Chicago Day 5 (Now it's time to say goodbye...)

I can never legitimately relax on a vacation. Whenever I am visiting somewhere, I feel the need to get out and see what that place has to offer. I want to maximize all of my time when I am there, and sleeping in just doesn't fit in with my plans to see and do everything.
This trip was no exception, but finally, on our final day in Chicago we were able to sleep in a bit. There were very few sessions in the morning and any of the autograph sessions that were occurring that I was interested in, I was able to obtain earlier in the Convention. All that we had to do was to mail the Michael McKean song sheet home, and do one last perusal of the booths, in order to make any last minute purchases.
Lauren still needed to pack, so I headed down, alone, to try and mail the song sheet from the Fed Ex satellite located in the hotel, but, unfortunately, even after telling the guy in there the night prior the size, to confirm that we could mail it home, it turned out that the framing of it was too large, but fortunately there was a Kinkos in the direction that we were headed to reach the EL, so we decided to mail it there. Letting me on the show floor by myself, with no one to curb my purchasing habits might not have been the best idea, but I was able to control myself and only bought an NL Central Champions T-shirt on clearance and a 1978 Cubs road jersey, that I had thought about, and decided that I really wanted. I grabbed them and headed back upstairs to get them packed and get ready to checkout.
Lauren was packed when I returned, so we checked out—via the television, no less!, what a world we live in! – and went to the elevators to leave the hotel.
Now is the time to air one of the main concerns of the whole vacation—the elevators at the Hilton. Now, I know that there was an abnormally large amount of people in the hotel for the weekend, but having to wait for over 20 minutes for an elevator is unacceptable. Unfortunately, being on the 18th floor made using the stairways impractical, and so, we had to endure the waits. It made one of the benefits of staying on the grounds of the Convention; namely, the ability to return to one's room at one's own convenience, almost moot. But that is neither here nor there, and we eventually found ourselves in the main lobby, aiming for the exit.
After a quick stop at Kinkos, to mail our lugubrious song sheet, we were seated on the Red Line, headed to Wrigley Field. The ride took around a half hour, and soon we were stepping out at the Addison stop, which was notably proud of the being the Wrigley Field stop and was appropriately dressed to promote that landmark.
We began our walk around the ballpark, but at this point we both needed to eat, so we popped across the street to grab lunch at McDonald's It was adequate, and allowed us to begin our photo excursion around the park.

Even in the dead of winter, Wrigley is a beautiful little park, nestled right in the heart of the neighborhood and notably quaint, in comparison to the large concrete monsters to which I am familiar. From the outside, the legendary scoreboard is easily visible, and there is the outfield knothole, with a view to the field of play. In addition, there are statues of Harry Caray and Ernie Banks, and though it was fairly desolate in January, I can imagine on a warm June afternoon, there is quite an atmosphere for blocks around. Again, while it was wonderful to see it at all, I cannot wait to see a legitimate game here, hopefully sooner, rather than later.



After lingering as long as I could justify, we got back on the EL and took it to Midway Airport, the end of the line. We got to the airport much earlier than we needed and were able to check our bags, get through security and relax well ahead of the flight. Lauren had a pizza (not deep-dish, but supposedly still good) and I had an order of hot wings, which took far too long for them to prepare, but were delicious, and we half watched as the Cardinals beat the Eagles to secure their Super Bowl berth.
The flight home was non-eventful, although we did make it in an hour ahead of schedule.
The trip in general was wonderful, despite being absolutely freezing. However, having survived one of the coldest winters in recent memory, I now feel like I could handle a full winter on Lake Michigan. I don't know why everyone kept insisting that my coat was inadequate – I know what I need, and the coat was more than perfect. In fact, often the only part of my anatomy that wasn't freezing was my torso. I did learn that wearing jeans in below freezing temperatures might not have been the best idea, as what started out as a blister on my leg, turned out as a fairly nasty wound that I am still recovering from. Aside from the cold, the only real blemish was the crummy elevators in the hotel. I would definitely rate the trip as an A, and I would love to go back soon when Lauren and I will be able to actually do some outdoor sightseeing and take some pictures of the amazing architecture and outdoor art that is so prevalent. All in all, a good time was had by all!

