FuzzyCo

Erica and I did a quick getaway to St. Louis this weekend. It usually takes some kind of combo-package to get us more than 30 miles away from Chicago and this time it was a Radiohead show and the City Museum. Erica's a big Radiohead fan and so that was a no-brainer (they now have a Chicago date later this summer, but when we bought our tickets there wasn't one). And we've been hearing about the City Museum from a variety of friends for years. Obviously we were intrigued by everyone's descriptions, but I don't think we were really prepared for just what an amazing madhouse the City Museum in.

Monster Slide - City Museum

The City Museum is not so much of a museum (though there are a few collections) as a giant indoor (and outdoor) amusement park and fun house. But one created by artists—so much of the place is just plain beautiful. It's also jam-packed. There are nooks and crannies and tunnels cross-crossing the entire facility. "Coddling" is not a word that I imagine they use a lot at the City Museum. Safety is obviously a concern, but they also seem to trust their patrons to not be stupid. For example, there's a real bar right next to the outdoor area and they'll serve you beer in glassware (the right glassware for your Duvel, even!). We had a great day and I'd go back in a heartbeat. There were a lot of children, as you might expect, but also other couples and small groups of adults, so we didn't feel weird being there without kids. The museum is open pretty late on Friday and Saturdays (and it seems that sometimes they do a late night thing where they turn off the lights at 10 pm and you tromp around with flashlights!) so maybe next time we'll go later.

It's year-end wrap-up posts time! Here's all the cities I slept in at least one night in 2011.

Asheville, NC
Beverly Hills, CA
Brooklyn, NY
Chicago, IL
Columbia, SC
Michigan City, IN
Ossining, NY
Pasadena, CA
Phoenix, AZ
Pigeon Forge, TN
Round Rock, TX
Vicksburg, MS

Past years: 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006

On Decembeard 9, Erica and I headed out to Ossining, New York for Christopher and Katie's Sending Ceremony from their Maryknoll Lay Ministry program. But first, as soon as got there Erica's work colleague Karen and her husband Ira took us for a hike up the West Mountain in Bear Mountain State Park. We had a great view of the Hudson River and Bear Mountain and got to hike along the Appalachian Trail for a good mile or so. And I'm super proud of Erica—the trail was quite a bit harder than we were expecting and despite her continuing knee problems she soldiered through the whole thing.

Sometimes, LA is just a ridiculous postcard.

Earlier this month, we took a weekend getaway with our friends Jodi and Eliot to a cabin in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee*. We did a little hiking in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, did some shopping in the tourist-trap strips of Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg, and did a lot of sitting around the cabin. If you're looking for a getaway in the Southeast, allow me to suggest the Peace of Mind cabin.

* I think the cabin might technically be in Sevierville, but if you think I'd pass up the chance to use the name Pigeon Forge, you don't know me very well.

Movember Day 10 (Thursday, November 10th to normal people) started out in Los Angeles. LA traffic is so clichedly bad that picking an evening flight time home is tricky. If you take a 5 pm flight, you have to leave the office by 3 pm at the latest. If you take a 7 pm flight, as I did, you have to leave by… 3:30 or so. I got out of the office at 4 pm and then spent 45 minutes going the mile and a half to the freeway. I can also see where the cliche of the person do 3 or 4 tasks while driving comes from in LA: if you spend a big part of your commute going 2 miles-per-hour, you probably can safely drink coffee, work a Blackberry, and read a comic book all at the same time. And once you've done that for an hour or two, you figure you're pretty good at it even if traffic does pick up to 20 or 30 mph.

Long-drive-short, I made it to the airport in just enough time to run through my preflight checklist: fill water-bottle, check; visit the restroom, check; pick up a Wolfgang Puck sandwich-to-go; check. I got it all done in time to enjoy a fine Red Trolley Ale at the bar right beside the gate and slid over to join the line while they were just finishing the "Ultra Gold Platinum Premium" boarding. I was met at the line by my old friend Brian Goodman who had even more-so just made it to the airport. He was in LA with Shaun showing [REDACTED] to [REDACTED] and it was nice to see him for a few seconds.

