Happy Saturday all:

“Every convicted white-collar criminal should be forced to complete their incarceration time working at a Chuck E Cheese.” Art Pastoor

One day we’re in Tees enjoying a balmy evening at our Zoo’s Tunes & Blooms smelling the flowers and enjoying the color while a lineup of bands are playing on an outdoor stage.

Waking up the very next morning and it’s as if we were transported to the Quebec City winter extravaganza, the Bonhomme Carnaval! This morning it was almost freezing, the heat was still off, and it took way too long for the coffee to get ready and wake/warm me up.

This is all leading up to a huge mea culpa for not posting at my normally, expected, morning time. This morning I found the covers a bit too comfy. Then, at 9:30 we were expected to make our entrance at Chuck E Cheese’s for Vili’s 2nd birthday bash. That was followed by Marin’s noontime soccer game. Now back home, here we go!

Breakfast Pizza – or nearly that. Not being much of a regular at Chuck E Cheese’s it had to be explained that the menu consists, only, of Pizza and a salad bar. The whole weekend morning routine of hot oats, or of over easy eggs (two please) with a bit of sausage and some wheat toast are all items not available. Nine-thirty was a bit too early for Pizza and so it was decided that we’d hold back till somewhat more of a brunch timeframe. By ten-thirty no one could wait any longer and so Pizza it was. Actually, the kids couldn’t care less – they had a blast. And for us adults? The Pizza tasted surprisingly good. All ‘vacuumed’ in the birthday cake which completed our “brunch”. 🙂

It truly is amazing how well these places cater to the younger set. Massive smiles on little faces abound. Once the ladies put a plan into place for collecting prize coupons the hunt was on. It was agreed that all tickets would be pooled and divided equally. These could then be turned in for great and wonderful prizes.

It seemed as if, Marin especially – he being the oldest, would come back from some game trailing strips of tickets yards long. Finally Marcia and Cathy spent a serious amount of time feeding the ticket-counting machine to then generate a ‘receipt’ which acted as currency for obtaining each person’s selected prize.

Reality check; bundles of tickets became four receipts, and these were each turned into a very fancy, very small, very curly, very colorful, drinking straw. Yup, you read right. Each selected a drinking straw!

The Putney Debates of 1647. – Watching both our city government and our national government at work reminded me of the Putney Debates. As an aside, having received my high school education in Canada, it means that English history played prominently. Moving forward, back in those days of yore a group known as “the levellers” proceeded on a path towards creating a new constitution for England.

Anyway, there was much to-do, much debate, much gnashing of teeth and cracking of knuckles – all dutifully recorded by a cadre of scribes. Then? Nothing happened. All the writing ceased and the details of the debates were lost till just about 1900.

Currently, the ‘Nati is dealing with all sorts of stuff that seems to go absolutely nowhere, including having a proper budget and adding a new Streetcar as an addendum. The feds have similar issues with a variety of stuff deemed important. Much hoopla, much speechifying; then? Nothing.

Maybe that’s good. Maybe that’s supposed to be the way it works.

Fini –Make it a great week everyone. This week wishing a Happy Birthday to Jason and nephew Connor.

Cheers,
Dirk

From the Archives
Sunday, April 23, 2006
Morning all:

Morning all from the heart of the Magnificent Mile in Chicago. As with any older city center hotel, and the Knickerbocker is no exception, rooms are miniscule. Bouncing between the wall and the beds and luggage for three I opened the room’s cabinet and found myself staring at Wolfgang Puck. Not the real Wolfgang, just a bag of his coffee along with a little coffee maker. This morning as I am sipping away, all I can say is “thank you Wolfgang.”

Marcia has discovered quite a similarity between Tonga and our stay in The Knickerbocker; both have no shelves for clothes. In both you are expected to truly live out of your suitcase.

So, Marcia, Jason, and I are here for our nephew Nick’s wedding to his bride Stephanie. They had been dating so long that it was assumed that they had sneaked off to Vegas at some point, but no—the festivities are this weekend.

What is interesting is that in a city the size of Chicago the dinners, service, and party for the event are all within a single city block. Last night the rehearsal dinner was held in a spectacular setting—the 95th floor of the Hancock Building. And the wedding gods cooperated fully by providing perfectly clear skies, resulting in us being able to enjoy 25+ mile views. of the city and beyond. This afternoon the service will be held in the historic Fourth Presbyterian Church …….. Then party time back here at The Knickerbocker.

OK, “grace in motion” might be somewhat questioned after my noisy dive onto the dance floor. It started as a graceful slide when the edge of my shoe’s sole grabbed on something. The next thing that went through my mind was “how can I make this landing more graceful than I know it will be?” I didn’t have a good answer and the full effect of the fall amply demonstrated that fact. Boy, did I have a good time though.

Modern hotel pricing schemes and ways to implement new pricing ‘gotchas’ are getting ridiculous. One important component in these schemes is the mini-bar. No longer is it checked once daily and as items are replaced a charge is placed on the bill. As I discovered at the Bellagio two weeks ago when I wanted to look at and picked up a nicely packaged internet cable, that the second I picked it up from the basket my room got dinged $10.95; all of this through the magic of sensors. Last night my brother-in-law went into a state of panic when he realized a similar system was in place at this hotel and that his wife and daughters had already been happily rooting around the back corners of their in-room mini-bar; ca-ching, ca-ching.

Make it a great week everyone.
Cheers,
Dirk