Zel-kun’s Words

I think it’s easy for someone who lives in Chicago to take it for granted.  I know many of my co-workers do.  We live in the third largest city in the country (though, as Pete always said, it’s a baby compared to LA), and yet a lot of people never really experience the city.

I’ve always had a fascination with the Chicago skyline.  One of my earliest memories as a child was when my mom took my brother and I to the Shedd Aquarium downtown, and we drove there down the highway.  I don’t remember which road we took, but I remember riding in the car, which for me was more memorable than the destination.  Out of nowhere, a tiny tower appeared on the distant horizon; a dark grey rectangle shrouded in fog.  I stared at it for what seemed like hours, slowly growing larger and darker.  Slowly it rose out of the horizon, bringing other buildings with it, as strange and gargantuan plants growing out of the ground.  Soon the buildings WERE the horizon, all I could see, and they were beautiful.

I can’t remember anything about the Shedd Aquarium… I imagine they had fish or something.  I do, however, remember staring out the rear window of the car on our way back home.  Watching the building slowly bury themselves back into the ground, attempting to maintain my focus on that last rectangle (the Sears Tower) as it faded into thin air.  It seemed magical to me at the time.

I guess on some level, it still does.  I drive right along the outer edge of downtown every day to and from work.  Every day, I stare and marvel at the colossal work of art that countless architects of created with that very vision in mind.  And at night, when all the lights are lit up, it seems strangely peaceful.

Saturday, Zai and I took a little girl named Stephanie downtown.  Stephanie is Zai’s adopted little sister, who likes art and anime, which estranges her from many of her classmates and her family.  So Zai takes care of Stephanie from time to time.  And I will say that she is a sweet little girl.

I parked at the Chinatown train station, where parking isn’t all that expensive, and it’s a quick five minute ride to the heart of downtown.  Stephanie loves the train, so she was smiling the whole way there.  We had lunch at the Grand Luxe Cafe, which is less expensive than it sounds.  It was my idea, oddly enough, because they have one of the best buffalo chicken sandwiches around.  It was still fairly early (10:30am) so we were able to get in right away.

Afterwards we went to the Terra Museum.  It’s a little place that could be eaily missed, but is a nice little museum that’s worth visiting.  Unfortunalely, it moved while the building above it was undergoing construction.  Still, we got to see some art in the form of two copper-coated performers nearby.  They stood stone still for a good five minutes, although one whispered to me that the real show was going to start soon.  They leapt to life and announced they were going to recreate several works of art.  And they did so with various props that were strewn about, standing in various poses behind a picture frame that was set up.  I recognized some of them, but Zai (an avid art enthusiast) recognized them all and commented that they had the poses and expressions down perfectly.  After the show, she dropped five dollars in their bucket.  I would have given some money as well, but I gave my last dollar to a drummer on another street corner.

I’ve always believed in donating to street performers.  They’re out there trying to make a little money, and providing a little entertainment.  They are the ones that truly give the city it’s lively atmosphere.

We also visited the Water Tower.  The Water Tower is the only structure to survive the Chicago fire, and the limestone tower stands in stark contrast to the steel and cement around it.  I’ve passed it many times but have never been inside.  We went in and took a walk around.  It had been made into a small gallery of sorts, with photos on the walls by various artists.  In the center was a locked gate which led to the tower, with a story of how the tower was haunted, and another story of how the tower survived the fire.  It was an interesting bit of Chicago history.

Afterward, I cheered on an anti-scientology march, holding up pictures of Tom Cruise with X’s through them.  I couldn’t tell whether they were doing it because they honestly hated scientology, or just hated people like Tom Cruise.

I’m on the fence about scientology.  Sure, I think it’s a ridiculous belief, and heard many rumors of cult-like activities, but not sure if I’d go so far as to protest against it.  Religious freedom is a two-way street, after all…

I have decided to try to make it downtown more often.  Even if it’s just down the road, it can seem like a trip to a whole new world.

Zel-kun out.

Does Batman read books?  Perhaps, Bruce Wayne seems like a pretty learned guy.  I’m not sure where he’d find the time between running a vaguely-purposed multi-national corporation and fighting crime.  But sound like the kind of thing he’d do on his time off.

But I digress…

Last week was hectic.  Between mid-year kickoff meetings and long road trips, I barely saw my desk at work, let alone my desk at home.  So updating Zelkun was pretty much out of the question. On the plus side, that overtime pay will come in handy.