Chicago Day 4 (Jeopardy, Splurges and, most importantly, Ryno)

So, being like a small child, I had a hard time falling asleep on Friday night, what with the being overstimulated by the Convention in general, and the anticipation of the Sandberg encounter the following morning. I spent the majority of the night watching the History Channel, so at least it was somewhat educational experience.
Miraculously, we did manage to get up with the alarm at 7, in order to shower, get ready, go find breakfast and get down to Cubs Jeopardy, the first session of the day. Our original plan was to walk a few blocks for a McDonalds' breakfast, but the temperature had dropped again during the night and the weather outside was frightful, and we sought sanctuary in a Corner Bakery and had oatmeal and hot tea. That hit the spot much more than McDonalds would have.
We were back at the hotel in plenty of time for the Jeopardy, which pitted members of the '09 Cubs versus members of the Cubs from the '80s, hosted by Pat Hughes and refereed by our old friend, Dave Otto. Highlights of the session included Koyie Hill displaying impressive Cub knowledge, Rick Reuschel answering correctly, on more than one occasion, “Me?”....and getting them right, and the current Cubs winning the game. Afterward, there was a riot scene, as a majority of the audience, self included, rushing the stage to try and get an autograph from the newest Cub, Milton Bradley. It was scary for a few minutes, because I am admittedly a die-hard fan, but some of the people in the mob were insane to the point of legitimate fear. I was able to get a baseball signed and escape with all of my limbs intact. I'm not sure that everyone else in the mob was that lucky.
Following Jeopardy, we were beginning to get close to Ryne Sandberg time, so we went back to the room to get the jersey and queue up in the autograph line. The line looked quite daunting, but we work at Disneyland, so lines don't frighten us and we did our time. The only bad part about the session was the fact that there were security guards forcing anyone with a camera to stand behind an arbitrary point, even if it was a member of their party up on the dais getting the autograph. Upon noticing this, Lauren did some on the spot research, and found the best spot to stand and the best ISO speed to try and capture my brush with greatness.
I finally reached the front of the line and was mere moments away from meeting my favorite baseball player and it was actually going to happen. I shook his hand, put the jersey down and asked if he could sign it to me. His handler said that he was unable to, but he did add “HOF 2005” to the signature. I took the minute or so that I had there telling him that I'm sure that he heard it all the time but that he was my favorite all time player and was the reason that I really got into baseball at all, which was true. He thanked me for it, and then, as quickly as it happened, it was over. I can't wait to get the jersey framed and displayed.
Since the line had taken longer than I had initially scheduled it, we had missed one of the sessions that I was hoping to attend, about the Cubs and new media. We decided that it was time for lunch, but first we needed to drop off my new treasure in the room. After that, we reached the showrooms, where I got in line for an Italian beef, while Lauren walked around looking for a hot dog vendor. Unable to find one, she returned to me as I was about to order, and she got an Italian beef as well. They were pretty tasty, but could have definitely used a bit more juice to them.
After lunch, we wandered the floor a little bit, and I got Ferguson Jenkins to sign a ball in exchange for a 20 dollar donation to breast cancer research. Again, a very nice man, and Lauren got another photo of us. Also, at his booth, and unfortunately not drawing much attention at all, was Meadowlark Lemon of the Harlem Globetrotters. I would have liked to support him, but I had nothing for him to sign. We basically trolled the floor for most of the afternoon, where we bought a new Cub jersey for Lauren, a button-up Cub sport shirt and Convention t-shirt for me, We later met and got a photo with Lou Brock, and a ball for us by Lee Smith. Funnily enough, for as intimidating as Smith was on the pitcher's mound, he seemed like a very gentle person when we met him, and he spoke with an incredible Cajun accent, and reminded me a bit of Boomhauer from “King of the Hill.”
As we walked, I saw the JDF (Juvenile Diabetes Foundation) booth that is always at the Cub Convention on behalf of Ron Santo. When I have the means to do so, I always like to send a few bucks their way, so with a ten dollar bill in my hand we approached. I handed the gentleman behind the table my money and he asked what items I wanted, as they were selling t-shirts, rubber bracelets and things of that ilk. I told him that I didn't need any of it, and just wanted to give the money. He seemed stunned and we wound up talking for a decent amount of time. It turns out that he grew up just down the freeway from us, in Whittier, and regularly visited his family out here. We got to talking about Disneyland, and Lauren and I told him that we could get him passes for the front of the lines and to shoot us an email when/if he comes out in our direction. He was, again, stunned and told us that he had partial season tickets to Wrigley, and that if we made it back to Chicago (which I am doing my best to facilitate) that we were to email him, and that we would be his guests.
Access to Wrigley Field notwithstanding, it was one of the more meaningful and pleasant conversations that we would have all weekend, and I am glad that we stopped to donate and chat.
One of the rooms on the floor was dedicated to a silent auction, where memorabilia from the various singers of the 7th Inning Stretch had signed, again, with the proceeds going to charity. We went in, basically to browse, when we saw the signed song sheet and signed baseball from Michael McKean's performance, and being as he is one of Lauren's favorite actors, I was compelled to bid on it. The auction was near closing, and there hadn't been much interest, so I was fairly confident that we had won. It was around this time that we would need to confirm our airline reservations for the following day, and I was able to do so from my iPhone, so while we waited for the auction to end, we did just that, and upon returning to the silent auction, saw that we had indeed won. The song sheet was much longer than we had anticipated, and came to the realization that it would need to be shipped home, rather than carried on the plane.
At this point, the Convention day was coming to a close, so we decided to go to the Irish pub/restaurant in the hotel lobby for some dinner. The food was excellent, but the bar was filled with loud, obnoxious drunks hitting on each other in a rather pathetic manner, and requiring Lauren and I to essentially scream at each other, in order to hear what was being said, despite being mere inches from one another. As stated previously, at least the food was good. I had a huge corned beef sandwich and Lauren had the shepherd's pie.
We had initially planned to go to a renowned local ice cream parlor, but by the time that dinner was done, it had began snowing again, and we decided that perhaps a night in would be in our best interest. Fortunately, we had nothing planned the next morning until checking out, but to cruise the show floor and make any last minute purchases, so we were able to have a nice relaxing night and sleep.