Movember Day 11 was marked by my first evening off in what seems like forever. Which was good, because Erica and I had a lot of TV to catch up on. A lot.

Saturday, our friends Andrew and Mike were in town doing a show at the House of Blues. Many thanks to them for hooking us up with passes—I could get used to the whole Opera Box over the Stage thing. Also thanks to them for introducing us, and everyone else at the HoB, to Moon Hooch. These guys are an amazing three-piece composed of two saxophonists and a drummer and they usually perform down in the New York subway. A lot of their music sounds like someone has sampled some old polka or jazz album into a funky new dance track, but it's really them live performing it all. Also cool is that because they perform in the subway, their songs mostly don't have names but just numbers that they use hand-signals to communicate to each other. Low 4 (all four fingers pointing down) is a great intro to the band and their sound.

My dentist, it turns out, is open on Sundays. So when I needed to schedule a filling and crown-prep, why wouldn't I choose a Sunday afternoon appointment? Answer (for the future): because I'm terrible at remembering to eat on a weekend morning, and so by the time I was done with 2 1/2 hours in the chair, I was exhausted and starving, but couldn't get down anything more solid than a milkshake. My sweet wife made me some soup out of thin air when I got home and kept me from expiring. They really beat me up—I still feel like I have a walnut embedded in my cheek.

See, this is the face of a man not smiling very big because of his swollen cheek (my right, your left there in the photo). But man, that moustache is coming in pretty good, huh? My brother has put some photos of his manly visage on his Movember page.

Also a busy day in LA, but a couple of bright spots today. At lunch, the trainer and I got lost trying to find the food court at the mall across the street and stumbled onto a small farmer's market. I got some California BBQ for lunch and it was dee-lish and a pretty good cappuccino from Cafecito Orgánico (who have a nifty Cafe O Muerto design - I didn't need to buy a pound of coffee, because I've got Tonx waiting for me at home, but if they'd have had shirts at the stand I would have bought one).

And then I did get away from the office in time tonight to go catch Dan Telfer at Meltdown Comedy. Dan's got a few shows left in his LA whirlwind tour, so if you're local check him out. Also, if you love Dan or worms, you can purchase that great poster directly from the artist for a measly $10.08 US. (It's an even $10 in Canadian. WAIT - did I just support a Canadian!? Shaky fist at you, Canada, for continuing to produce talent.)

Also, shaboom! One of you listened to me (I'm assuming--none of my brother's charming but deadbeat friends have any money) and donated $50 to tie Disco for the lead in his fund-raising group. Now, that's a tie, so someone should quick go donate another $6 to be safe. Heck, make it $46 and be really sure that a Gerdes stays in the lead. Because, that's how it should be, right?

Day 5, still in Tennessee. I really am shaving my chin, but the stubble there is darker than the ever-so-slightly longer whiskers in the moustache area.

Today I took my baby moustache up to the top of Chimney Tops in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Tennessee. Erica was super hardqore, making the 1,700 ft ascent nearly to the summit, even with her still-sore knee.

Starting my little year-end round-up posts, it's my list of every city I spent at least a night in during 2010. This was a really light travel year, but two of these are our two weeks in Hawaii, which takes the place of some of the day trips we've done in previous years.

Chicago, IL
Delaney Creek Park, IN
Honolulu, Oahu, HI
Kalamazoo, MI
Kapa'a, Kauai, HI
River Grove, IL
Round Rock, TX
Vicksburg, MS

Past years: 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006

So, we went to Hawaii for two weeks. It was 95% awesome. There's something about island life that really struck a chord with Erica and me—within a few days we were talking about whether and how we could move to Hawaii. We'd have to change a lot about our lives, but it might be worth it. So that's now in the back of our heads. But as a vacation, it was certainly grand.

We did Oahu for a week and then Kauai. Oahu is the most populated island—it's where Honolulu is and we stayed right down in Waikiki. We did plenty of touristy stuff around our hotel and also got out around the island. Snorkeling, it turns out, is one of the most awesome things ever. It's so easy—you just stick your head in the water and float around and there are fishes. Or sea turtles, which we got to see on a catamaran trip. Sea turtles are turtles that live in the sea! Except that Hawaiian Green Sea Turtles, evidently uniquely among sea turtles, also like to come and just bask on the sand and we got to see that as well.

