Natural History. That part of Chicago is under construction (much of it perpetual, according to Greg), so parking was nightmarish. Once in, though, it was an easy walk to the museum "campus" that includes the Shedd Aquarium, a planetarium, and other stuff I'm forgetting. Oh, Solider Field is also right there, so we got to see some construction there, too.

Go to the Field Museum. They've got Sue the T Rex, the man-eating lions of Tsavo, and some other cool stuff. Plus, if you can convince the ticket people you're a teacher, you get in free!

As I've said in the past, one of these days I have to get to Chicago just to sightsee.

Oh yeah, the tournament The meat in the Chi-town sandwich was going out to Ann Arbor for an individual trash tournament. Both drives took place during evening/night/early morning hours, and I must have been a great traveling companion with all the napping I did. We stopped for dinner at a Steak 'n Shake, which was pretty good. They have really, really thin fries.

Tournament itself went better than expected, as I finished third out of 15 people. Highlight of the day was missing a question on the video game Mr. Do after playing the game during lunch. In an aside, Pinball Pete's is less cool now than it was in April, as they've thinned out their classic games and added a ton of music/dance games.

Post-tournament entertainment was pretty typical, Mexican food followed by Mike Burger's game show round (entertaining as always). The tournament all-star game was again in Weakest Link format, and I managed to get voted off after the second round. For my troubles, I won a number of books, including the novelizations of Space Camp and Dante's Peak.

Even the travel aspect of the weekend wasn't too out of hand, as both flights were relatively on time and hassle free. I can also confirm that American Airlines' claim of more leg room is spot on. It took me about 10 minutes on the flight out to realize what was different.