I spent Friday, my first day in the office all week, finally catching up on things that have been piling up on my desk.  I did everything in a haze, however, because I was going to see Dark Knight.

I’m not usually a big fan of comic book movies, and, until Batman Begins, Batman was no exception.  But Batman Begins gave me two things that no other comic book movie has given me: Chicago and Swordfighting.

Yes, for those who don’t know, the movie is shot in sweet home Chicago.  I get a feeling I can’t quite describe when I see the batmobile racing down Michigan Avenue, when the Gotham City police barricade State Street, or when Bruce Wayne walks down lower Wacker.  It’s like nostalgia… and yet not at the same time.

Before the movie, I was to pick Zai up at the train station in Downer’s Grove.  As I pulled up to the station, I received a call from her that she was still waiting at the station in Chicago, so it looked like I had a lot of time to kill.  I decided to walk a bit, and happened upon a book store.  I’ve been meaning to get a couple books, so I stopped on in.  I conveniently forgot the title of one of the books I wanted to get (The Dresden Files, I remember now), so I wandered the aisles trying to remember.  Some ditzy schoolgirls wandered in and began making fun of this display of triangular pillows designed for holding books up, parading down the aisle wearing them as hats and humming the graduation theme.  Someone might want to inform them that mortarboard hats aren’t pyramid-shaped….

I passed by a display of Stephen King novels, and nothing really jumped out at me… there’s a pun in there somewhere…

I walked to the front and asked if they had any copies of Bukowski’s Wild Ride, knowing full well what the answer would be.  I haven’t had the chance to order it online, so I figured I’d give it a shot.  Besides, I was still standing near that rack of Stephen King novels, so if they had a copy, I’d buy a King book, because I know Rodger hates King, and nothing would give me more laughs than putting the two together in a bag.

Since they didn’t have the book, and I couldn’t remember the name of the other book, I picked up a copy of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, which I intend to read shortly.  I look forward to it.

Zel-kun out.

Literally, as I went on an Oblivion kick last week.  Zai finally pulled me away from it, being as she wanted to play, and my computer can run it as her laptop can not.  It’s usually not easy to pull me away from a computer game, but she bought me Two Worlds for the 360, with that explicit purpose in mind.

Such an evil genius sometimes.

Two Worlds is definitely fun.  Takes some getting used to, but once you do, it’s addicting.

Outside of that, I’ve been really busy at work, I’ve barely had time to think.  So I apologize for not updating.

When I do finally sign in… it’s nice to know I’ve been missed.

Julie:  Thanks for the comment on MySpace, first non-spam I’ve received in a long time.  And yay for the return of dancing Japanese clock girls!

Rodger: Updating the blog now, I swear!

So, excuses and explanations aside… what have I been up to….

Finally got a haircut on Saturday.  Most would think a simple thing like a haircut would be easy enough to get… but noooo…

I woke up early Saturday with the intention of driving to Schaumburg to get my haircut at a salon I knew there.  It was recommended by a co-worker, and they do good work for a good price.  They wait on you hand and foot, discuss one on one what should be done with the hair (because I sure as heck don’t have a clue, and if you left it up to me, I’d have a mullet or something) bring you ice water, and a hair-washing is included.  Costs about $30 for the whole thing.  More than what I would usually pay, but not too bad of a price for what you get.  Besides, I have long hair and it’s important that it’s done right.

So Zai and I headed out around 8:30am, which is very early for a Saturday, but I wanted to be back home before noon, before stores were too crowded or the day became too hot.  At about 9:30, we reached the salon and walked up.  Zai told the people at the front that we wanted haircuts.  Unfortunately they were booked for the day, so we headed back out in search of another place.  It is Schaumburg after all, there were five places to get haircuts right across the street…. at the mall.

*shiver*

The first place we stop is Mastercuts… which was closed even though it should have been open.  Seeing that, we trek all the way across the mall to Mario Tricocci…  I don’t know who this Mario guy is, but he can take his forty-one dollar haircut and shove it up his blow dryer.

We walked across the mall to another place I can’t remember, where we learned their stylists weren’t going to be in for three hours.  So we walk across the mall AGAIN to another place, who inform us their haircuts are thirty-five dollars for men (Seriously, I was willing to pay $30 for full-service… but this was basically a barber shop with a fancy name).  I grudgingly agree, and then they say that in three hours, they can do it.  So… we left.