Kauai is a lot more country of an island. The two biggest towns on the island are both about 20,000 people. There isn't even a road that goes all the way around the island. My favorite thing about Kauai is the chickens. There are chickens on all the islands—they came with the first Polynesians immigrants a thousand years ago. But on Kauai there was a hurricane in 1992 that released a lot of chickens from their coops and ever since then there have been wild chickens all over the island. At the beach—chickens. Up in the hills in the park—chickens. Wandering all over our resort and crowing at 5 am—chickens.

We took a surfing lesson in Kauai and it turns out that I'm pretty OK—at least on a big spongy board and with nice, regular waves. Since I did well, it was, of course, the one time we didn't bring a camera with, so there's no proof.

In Kauai we also got to see Hawaii's other large endangered animal that comes and basks on the shore—the Hawaiian Monk Seal. Having seen this large creature sleep on the beach for hours, I now think that maybe Parker is a seal. Tell me I'm wrong.

So, that 5% not awesome? Erica had two kidney stones pass while we were there. It kind of threw the end of the trip for a loop, and of course she was in terrible pain for a day. But the emergency room in Lihue was the nicest emergency room I've ever been in, with the friendliest staff, so there's that.

If you're traveling to the islands yourself, we can recommend the "Revealed" series of guidebooks from Wizard Publications. One of Erica's coworkers loaned her Oahu Revealed and we bought The Ultimate Kauai Guidebook: Kauai Revealed while there, to help us get around that island. The books are written by someone who lives on the islands and there's definitely a local feel to the advice he gives.

As usual, I've put a metric buttload of photos up on Flickr, and a few video on YouTube. As is also usual, of late, Erica has written up the trip much more extensively:

Hawaii!
Hawaii in Photos, Part 1
Hawaii in Photos, Part 2
Hawaii in Photos, Part 3
Hawaii in Photos, Part 4
Hawaii in Photos, Part 5
Hawaii in Photos, Part 6
Hawaii in Photos, Part 7
Hawaii in Photos, Part 8
Hawaii in Photos, Part 9
Hawaii in Photos, Part 10
Food of Hawaii

Photos from our first week in Oahu are now up on Flickr, with Kauai to follow. I've also started uploading some videos to YouTube. Real blogging to follow.

Erica and I took a little get-away trip to Kalamazoo, Michigan this weekend. We wanted to go to Bell's and try all their great beers straight from the source and Erica's been talking about wanting to try cross-country skiing. We lucked into a great Bed & Breakfast, the Kalamazoo House, based on just a Google Maps search of "where could we stay close to Bell's to walk home after drinking a bunch of beer." And at Bell's on Saturday night we lucked into a great band, Valentiger. And driving home, we un-lucked into a clumpy snowstorm, but we turned that frown upside-down by stopping at Wilson and getting in some last minute sledding (Erica's first!).

There are a few little things about the Bell's Eccentric Cafe that beer pilgrims like us probably should know, but don't seem to be noted on their website. The bar is cash-only, and right now their ATM is broken. You can get a tasting of six different beers (on an attractive Michigan-shaped tray) but they stop serving those at 8 pm—they do, however, have 12 oz. pours of all their beers. And the kitchen closes at 9 pm.

Erica is much more eloquent about the whole trip.

Last weekend I was down in New Orleans for the New Orleans Improv Fest—we did Bare on Friday and the Neutrino Project on Saturday. It's hard not to have a good time in New Orleans and the trip didn't disappoint.

For some reason (or reasons, Obama was in town on Thursday and there was a big Giants-Saints game on Sunday) travel was really difficult to book and expensive. Going down we had a 4 hours layover in Birmingham, AL. We sat in an airport bar the whole time and our stay exactly coincided with the 3 hour balloon boy saga. Coming back we tried to get out of town a little earlier, which just ended up meaning that we were in the New Orleans airport for 7 hours.

Bare did the first NOIF back in 2004. The second was to have been in 2005, but was canceled by Katrina. And then for the last two years Shaun has been in England.

