Chi Town II

Here are a bunch of photos of chicago... i'd like to pretend like I took them, but I didn't. My photos are still on my camera, so i'll present these.



The building in the middle is the Tribune Tower. It's a beautiful building with a grand entranceway. The coolest thing is the wall just near the door: they've sourced chunks of rocks from other buildings, and put them into the wall. I'm talking the Taj Mahal, Great Wall of China, Alamo, World Trade Centre, Berlin Wall and the Pyramids! Only in America...




Sears Tower: second biggest building in the world (for the moment). It's large.



It's art baby. A giant reflective jelly bean. I kid you not. As much as all the locals rip on it, I loved it. The Millennium park, which this is part of, cost $400 mill. Thats a buttload of cash.



It's a beautiful city, i'll give it that. See the diamond building to the right of shot? The architect was a woman, and thought the skyline was too "male" so made the top of her building look like that. The thing that amazed me the most about that story? That women could be architects.

I'm kidding mum and jaim, i promise. sorta...

load out.

Chi Town

So, I spent today with the esteemed Freeman Brothers (Matt and James) in beautiful Chicago. One of the highlights of the day was the Art Institute of Chicago. It was full of iconic works, and more Monets, van goghs, Picassos and the rest than I could handle. I'm not going to pretend that i'm an expert in art, but there were some impressive works. I've put pictures of some of them below:



American Gothic



Monet's pond



The big VG



The stairwell.

The Freeman bro's departed today, so i'm back on my lonesome. I'll post pictures of the city next.

It's like they left a part of themselves in me...

So, we've finally broken up. All the guys have gone their different ways.

I'm currently in Chicago, doing the lone wolf tourist thing. I'll post photos of the amazing building soon... it's all kinds of sweet.

Dave

Alamo Bowl

Hey all,
The Alamo Bowl was something special for me: it was the game where I got onto the field. If you'd like to see the video again (I watch it every night before I go to bed) scroll down. The game was a really solid one, with Penn State getting up over the Texas A and M Aggies. The Aggies are an agricultural and military school, so the band had military precision, and were something special.



Here they were, making the tightest turns ever. An amazing show




Making the T for TA&M... Precise



After that we went to an awesome bar called Dicks: instead of great service like most places in the US, they treat you like dicks... very funny. Large cans of beer also.

Texan Bowl II

Houston Bowl

On the 27th we heading to Austin, to do some tailgating and watch the Houston Bowl. I’ll keep the details of the game to myself (so as not to bore the non footballers) but we had amazing seats, and had a great time. Here is a photo of how close we were.

The game was placed between Texas Christian University and Houston Uni. Because it was in Houston, it was a loud, hostile crowd. I don’t know if you can see in the photos, but the OTs for Houston were 6’8 and 6’7… some freaking tall guys. When you’re this close to the game you get an appreciation of how immense they are.

A little shout out has to go to Greg for killing a dear, cutting it up, freezing the meat, and bringing it all the way from Canada. With his dad’s special secret sauce, it was seriously the best meat I’ve ever eaten, and made the tailgating kick extra arse.

Part Two of the Video Series

Here is the second part of the video series: it shows the actual race, and the not so surprising outcome. Check for Thriller at the end...

Here is the first of three videos showing me on the field. I'm the stud on the right of the screen, Mac is the guy on the left. The noise is incredible: we couldn't hear a thing.

Landscape Photos

Red rock from the Sedona region. We drove through this region after leaving the Grand Canyon. It was a detour that took a little time, but was so worth it.

Another shot of the Sedona rocks

The light dusting of snow on the Grand Canyon

Grand Canyon and an idiot... Notice the moon still up in the background.

Grand Canyon shot. It's kinda big.

And the Grand Canyon is kinda deep...