Chicago Day 3 (Billy Goats, Frango Pie and Convention Kick-Off)

With a checkout time of 11 am looming, of course we set the alarm to wake us up by 8, in order to finish packing, straighten the apartment and get ourselves going for the day. In fact, in our initial planning, we would have headed out early, return to the condo, retrieve our stuff and continue about our business. Did that happen? No, no it did not. “The best laid plans of mice and men...” as the old adage states.
We woke up at 10:15 in a fluster. Fortunately, our stuff that wasn't packed was in a condensed locale and we were able to shower, finish packing and quite literally be walking out of the door as the cleaning lady arrived. Yes folks, we ARE that good.
The weather was up in the upper teens and so, felt like summer to us as we began our walk down Michigan Avenue towards the Tribune building, or more precisely, the Billy Goat Tavern across the street. It would have been much nicer to be able to have checked into the Hilton, dropped off our luggage and had our adventures unencumbered, but that would have required a lot of doubling back, and the check-in at the Hilton wasn't until 3 regardless. So, like gypsies, we traveled with all of our belongings either in our arms or attached to our persons somehow.
The tavern was only a mile or so away, but even though it was relatively warm to us, dragging our bags through the snow in that type of weather was not fun for anyone, but we managed to make it and find our way down the slick metallic stairs leading to the tavern, below Michigan Avenue. The tavern itself is located even further below street level, at the bottom of yet another flight of stairs. We were certainly earning the right to absorb the pop cultural phenomenon that is the Billy Goat Tavern.