We also took down the bare minimum crew to do the Neutrino Project—Shaun, Starcevich, and I on cameras, Inda in the booth, and just two experienced actors: Kristen from Chicago and Alison drove over from Texas. We picked up four actors from other groups at the festival: Grace Blakeman from ComedySportz New Orleans, Jessica Arjet and Kristin Firth from Firth & Arjet of Austin, and Kate Adair of La Nuit in New Orleans. With just a half-hour of "this is how the show works and things you might want to think about for acting on film" they all dove into the show and we produced a really good show.

Other than that, it was a lot of good food and hanging out. And drinking. And food.

Matt from Storm Surge Photo was taking pictures all weekend and got some great shots:

Shaun meets a new friend
Bare
Getting the Neutrino Project objects

This last weekend Erica and I went on a quick get-away trip to New York to celebrate our third wedding anniversary. Apologies to all our New York friends that we didn't see.

Erica and I have a little blogging rhythm going for these trips; I take a bunch of pictures and she writes about it:

Amazing Weekend in New York City! (pt 1)
New York, New York, a Hell of a Town (pt2)
New York State of Mind (pt3)
The City So Nice, They Named It Twice (the other name's Manhattan)* (pt4)

I didn't have a lot of free time on my recent trip to Redmond, but my hosts did take us on a great cruise around Lake Washington and I got into Seattle a couple times for fish and photos of signs and street art. More photos here.

(Sorry for the blank post -- I guess posting from my phone didn't go quite as well as I had hoped.)

So, I'm in Redmond, WA for the next three days. I spent the afternoon down in Seattle by Pike Place Market (what can I say -- I'm a tourist). There seems to be approximately nothing to do in Seattle tonight - at least judging by the Seattle Weekly and The Stranger (the two free weeklies in town). Oh wait, that's a little bit of a lie. There's a free "Stand-up Showcase (comedy)" at a Cafe. I saw that, weighed the pleasure-pain ratio from most free stand-up nights, and decided to head to my hotel and get a good night's sleep before my 7:30 am shuttle ride to this thingy* tomorrow.

I had an early dinner at the Pike Pub and Brewery -- a decent fish and chips and an excellent Pale Ale. What else should I eat in Seattle, those of you with knowledge of the same? I don't think I'm going to have a lot of free time, but Thursday night is still a grey area and I definitely have time for a breakfast adventure on Friday morning.

* I'm under NDA about the content of the thingy and I'm too lazy to check the NDA to see if I'm under NDA about what the thingy is at all. So, thingy.

I haven't been out to LA in years, so going out to do a show and then just getting to goof around for a few days was a great treat.

Steve has done an excellent job of covering the business side of our LA trip, so I'll just point you at his series of posts on the topic:

• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3
• Daily Grind
• So Close

But the trip wasn't all work. Tuesday night we got to see our friend Philip perform at iO West and then scoot over to the UCB to catch Ken and Blewt-friend Brady perform in the See You Next Tuesday standup showcase.

Wednesday was all show day. Jeremy drove up from San Diego to be a contestant (yes, we pre-picked the contestants. We figured that everybody other than The Price is Right pre-vets their contestants in some way.) I want to second what Steve about the staff at the Hudson -- everyone was delightful to work with and their help was an enormous part of making the show the success it was. And it was totally a success -- the place was packed, the comedians were hilarious, and the audience laughed as though there was a giant "Laughter and Applause" sign over the stage. (There wasn't.) And Jeremy won.

Thursday, after the show, while Steve was being meeting-guy, the rest of us got to go tourist it up and hang out at Venice Beach. That evening, we all met up again at the Dresden (best known to us for the scene from Swingers with the lounge singers) for a schmancy dinner. After dinner, we went over to the lounge side of the place where, in fact, those same lounge singers -- Marty and Elayne -- were plying their craft. Everyone had a martini to feel appropriately fancy.

Friday we had planned on being Hollywood-touristy, but ended up our hotel by the airport in the afternoon (we had to move out of our other hotel because of a convention) and just went out for great Mexican food and then saw Iron Man. We had a v.late night In-and-Out Burger and then got up way early Saturday to fly back so I could do two shows.

Photos from the trip.

