Just a quick hello from Chicago. I’m not too horribly jet-lagged. Since I got here, I’ve had dinner at the Heartland Cafe and Carolyn and I went and did some volunteer gardening and the Ginkgo Organic Garden. I also got some nice coffee at my favorite coffee shop in Chicago. And my apartment is unsold but still looks good. Everything feels very much normal, which is nice, but a little odd since I’ve been gone for 4 months now. I didn’t have my camera handy, so I’ll need to start taking pictures later! 🙂

Best of all, I’ve been able to see Carolyn! It’s very nice to see her again after all these months.

Hello all you lovely Chicago readers. Just a quick announcement before regular posting continues, but I wanted to make it be known that, barring an emergency at work, I’ve got a ticket to head to beautiful Chicago in less than two weeks. I’ll be in Chicago or visiting the family in Michigan from the 13th of July until the 23rd at which point I’ll be heading back to finish my marathon project at work.

Hopefully, you’ll all be around and I can see you and break bread and drink beer and enjoy a little bit of summer in Chicago with you. Exciting!!

It’s been a long week of things not worth writing about. So I’d like to take a step back. Almost 2 months back to a time when I still lived in the US and it was winter. I had one week before my departure and was getting things together for storage and moving. My parents, about to enter the blissful world of retirement (or rather semi-retirement), were in the process of putting the finishing touches on what is now their home in Michigan (which they share with my Aunt Judy and Uncles Mark and Marvin — a jolly little sitcom could be made). As of St Patrick’s Day, the place was very near completion. The guy doing the work was a machine and had managed to go from complete demolition to a livable house in less than 6 months. Here I was moving to England just as my parents were about to finally be geographically close to me for the first time in 12 years. Well, I’d grown up visiting the old house that stood where the new house was and I really wanted check it out before I left. That, and I needed to store some things there 🙂

So Carolyn and I prepared for a road trip. I rented a mini-van and did a massive push to get all my computer crap and a bunch of boxes together and off we went! But not before a little side trip. While I had lived in Chicago for 5 years, I had yet to experience the wonders of the green Chicago River on St Patrick’s day. And the day of our road trip was in fact that very Irish of holidays. Here is what the Chicago River looks like in a bright shade of green:

This is in comparison to when it’s usually a murkier shade of green.

Anyway, the drive up to Michigan was nice and smooth. I believe it was the last time I’ve driven. My aunt and uncle were already there which meant I had a chance to wish them farewell before my trip. We got to the house and were thoroughly impressed. My family had managed to capture the essence of the old house, but enlarged it to house a lot more people and taken a crumbling place and made it suitable for many people to live in. There are some great colors on the walls and I love the big ass porch. This is what it looks like from the exterior (keep in mind they had literally just finished a lot of the big stuff so it was still a work in progress):

We spent a little time unpacking the mini-van as well as taking in all the nice rooms (ranging from the gi-normous downstairs rec room to the cute little office). However, since the plumbing wasn’t quite ready, we made our way to a hotel, the Bay Point Inn, a nice new-ish hotel on nearby Gun Lake which was the inspiration for many of the cool color schemes in the new house. After a dinner of Guiness and fish and chips, we retired for the night. We went back to the house to explore it some more and take some nice photos:

I miss Carolyn 🙁

Yep the Schroeder genes make us tall!

Although it was a short trip, I was happy to have made it. Hopefully, I’ll have a chance to see the finished, completely furnished product in July. We said our goodbyes and Carolyn and I hopped back in the car for the return trip. But, before returning to Chicago, we decided to make a little detour. A fine gentleman by the name of Tony used to be in a running group with us in Chicago. He had finished his PhD and had moved to the far far outskirts of Kalamazoo for his Post-Doc. We decided to drop by and check out his life in Michigan. He surprised us with a very short hair cut (the previous week we’d seen him and he had long hair) and gave us a tour of his life in the rural Midwest. One of the Kelloggs had bequeathed a lot of land to MSU and it was now a great place to study ecology, which Tony studies. It was a very cool layout and he was living in an old farmhouse near campus. After a little tour and walk, we went into Kalamazoo to check out the Bell’s brew-pub. It had a cool hippie-vibe, which I hadn’t expected. Anyway, here’s Tony having I believe a Bell’s Porter:

After a quick beer, we hit the road. Since then, I’ve moved far away, the house is now completely furnished, Carolyn ran a marathon, my cats have moved from CT to Michigan and now get along with my parents cat and my parents are living a nice life in the cozy confines of their new house. A whole lot of change in 8 short weeks!

