Chicago

I returned from Chicago today just in time for the Superbowl. It was a great weekend worthy of note. I had to go out for work on THursday and Friday and utilized the free plane ticket to visit some great friends who just moved from Bethlehem out there.

On Friday night, I went to a dueling piano bar called Sluggers next to Wrigley Field. It was the first time I've actually been to such an establishment and I must say, I'm a fan. I think every city (especially mine) should have one. Sadly, they did not play my friends request for "Pour Some Sugar on Me" by Def Leppard which was forgivable. What was not forgivable however was that someone paid the piano players to sing the Michigan fight song over and over again. This pissed off the Ohio State alumni who in turn the piano player to play the Ohio fight song. A bidding war ensued and the songs were played over and over again. I was tempted to pay the piano player to stop playing them both but a) I'm cheap...errrr...frugal and b) I don't think there were any other Penn Staters to support me and I was grossly outnumbered.

Chicago redefined the world cold. I think my tears actually froze to my face, I kid you not. While the cold (I'm talking like -20 degrees) really sucked, it was neat to be in the city Superbowl weekend. They really get into it - skyscrapers had their window lights on at night to have various sayings like Bear Down, Go Bears, XLI, etc. Signs were everywhere and citizens were donning Bears garb. The two lions in front of the Art Musem has custom made Bears helmets and the Natural History Museum's dinosaur statue had a huge Erlacher (spelling?) jersey.

The Science Museum had a Body World exhbit which won accolades for its breakthrough representation of anatomy. They use this technique called plastination to preserve human muscle and organs and display them in various poses. It was amazing to see how complicated our bodies are. They had these bodies (that were actually real bodies preserved by this technique) in a soccer pose, skiing, doing yoga, and playing baseball. It was really amazing... As a sidenote, they had normal lungs next to set of smoker's lungs. If you smoke, you need to stop...seriously.

The highlight of the trip was seeing The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. It's a hysterical show. What made it a lot of fun was that I got chosen along with three others to go on stage and be in the show and take part in the spelling bee. It was fun being on stage with all the actors and actresses. It was cool having the guy next to me belting out songs in full voice. I realized as I sat on stage that I wouldn't be a great actor. The primary reason for this is that I was constantly in fear that my fly was down. I couldn't look without being obvious and felt so paranoid. It was ridiculous.

They had witty introductions for everyone. One guy's name was Mr. Margolese and his introduction was "Mr. Margolese is what you think of when you think 'White Guy' and Mr. Margolese's sweater is ribbed for her pleasure". Mr. Margolese's first word was jihad. They used it in a sentence "Quick Jimmy! Duck behind that western wall, I think I see a jihad coming".

There was an Indian girl who got the word cow. She asked for the definition and the guy said "It's a cow!". Used in a sentence "Please spell cow".

My first introduction was "Mr. Repnyek gets his haircuts from his younger sister". The ironic part is that my dad cuts my hair and I told him to cut my bangs really short right before I left. My first word was "Mexican" which I was able to spell correctly (thankfully). We had to aske for the definition of the word and to have it used in a sentence. The definition given was "Mexican: Term used by Americans to refer to people who come from Mexico, Puerto Rico, South America, or any other Latin Country". The sentence was "Jane's eyes were opened one day while on Michigan Avenue she noticed all the Mexicans walking around".

The second time up, I was introduced as "Mr. Repnyek has recently found fame by winning the Peyton Manning look-alike contest at his elementary school". This drew boos from the obviously pro-Bears crowd on the eve of the SuperBowl. The second word was kinnikinnick (which is actually a word). It has something to do with Indian tobacco or something. I obviously got it wrong (but I was actually pretty close) so i was out. One of the characters is a comfort counselor who is a big black dude on parole. He comes up and gives you a hug and a juicebox.

Overall, it was a blast. I had a good time and it was really neat being on stage. The whole weekend was a lot of fun and I emerged unexpectedly as a Putnam County Spelling Bee Finalist.

A parting fact: Did you know that the Putnam County Elementary School Pirahna's have been the Jai Alai Champions for over 8 years running?