MichaelandChrissy.com

We had planned to take the kids to Navy Pier for the day, starting with the Chicago Children’s Museum and then heading towards the end of the pier for the Winter Wonder Fest.  We spent about two hours at the Children’s Museum, and there was a lot for Aiden to see and do.  He really enjoyed the interactive exhibits, especially the Waterways and Treehouse Trails.  There was also a kid-sized supermarket attached to a huge pretend kitchen that we had to drag him away from.  Once it past noon, we went to lunch at McDonald’s.

McDonald’s was a madhouse.  They really need ropes or something to designate lines, as there was just a sea of people in front of the registers.  I soon discovered that the line that I was in was not a line at all, and ended up cutting in front of some people to get to the register that was only a foot away.  I felt bad for doing it, but I was already aggravated because some guy jut his elbow in front of me to keep me from cutting in his line (while I thought he was cutting in front of me in my line that wasn’t a line).

Chrissy had similar problems looking for a table.  I know that Navy Pier has ample outdoor seating, but it was about ten degrees outside that day.  So the inadequate indoor seating was full and Chrissy had to wait with the boys for a table to open up.  The first table that she had scoped out was stolen by some lady who just walked past her and plopped her kid down.  Chrissy then waited for another table, and was lucky to get it before anyone else stole it.  I got back from my line ordeal just as she had sat down.

After lunch, we decided to call it a day.  We’ve been to the Winter Wonderfest a couple of times already, and thought it might not be targeted towards toddlers and babies.  There are plenty of inflatable attractions and a skating rink, so maybe we’ll come back when the kids are a little older.  We tried some inflatables at the last Popcorn Festival, and Aiden didn’t like it so much (he likes giant slides though).  It was nap time for Aiden, so it was a good time to get in the car and drive home.  Both Aiden and Gavin slept the whole way.

We’ll definitely be going back to the Children’s Museum.  We only spent a short amount of time in each area because we wanted to see as much of the place as possible before moving on to the Wonderfest (even though we didn’t).  We were talking about buying a membership on the way home.  It would pay for itself in just a few visits, and I could see us going once a month or so.  We saw a lot of other families entering through the “member’s” entrance, so apparently other people have the same idea.  Might be worth it.

Chrissy turned thirty on Thursday, December 4th.  It’s a big milestone in a person’s life, to be sure, but we couldn’t celebrate then because she had a Master’s class that night.  So, we decided to mark the occasion with a trip to Chicago on the following weekend.  I had gotten her a new Canon Powershot A2000 camera for her birthday, and we wanted to put it to good use during our visit.

On Saturday afternoon, Chrissy and I drove out to Chicago for our reservations at the “Chicago Chop House“, a highly rated steak house.  Our waiter, Glen, was very knowledgeable about the food and wine.  We settled on a bottle of German Riesling, which was very tasty.  The food was fantastic: I had a “Cowboy Cut” Prime Rib, seared and seasoned with Cajun spices, and Chrissy had the hand-prepared “Surf and Turf”.

We thoroughly enjoyed the food, and we are one of those weird couples that feed each other during the meal.  I always end up wishing that I had what she ordered.  We finished up with dessert: Chrissy had a hot fudge sundae and I had a huge slice of “Chocolate Triple Play” cake.  It was a great meal, but easily the most expensive one that Chrissy and I have ever had.

After dinner, I had planned on going to the Hancock Building to have a few drinks at their lounge on the 96th floor.  We also had the option to attend a symphony on the University of Chicago campus that night.  However, Chrissy was full and happy, and anxious to get home to our kids.  So we cut our Chicago outing satisfyingly short.  Even without after-dinner plans, we had a great time and enjoyed each others company.

Chrissy and I attended the UChicagoTech Christmas Party on Friday night (this is our fourth year running!).  This is a special event for my office every year, as it’s not just for the UChicagoTech employees, but also for many of the law firms, licensing companies and University faculty that we work closely with.  Our department has just over twenty people, but 170 people attended the Christmas Party.

The venue, actually a florist called “A New Leaf“, was very nice with interesting architecture.  It smelled really nice in the lobby.  We took advantage of the free valet parking, since it’s hard to find spots in  the Lincoln Park area.  The food was an excellent buffet of finger food, and everything was thankfully clearly labeled (I hate it when I have no idea what I’m eating).  Dessert was a selection of delicious chocolate truffles.

One tradition for our office party is the psychic.  Chrissy and I get our fortunes told at this event every year, just for fun.  Sometimes the psychic is pretty good (like the one that told Chrissy that she was pregnant with Aiden, even before she knew), and sometimes they’re not so good.  This year, the psychic was pretty good.  Apparently, we both have bright futures ahead of us!

We spent a little time mingling with my coworkers and their significant others.  We even got a shock as my boss’s boss’s boss sat next to us at our small table during dinner.  They were very nice people, it was just a little socially jarring.  I made sure not to drop my fork!  Overall, it was a very nice outing, and we enjoyed ourselves immensely.