On the way out (walking across the mall again), we passed Mastercuts again, and it was indeed open.  Their haircuts were fifteen dollars for men, and they could do it in ten minutes.  We had a winner.

I looked in the haircut book and saw something that I liked, a little shorter and a bit more professional, and something my wife, who LOVED my long hair and hated that I was cutting it, agreed on.  It wasn’t going to be too much shorter; a little off in back, a little in the front.  It wasn’t until after the fact that I realized they cut off way too much.  Oh well… hair grows back.

Zai decided to get her hair done and dyed, which meant I was pacing around Mastercuts for no less than three and a half hours.  It was boring, but we were out here now, so we might as well get it taken care of.  I left and went next door to a place called Yogen Fruz, which is Corporate-Yutzese for Frozen Yogurt (Much like Hagen Daas is Yutzese for Corporate Bully [As an aside to my aside, Hagen Daas tried to bully Ben n' Jerry's off the ice cream market, simply because they were part of Pillsbury and thought that they could intimidate stores with threats of refusing to sell to stores that sold Ben n' Jerry's.]).  It was very good.  Unlike frozen yogurt I’m used to, this actually tasted like frozen yogurt.  Usually, it tastes like ice cream, but I could taste the tartness of the yogurt.  They’ll either cover the yogurt with fresh fruit, or blend frozen fruit in it.  I had fresh raspberries on mine, and it was delicious.

My compliments to you, Yogen Fruz.  You made something good enough that I would actually consider braving a mall to have again.

At about three o’clock, Zai’s hair was done.  It looked great, she had her black hair streaked with bright red.  I look forward to next week, when the temporary color washes out and she dyes it turquoise.

After that, we went out for Indian food.  Zai and I have a love-hate relationship with Indian food.  She loves it, and I hate it.  I’ve had a couple dishes I like, but by and large most of it tastes like garbage to me.  The best chance I have at good Indian food is asking the recommendation of an Indian co-worker of mine (like I did last time when I had good Indian food).  I didn’t consult him, and we ended up going to Gaylord’s, a place about a block away from where I work.  We walked in and passed a makeshift buffet with Sterno-heated trays full of unrecognizable food.  When we took our seats, the waiter asked, “You come for buffet?”

“No,” I reply.  The waiter then walks off.  We sit there for several moments until another waiter comes by and asks us if we’re here for the buffet.

“No,” I say again, “Could we please have a couple of menus?”

The waiter walks off, and again we sit for a few minutes until yet another waiter comes up to us, “The kitchen is very busy, could you please have the buffet?”

Okay, fine, I’ll eat your stupid buffet.  I wasn’t very happy about being railroaded into ordering something I obviously didn’t want, and considered turning towards the exit on my way to the buffet, but I stayed.  I grabbed some Tandoori Chicken and some sort of noodle dish, I also got some cabbage dish and a potato-filled pastry.  The chicken was passable, and the noodles weren’t too bad, but the cabbage and potato thing were terrible.

On my second trip, I got some spinach dish and some sort of beans…. which again were inedible.  Finally, I decided I had enough bad food and tried the dessert, which was a too-sweet bread ball, a pink jello-like dish, and something that looked like rice pudding.  With the exclusion of the jello substance, which was passable, it was again inedible.

I drove home, and promptly heated up the leftovers from Famous Dave’s, brisket and sausage.  Delicious.  I had to cook the sausage twice because it rolled off my plate.  So I cleaned it off and re-cooked it to kill any germs it may have picked up.  Love the two-second rule.

Zel-kun out.

Well, I finally did it.  I bought myself a brand new slightly used automobile.  Since I got it, I’ve been practically looking for excuses to drive.  It’s going to end up saving me a lot of money, giving up the SUV for a sedan, and I’m all about saving money.  Before I introduce the new car, I figured I’d give a rundown of the vehicles I’ve had through the ages.  A memoriam of sorts…

And yes, I know Pete did it first.

In 1999 I bought Aira, a 1987 Pontiac 6000 sedan.  Rather, my dad bought it using a joint savings account we had at the credit union.  He told me I should probably get a job and get insurance, or else he’ll sell it for $300, half the price he bought it for.  If nothing else, the man knew how to motivate me.  The picture is not of my car, but as close as I could find.  Basically, make that a two-door, and put about 10 pounds of rust on it, and you’ll have a rough idea of what Aira looked like.