Erica and I and the whole Don't Spit the Water crew are headed to LA to do a show on Wednesday night (it's free!). Erica's never been to California, so we're staying through Saturday. Suggestions of fun things to do are appreciated, as are offers of crash spaces for Friday night.

Kenosha, Wisconsin is perfect for a day- or overnight-trip from Chicago. It's only an hour and a half away, but seems to be far enough away that it doesn't just feel like you're driving out to a suburb (sorry, Waukegan). There seems to be about a day-and-a-half worth of stuff to do and it's an easy drive back.

This is not, by any means, an extensively researched treatise -- we did the barest amount of planning and jumped in the car. If I've missed some awesome treasure of Kenosha, don't be offended, just let us all know in the comments.

The highlight of the trip for us was a trip to Frank's Diner (508-58th Street, Kenosha). I'm not ashamed to admit that I found out about Frank's from an episode of the Food Network's Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives and that just maybe it was the impetus for the whole trip. Fortunately, Frank's lives up to the hype. The Garbage Plate is an incredible amount of food, and Erica contends that it's more than the sum of its parts. We also had the French Toast made with their homemade bread and it was both hearty and delicious. Frank's is an original 1926 diner car and current owners seem to be proud of that history without being precious about it -- it's a working diner and the primary concern seems to be feeding people large quantities of good food. Frank's closes at 2 pm and fills up pretty quick after 10 am or so on the weekends.

Kenosha is popular enough over the summer that all the hotels were booked up several weeks in advance. We decided to chance it and see if we could luck into a cancelation or something (at worst, it'd be a 90 minute drive back to sleep in our own beds). What we lucked into was the Park Ridge Inn (6121 75th St, Kenosha). On the plus side, they had a vacancy when no one else did, and it seems that room prices are somewhat negotiable, if you're a negotiator. You get what you pay for, however, and the room was a little musty and worn. And the "Free HBO" notice on the sign is a lie! We've definitely stayed in worse, though.

We had dinner our first night there at Villa de Carlo (5140 6th Ave, Kenosha). I've been assured by a former Kenoshan that they're known for their pizza. We did not have the pizza. We had bad pasta and an adequate spinach salad. Also, the decor looks like the garden section of a craft store threw up on the place.

There are lighthouses for staring at, and the lake to look out on (I know, it's the same lake we've got down here -- but up there it's a vacation lake), and ducks to throw bread crumbs. There are cozy coffee shops (with Intelligentsia coffee!) and a number of museums, if you're into that sort of thing.

On your way home, the Mars' Cheese Castle is in Kenosha, out on 94, for all of your sausages-shaped-like-beer-bottles and Wisconsin-fruit-wine needs.

It might just be a coincidence or the sections of town we were passing through, but it seemed as if almost everything business in town was named after the owner. As in, it wasn't the Something Diner, it was Frank's Diner. Carolyn's Coffee Connection. Mac's Deli. Is there some town ordinance that requires the owner's name in the business name, or people in Kenosha just really proud of their accomplishments?

(Originally published on the Chicago Metblog.)

On Thursday, Liz and I jumped in the purple demon and drove 22 hours to Denver.

As we were driving through Illinois, we realised that we would be passing through Champaign just at dinner time. So we called Mike and Camille Monahan and asked if they'd like to eat dinner with us. They cheerfully changed their dinner plans and we had some delightful pasta. For those of you who care, they're fine.

Kansas, by the way, is evil. There's just so much of it. And, perhaps because there is so little of real interest in Kansas, every little town has some manufactured attraction -- an oil drilling equipment museum or the five-legged cow at "Prairie Dog World". Kansas is home to the World's Largest Ball Of Twine. There are even towns that don't tell you why you should visit them, but still encourage you to do so. 30 or 40 miles in advance, a cheerful sign proclaims "Hannerville Welcomes You!" or "Come Visit Beautiful Gompton".

Friday afternoon we finally arrived in Broomfield, home to Shaun Himmerick. After a quick shower and playing with Shaun's mutant kittens (perhaps they could go on display in Kansas) we went out to dinner in Boulder and then headed down to Denver for some improv.