I was listening to the 9-11 memorial on CNN this morning, and I was shocked that it has been seven years since the World Trade Center fell. That was a crazy day. I remember seeing the first tower fall on the tiny television in our Chicago office, and shortly afterward looking up at the Sears Tower once our building had been evacuated (the NeuStar offices were right across the street on Wacker). Hundreds of people crowded outside, and we were all sure that Chicago would be next, and we were standing under the biggest target. Just looking up.

Although I had never seen it before, I was very impressed with John Stewart’s words in the eve of September 11th, when he returned to the Daily Show after the tragedy. It was devastating for everyone, but worse still for those actually in New York that day. To be able to actually feel the ground shake, to see the clouds of debris, I can’t imagine what that was like. But “to grieve, but not depair,” that about sums up the American resolve going forward.

In honor of Aiden’s second birthday today and in retrospect of the hornet activity on the morning of last weekend’s birthday party, I wrote a fictional short story about a little boy who inadvertently causes an international honey shortage (among other things). It’s much longer than my usual blog post, so click “Read More” below to read the whole story.

I haven’t thought about my stock in Playboy in quite a while, but I recently found out that it’s down below $5! I have about 30 shares from back when I used to work there. It was my first job in Chicago, and one of the benefits was a discount on company stock. It was the first time that I had even owned securities, so I excitedly scooped some up. I should have merged them with the rest of my stocks by now, but I’ve never gotten around to it.

With the stock valued so low, it’s not really worth doing that right now. I’m waiting for Hef to kick the bucket. That should help the stock price. Some would say that Hef dying would kill the company and nuke the stock, but I think that Christie Hefner will rally the troops with new ideas to save the day. Ideas that would not fly while Hef was alive. I was really impressed with Christie the few times that I heard her speak.  I’m betting that she’s been waiting a very long time to take the company in a more profitable direction.

For example: imagine selling the Playboy Mansion and moving all operations back to Chicago. This would be a very cost-effective move that Hef would never agree to. Or better yet: move all operations from Chicago to New York, where the marketing team is currently located. That’s where most world-renown publications are headquartered anyway. In “an historic move”, Playboy relocates to NYC after selling the Mansion, leaving only their Playboy TV branch in Los Angeles as a satellite office. Bold new move, stocks soar.

And by soar, I mean at least to $30 per share, where I will sell my holdings for $1000. These were at $30 when I bought them, back in the height of the internet bubble with playboy.com about to go public (we were all going to be rich). In the end, I and my paltry sum of profit will claim vengeance over Playboy Enterprises for being snubbed so many years ago (but I won’t get into that story right now).

Chrissy and I go to “Cirque Du Soleil” every time they come to Chicago.  They set up a Big Top Tent outside the United Center.  The last time we went, two summers ago, Chrissy was pregnant with Aiden.  This time, she’s pregnant with Gavin.  Luckily, we got VIP parking because we pointed out to the attendant that Chrissy was extraordinarily pregnant.  We parked literally twenty feet from the main entrance, but it cost us twenty bucks (well worth it, says the impaired mommy).

The ticket-takers are positioned strategically right in front of the concession and souvenir stands. Both were painfully overpriced, but we indulged anyway.  We get a refrigerator magnet and a Christmas ornament every time we see Cirque, but I don’t remember them being $45 before.  An additional $21 bought us a medium popcorn, two Cokes and a bag of M&Ms.  Sticker shock, considering that the tickets to get in were fairly pricey to begin with.

The show, “Kooza,” was worth the expenditures.  We had a very good time.  The seats, as usual, were way too small, but I understand the need to cram as many people under the tent as possible.  The music was awesome, and the acts were excellent.  A few of them we had already seen, like the juggler and the trapeze artist.  I’m sure that we’ve seen the contortionists before too, but the new costumes were outstanding, and you can never really get used to seeing people bend like that. The “Wheel of Death” was perhaps the best of the lot, perhaps because one performer almost fell off (scary!).

Chrissy got us excellent seats: positioned in front of the middle of the stage, towards the back so that we could see everything, even with the sound director’s pit, with no tent poles in the way, and along the main aisle (in case she had to get up).  Since our parking spot was so good, we were able to get out and into the street before the rush of people poured into the parking lot.  We talked about the show all the way home. Next time, we might try to bring Aiden, since he may be old enough to appreciate it by then.

We spent the Fourth of July with the Seraphines this year.  Chip and Karen invited us over for a cookout, so we headed over for Chip’s patented chili-burgers on their backyard deck.  Aiden is about the same age as their kids, and they get along very well.  Aiden and Elena played in the backyard the entire time.  Chip’s parents were in town from Florida for a few days; we hadn’t seen them since Chip and Karen’s wedding.  It was good to see them again, and we met some new people there too.