I named her Aira after the first anime I saw as a teenager, which seemed appropriate being as it was the first car I owned.  The car, like the anime, was not the newest, or prettiest, but it got the job done.  She was rusted-out, had no CD or even a cassette, and the interior was torn and frayed.  Aira remains one of the most reliable cars I’ve owned.  She only failed me once, albeit quite spectacularly.

On Christmas Eve of 1999, I was working at Things Remembered as an engraver.  The store closed at 6:00pm, but there was a large pile of work left to do.  I dismissed the salespeople and worked on it for a couple hours, so I wouldn’t be backed up when I came in the day after Christmas.

I drove home from the mall, which back before the town was as developed as it is now, led me down a stretch of forest road.  About halfway down, the radio stopped, the lights went off, and the car stopped running.  I was suddenly coasting along in complete darkness.  I put the brakes on and pulled to the side of the road, then began walking back to the gas station I passed about a quarter-mile back.

I made a call at the pay phone (an age before cell phones… I can barely believe it), and had my step-dad who was at my mom’s Christmas party I was heading to pick me up.  We attached a chain to my car and towed it to the mall parking lot.  After Christmas, my dad found that the problem was a sensor.  Go figure.

Aira was badly damaged in a collision just after 9/11.  I was driving home from college to see the presidential address, and at an intersection, a lady in the oncoming lane in a giant SUV took a left turn in front of me.  I managed to drive away from the accident, but with most of the driver’s side front end destroyed.  There was no headlight and no way to open the hood anymore.  I continued driving her for a month until the insurance settlement cleared.  She was a good car, but it was finally time to retire her…

I bought Sylphiel, a 1986 Oldsmobile Cutlass with the insurance money for only $750.  I bought it off a co-worker who inherited her husband’s estate.  She had been seperated from him for decades, so she was trying to get rid of stuff, so I got a nice deal.  It had been sitting in the driveway for years, and only had some 50,000 miles on it.  It only had a couple scratches, and the interior was pristine.  She was a pretty reliable car, but had problems with the steering and the shocks.  I fixed the steering pretty early on, but didn’t get it fixed until about a year or more later.  My stepbrother loved the broken shocks because when I got in, looked like a cartoon car because it dipped heavily to my side.

After I had the shocks fixed it ran like a dream.  Unfortunately, that dream was cut short less than a month later when a giant SUV (I sense a pattern) ran a red light and t-boned me.  I was struck just in front of the driver’s door and avoided what could very well have been a lethal collision.  Instead I walked away with whiplash and a sprained shoulder.  Sylphiel was not so lucky, the collision broke the front axle, crushed the oil pan, punctured the radiator, and broke the transmission.  When I was hit, the car spun so fast that there was a sizeable dent on the back of my car where it struck the back of the SUV.  I didn’t have a choice but to replace Sylphiel, murdered before her time.

Just like last time, I used the insurance money to buy another car.

A 1997 Chevy Blazer, affectionately called Lina.  She cost $3600 and was the newest car I’ve ever owned.  It has also been the most trouble of any vehicle I’ve owned.  One of the spark plugs keep shorting out, the computer crashed preventing the transmission working once, the fuel pump died, power brake booster broke TWICE, the master cylinder died, the gas tank has a minor leak on top that spills a little gas during fillup, the O2 sensor died, two new batteries, the lever on the seat broke, the power windows randomly decide when they want to work, the four-wheel drive doesn’t work (as I found out the hard way when I couldn’t get out of a friend’s driveway in the winter and needed to be TOWED out), windshield wiper motor failed, the heating fan broke, the wiper fluid reservoir is broken, and the air conditioning has a leak.

Chevy… you’re not really good at making cars, are you?

On top of that are a couple little dents I got while trying to maneuver the thing.  And more recently, the other day I was sitting in traffic and some douche driving in the breakdown lane knocked my mirror off (as seen in above photo).  So, when my parents offered me good deal on a new used car, I had to take it…

Enter Odessa, a 2000 Chrysler 300m.  I bought it for only $4500, and it’s one defect is a leak in the air conditioning, which I intend to get fixed next payday.  It drives well, has incredible gas mileage compared to my bulky Blazer, and has the most comfortable seats in the world.  It’s the first non-GM car I’ve owned, so I’m not sure what to expect from it in the coming years.  Though anything more reliable than the Blazer would be welcome.

That’s all for now, happy Independence Day!

Zel-kun out.