Not only was it the inspiration for the famous SNL “Cheezborger, cheezborger” skit, but the original owner, Billy Sianis was the man denied entry to Wrigley Field when he brought his goat to the 1945 World Series, who then allegedly cursed the team. In addition, it was the hangout for legendary columnist, Mike Royko, and became a must-see eatery during the 1944 Republican Convention, when to draw business, Sianis put a sign in the window, claiming “No Republicans Allowed,” which, of course, made it irresistible.
For us, however, the ability to sit down and release our luggage burden was all that we were looking for. Lauren sat and guarded our table while I went to get lunch. Lauren had the single “cheezborger,” while the guy at the grill insisted that I have the double. The burgers were, of course, combined with 2 Cokes (“No Pepsi”) and 2 bags of chips (“No fries”) The SNL guys had gotten it right, though I'm sure the staff was playing it up for tips, which I gladly supplied, the shtick was well worth it and added much to the “authenticity” of the place.
While it seemed that the burgers were quite the polarizing meal, with people either loving them or absolutely loathing them, we certainly did enjoy. They were very bun-heavy, but that made them all the better to us, and we will most assuredly making a return pilgrimage on our next trip.
We lingered over the meal, but eventually, after several pictures, returned above ground, to the land of the living (and freezing). Still fighting the discomfort of the luggage, I gained a new respect for Moses, I only had to do this a mile or so at a time. I can't begin to imagine 40 years. Lauren was having a really hard time at this point, so I helped her as much as I could, and wound up with an additional suitcase in my arms for much of the trip back down to Marshall Fields (Macys now. Blech). It is a family tradition, when in Chicago, to dine atop the Marshall Field building, in a little cafe called “The Walnut Room.” Since we had already eaten lunch, we opted to get the piece-de-resistance, the Frango Mint Pie. Frango Mints are a Chicago tradition, and the pie is one of the great desserts of all time. We also got a round of hot teas, to try and revive our poor little frozen selves. The pie was as good as I remembered, and despite some worries about arriving dressed like vagabonds and only ordering desserts, our waiter treated us like we had come in dressed in our finest, with Macy's bags in our arms, and was well rewarded for that respect.
The juxtaposition of where we had been less than an hour ago, a subterranean dive bar, by all accounts, to where we sat enjoying our dessert could not have been more drastic, and caused me to laugh a little upon that reflection.
By now, it was getting closer and closer to our check-in time, and we still had an errand to run, so we headed out and over to Garrett's Popcorn. We had gotten slightly addicted to the stuff, while in the condo, and the idea of quitting it, cold turkey, didn't appeal to us, so we ordered a few small bags to help us through the recovery process.
It had gotten colder, in the last few hours, so my idea of walking to the Hilton (about a mile distance) was looking less and less likely, so we hopped on a CTA bus, that would supposedly drop us right near the hotel. While the bus was my least favorite means of transportation in the city, it certainly got the job done and we were at the hotel by 2:15, well ahead of check-in. Or so we thought.
The Cub Convention annually draws over 15,000 people to the Downtown Hilton every January, and as a perk of staying in the hotel, you are guaranteed tickets to the Convention. The Convention, for non-guests of the Hilton sold out in 25 minutes, so despite it being fairly pricey, the special “Convention rate” sells out too, as the only option for many people to attend. This means that most of the guests will be checking in on Friday afternoon, which means that the lobby of the hotel, is virtually unusable. Someone within the hotel decided to start checking us all in early, to regain the lobby. It took us around 30 minutes to check-in, which does not include the Convention check-in. We got our keys and went upstairs to the 18th floor, to drop off our bags and relax for a few minutes. After regaining our bearings, we went back downstairs to register for the Convention, and pick up our weekend passes. That was even worse than the hotel check-in. It took us almost an hour to do so, during which time, we met a lady in front of us, who was obsessed with “General Hospital” and had won a trip to the set—and spoke to Lauren about all of the characters on the show as if Lauren would have to be an idiot not to know who Doctor Soandso was. She was one of those people who seems to “know” everything about everything, or as I like to call them at work, a font of misinformation. That got old pretty quick, so I went off for a few minutes to buy a couple of “Grab Bags” as they call them. The Grab Bags are sold by the Cubs, with all the proceeds going to charity (as did many of the proceeds from the whole Convention) and were filled with a bunch of random promotional things that had been given out at games throughout the season. Many people badmouth them, saying that it was just repeats of things that they had already gotten, but since I can't go to regular-season Cub home games very easily, they were neat for Lauren and I. There were a bunch of random stuffed animals (including Dora the Explorer in Cub garb, and Spongebob for some inexplicable reason), pencils, rubber wristbands, notebooks and that sort of thing. Lauren actually got a Soriano bobble head, a signed photo a Daryl Ward, and the creme-de-la-creme of the Convention, a set of American Girl Doll Cub uniforms. She was legitimately excited by this.
As we reached the check-in point, the woman in front of us began to complain about how the scratch-off tickets for autographs weren't fair, and she hadn't won in 10 years and blah blah blah. You see, with so many fans at the Convention, many of the most popular autographers were somewhat limited to signing at special events that only certain fans could attend. It was determined who would attend the session(s) by scratch-off tickets given to the attendees at check-in. Last time I had gone, Matt had won Derrek Lee and had graciously given it to me. Suffice it to say, the woman did not get any of the sessions...but guess who diiiiid. That's right, I won the chance to have Carlos Zambrano sign an item of my choice, the following morning. The woman was noticeably agitated,
We still had a bit of time before the Opening Ceremony, so we went into one of the showrooms, to look around and get my our bearings. As we did so, a woman saw my Zambrano ticket and approached us. I figured that she would ask me if it was for sale, which it was not. It turns out that she wanted to trade. There were not many of the autographs that I would have traded for, but she said the magic words, that she had a Ryne Sandberg ticket. Ryne Sandberg is my all-time favorite baseball player and the trade was done in a heartbeat. Of course, I spent the time until the autograph session being paranoid that the ticket was a counterfeit, or somehow void. After all, no good deed goes unpunished.
After my blockbuster trade, we walked the floor for a bit and saw a booth with an older man sitting behind it.
Upon closer inspection, we realized that it was Hall of Famer, Bob Feller signing autographs. I bought a Hall of Fame baseball and asked him to sign it. He was a very nice guy, 91 years old and still traveling to promote his baseball museum in Iowa. I asked him for a photo and he stood up and came around the table to pose with me. He has the biggest hands that I have ever seen.
After my brush with greatness, it was almost time for Opening Ceremonies, so we headed up to the Grand Ballroom.