Forest Park puts on a pretty good fireworks display. They closed off the entire block and people took up positions with folding chairs right on the street.  We took bets on when it would start, but the latest guess won at 9:38PM.  The show started off pretty loud, so it scared Aiden a little bit.  Once he calmed down, he started clapping and enjoying himself. Towards the end, he hid under his stroller canopy and watched the (very loud and bright) finale through the sun roof.

I work on Chicago’s South side in a neighborhood called “Hyde Park“.  I miss working downtown, but this is a nice place, with Lake Michigan to the East and the University of Chicago Hospitals to the West.  The Museum of Science and Industry is here too.  Unfortunately, what it doesn’t have is adequate parking.  Regular commuters to the area tend to call it “Hyde No-You-Can’t-Park”.

The problem is that Hyde Park is a university neighborhood, so parking becomes difficult to find whenever classes are in session.  You have to get here pretty early to beat all of the students who drive in (parking is a cakewalk during winter break).  Incidentally, I recently changed my work hours so that I could get in at 8AM.  I used to have to drive around the block twenty times to find someplace to pull in, so I was amazed at how much easier it was to park when you come in extra early.

Until it gets relatively warm, which is when the street cleaners come out of their wintery hibernation.  About once a month, the city blocks off half of each side street for cleaning.  Street cleaning usually lasts for about a week, during which time the amount of parking in the area is effectively cut by half. Competition for parking suddenly becomes fierce. I had to park a mile away from my office this morning, and I was none too happy about it.

I’m sure that this is an elaborate plot to bring more money into the city coffers. First, they post temporary “No Parking” signs everywhere.  Then, when you park somewhere illegally, they swoop in to ticket you.  I got two tickets in two days once during street cleaning week.  They’re quick too, they’ll get you within ten minutes of the posted time.  All of this may soon be a moot point, however, since I’ll most likely be taking the train in once the price of gasoline hits $5 a gallon this summer.

I’m still not sure if it’s normal for a woman to pick out her own wedding ring, but Chrissy did. Like almost everything we do, wedding ring shopping was a joint effort. Chrissy and I had looked for rings at some stores down Jeweler’s Row on Wabash Street in Chicago, but we couldn’t find the exact ring that she wanted. She had her heart set on a platinum three-stone ring with diamond baguettes on the sides. To complicate matters, she also wanted rubies on either side of the main diamond, since rubies are her favorite gemstone (nothing to do with birth stones, she just likes red).

A few weeks later, we were checking out the new Albert’s Jewelers during a bridal event. Albert’s had just moved to Schererville from East Chicago, so the staff was eager to make new sales contacts. Chrissy was looking at engagement rings, but they didn’t have exactly the one that she wanted. It turned out that they did have a three-stone ring with side baguettes, but it was a three-prong setting in white gold. The salesperson actually took a red marker and colored in the two side stones; the ring looked exactly like what Chrissy wanted.

Albert’s has jewelery craftsmen on-site, so they offered to get us an estimate of how much a custom ring would cost. We haggled over what type of diamonds would be used and agreed upon a near-perfect stone (D in color, VS1 in clarity and ideal cut). The engagement ring came in a set along with the wedding band, so the salesperson wrote it all up and then went to Josh, the general manager, for a price. It was too high, and I told Josh that I had seen a very similar set in Chicago on Wabash Street for less. He countered with a better offer, but I relented, so he finally gave me his best-possible-price-ever.

It was a really good price for a platinum ring, a few thousand less than what was originally quoted, and at least a thousand less than any of the options that Chrissy and I had found in Chicago. I looked at Chrissy and asked her if she wanted this one, that I would be prepared to buy it right now if she wanted it. This would effectively kill the surprise during the proposal, but she already knew the proposal was coming too. She was practically jumping up and down by this point, so I took Josh’s offer. We were all pretty happy.

There was problem when it came time to pick up the custom ring, however. You could tell with one look at it that the diamond was not the same stone that we had agreed upon. It was clearly yellow and had inclusions that were visible to the naked eye. They tried to tell me that this was the best diamond that they could put in there for the price that I paid, but a quick check of the paperwork showed that we had specified the exact diamond characteristics in writing at the time of purchase. They had no choice but to give me the near-perfect diamond instead. I also got a laser-inscribed serial number for my trouble.

Two lessons learned here: “Get it in writing” and “Get a lifetime warranty”. About two years after we were married, one of the diamonds in Chrissy’s wedding band fell out. Televisions are supposed to die after five years, wedding rings are not. So skip the extended warranty on the Sony, but definitely get one for your wedding ring. And buy a cleaning kit. Every once in a while, Chrissy’s ring will start looking a little dull, but it’s bright and shiny as new after a quick cleaning. I’m still proud of all the effort that went into that ring, a physical representation of our love.