First, we went to Denver's Playback Theatre. Playback Theatre is a form of theatre where an audience member shares a story from their life and then the troupe reenacts that story on stage. It can be hilarious, sad, and often theraputic for the story-teller. We had picked a great night as it was their 9th birthday as a group and the place was packed with an enthusiastic audience. They warmed up with a few sound-and-motion-scapes of how people's day had been and then moved on to some stories. A woman's horrible and wonderful year was really touching. Then they did a man's dream. Moses and Georgia O'Keefe were preparing a stucco house becuase Jesus was coming. The dream ended with Meryl Streep singing the man a song. "An artist is a candle with it's one eye burning." It was both very funny and pretty deep.

We had to leave before the second act, because Shaun had a show to do across town with Comedy Helper.

It was not the perfect night to see a Comedy Helper show. For the first half, there were four people in the audience: Liz, my brother Dave (he's going to school in Colorado Springs), one real paying customer, and me. They did a Harold (a long form structure) that didn't go very well. For the second half, they let me join them (oops, the audience is down to 3!) for a Drake (another long form structure). It was the first time I'd ever done a full long form improv, so it was actually kind of nice that the audience was so small--it was very low stress.

Saturday morning, we drove up to Boulder and climbed halfway up a mountain. The trails were all packed ice and snow, so we slid back down (not in a good way).

That afternoon, Matt Martin finally showed up and we had time for a very quick practice before we were all off to Bare Essentials practice.

After working with most of the improv groups in Denver (Shaun is still in 2 other groups) Matt and Shaun decided to form their own. They've assembled a great cast (purely as actors, they're all better than Shaun or Matt or I) and had a few months of intensive rehearsals before they started performing at all (this show was their first). And it's all paid off. We got to see them practice their new long-form structure, "Your Father's Advice" and they rocked.

Then it was off to the theatre. They had had pretty good publicity, and there was a crowd of 40 or so (and the space was intimate enough that it felt full). Bare Essentials did an hour inspired by "Don't color on your sister's socks". It wasn't quite as good as their practice had been, but still good. (I have a theory that you only have so much creativity and so many new ideas in one day. It then becomes dangerous to practice improv really close to the time you're going to perform as your mind naturally comes up with the things you thought of earlier in the day and then you waste time and energy censoring those thoughts to try and come up with something "new".)

Then it was time for Jose Hirohito and his All-Girl Orchestra.

Shaun and Matt and I got tired of going to improv festivals but not being able to perform because we couldn't get anyone from our own troupes to go. So we decided to form a group of convinence, JHahAGO. But most festivals require a videotape with performance applications. So we set up this show, mainly to videotape it.

Shaun, Matt, Liz, and I did 45 minutes of classic short-form improv (much like old National Velveeta stuff). I think we did remarkably well for having practiced together about 1/2 an hour.

A cast party, a few hours sleep, and it was back on the road. It only took 20 hours coming back (because it's downhill?). Back in time to waste time at work writing this.

For a wedding present, our friends Matt and Trish gave us a trip to their home in Las Vegas and carted us all around town for the weekend. It was an action-packed vacation, full of gambling and drinking and kittens and guns and nightclubs and sharks and casinos and magic. Speaking of magic, we saw Penn & Teller on Saturday night and both Erica and Matt got to go on stage for different tricks. So cool.

Some small Vegas observations:

It's nothing new, I know, to talk about the unreality of Vegas, but it was still astonishing to be at places with actual things -- the Stratosphere, which is actually tall, and the Shark Reef at Mandalay Bay, which has actual sharks -- and on your way in they take your picture against a green screen so that on the way out they can sell you a picture for yourself superimposed against a picture of the place you just were.

There were ads all over town announcing that David Hasselhoff would be appearing in The Producers, and all featuring just him in a tuxedo. We had a long debate over whether he would be the Zero Mostel/Nathan Lane producer or the Gene Wilder/Matthew Broderick producer. We eventually decided that by putting him alone on the ads, they were trying to tell us that he was such a powerhouse actor that he would be playing *both* parts. (We were wrong -- he'll be playing the cross-dressing director.)

Cliches come to life: at the airport leaving Vegas, two girls were sitting behind me and going through their digital cameras deleting the pictures of the boys they had kissed over the weekend.