There is nothing like being crowded, elbow to elbow with several thousand of your fellow fans, and if you ever wondered what it would feel like, I suggest that you book your tickets to the 2010 Convention. It was worth it though, after getting a pair of spots on the outer limits the presentation began. It was essentially one big Cub love fest, with announcements of all of the players in attendance, all to thunderous applause, a few remarks from club higher-ups, where General Manager, Jim Hendry was booed, and finally a highlight film from the previous year.

It was all good fun, but there were a few annoying drunk people near us being quite loud and obnoxious.
Following the Ceremonies was the Autograph Hunt, where random players were located throughout the Convention floor, signing autographs. You get in line and then whoever shows up, shows up.
Lauren and I wound up in the line for Dave Otto, who has pitched, and announced for the Cubs. He was a very nice guy and I'm glad we were able to meet him.
After meeting Otto, we realized that I needed something for Ryne Sandberg to sign the following morning, and a simple baseball just wouldn't do. I happened to find a really good deal on a Mitchell and Ness Hall of Fame 1984 Cubs Sandberg jersey. It was perfect.
We were getting fairly tired and Saturday would be a big day for us, so we neglected Cub Bingo and went up to our room to relax and get to bed.

"Fans"

If you are a big enough fan of the Steelers or Cardinals that you (and
your assorted family members) all own official team jerseys, you
should NOT be spending today in Disneyland.