Headed on over to the windy city this past weekend with my buddy Mike and his girlfriend Kara, to visit her friend Tracy who’s going to grad-school at U of C. The girls spent Friday afternoon shopping so Mike and I hit some museums. I hadn’t been to any of the Chicago museums since our sixth grade field trip, where our group, led by my lovely mother, was accidentally left behind by the school buses for about a half hour. Those were some tense moments as I recall. We visited both the Shedd Aquarium and the Field Museum. The Shedd has recently been expanded and they now have an awesome dolphin exhibit along with some Beluga whales. Highly recommended. The Field museum had a traveling King Tutankhamen exhibit which was really neat although I was disappointed. I expected to see some sarcophaguses and they just had a lot of the treasures and artifacts that were found in his tomb. So the picture you see was not seen by me. Saturday, we did some more exploring down town and just taking in the hustle and bustle. One of my favorite cheap things to do in town is that there is a lounge on the 96th floor of the Hancock building that you can get up to for free. Its actually a bar, so I usually end up ordering a drink, but it offers an absolutely breathtaking view of the city. Over the years I can’t believe how much I’ve grown to love big cities. Growing up in Amishville, USA, I never imagined that I would come to appreciate the city more than the country.

There’s big news in the Carpenter/Smith household. We now have a dog! Kyle inherited a 110 pound golden retriever from one of his friends, and I can’t stand the thing. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love dogs. I just don’t enjoy living with them. A large dog in an 1100 sq. ft house is a little crowded for me. I also may be allergic to the thing, in that I’ve had cold like symptoms since he showed up three weeks ago. I’ve had a ton of dogs in my life, but this is the first house dog, so we’ll see how it goes. I’m starting to get the housing itch a little, so I may have my own place anyway by next spring hopefully.


Heading back to Indiana this coming weekend for the big Fairfield/Jimtown football sectional championship game. A couple of friends are also coming into town so it should be a good time. Fairfield, my alma mater, is 11-0 for the first time in school history, and I also believe may be going for their first ever sectional championship in football. If only I hadn’t quite playing football as a freshman things may have turned out a little differently! So instead I played basketball, and became the best 12th man this side of the Mississippi.