Hope you enjoyed a little trip in my time machine. I’d meant to add this a long ways back, but it’s been a little hectic. This weekend will be quiet and it looks like the London rain has arrived, so it might be a little uneventful. So chew on these pictures and this story for a bit.

**Update** She finished in 4:27 in extremely bad conditions. Congrats Carolyn!!!!!!!!!!

In about 7 hours, Carolyn will be running the Boston Marathon. For those of you unaware, she has raised almost $5000 for Cancer research as well as training for the run. I’m very sad I’m unable to be in Boston to cheer her on, Nor’easter or not, so I’m sending her lots of good vibes all day and will be tracking her online (she’s bib #20221). If you’re in Boston, go out and brave the cold and cheer her and all the other crazy runner on. AND, if you haven’t donated, do it now! 🙂

Good luck Carolyn!!!!!!!!!!

Those of you who read the comments might have noticed this entry by Carolyn. Anyone who has looked in the back of my now-former apartment might have noticed the lovely white car that was always sitting in back there. On my grandma’s 90th birthday, she gave that car to me. While it was a pain in the ass, it was a wonderful thing to have as I was previously without a car. My grandma died about a year and a half ago and the car didn’t last much longer than that. In usual Matt fashion, I didn’t get rid of it immediately. Finally, push came to shove and, as I was leaving the country, I finally dealt with dontating it to the American Heart Association. Carolyn, being the saint that she is, was kind enough to be available for the tow truck to take my fine little car on its last journey.

Anyway, if you are reading this, would you be so kind to raise a glass to my car and my grandma. May they both rest in peace. And a special thanks to Carolyn for being so helpful and wonderful.

Just a quick note. This morning is my last day in the office. It’s really a half day as I have to meet with movers in the afternoon. Then I make a massive push to get my shit together in the next 2 days and then hop a plane on Sunday night and begin my new life. I’m completely freaked out at the moment, but it’ll all be worth it very soon! 🙂

I have pics and some fun info about last weekend (lots of fun activities) and I’ll write about them soon, I swear (mom!!).

Some needs to explain to me why I might seem like the target audience to be sending junkmail to for a Christian Rock Festival. I might be one of the last people this would appeal to. 🙂

Wow, today I will be buying a plane ticket with a return date that won’t be happening for a very long time. Looks like I’ll be shooting for March 25th to fly over to London, loaded up with goodies. And this time, I won’t be coming back in two weeks. A little daunting, but very exciting.

In the meantime, the next 2-3 days are going to be supremely successful. After that, I’ll be able to relax and enjoy my final days in this wonderful city. So I might be a little silent (email, phone, web) until the weekend. It’s nothing personal, I just need to focus on some things. 🙂

Once again, I’m back in the land of the prairies! This time around is going to be a little bittersweet. Last time, I had no new home lined up and there was like a month to get everything together. For some reason, it didn’t seem so imminent. This time around, I have a new place which makes plotting my next moves all the easier. However, I’ve only got 2 freaking weeks, so there’s a little bit of a sense of urgency (hell, I might not have a chance to go to m. henry, my favorite brunch place before I leave).
Anyway, time to go over my list of things to do. As Carolyn has pointed out, I’ve actually done a decent job of getting my shit together, so the list is mostly just new things or packing, packing, packing. And the point of the title is that it’s nice to be back in Chicago, but sad that it’ll be the last time I’m here for a bit. Sniffle.

So you want pictures? Then we’re going to have to take a trip into the past, in a time when I was still in the Central Time Zone. At the time it was assumed that I would be moving March 5th, but work kind of changed that and I’m able to come back to Chicago one last time. Anyhoo, Carolyn and Carolyn were kind enough to throw me a nice little going away party, complete with beer and shepherds pie! A group of very nice people came and wished me farewell, although I hope to see them all again very soon since I’ll be back in the States next week! Below are some photos from this very party!

You might notice two obviously missing people. Myself, but that is due to the fact that I was the drunken photographer and, more importantly, Carolyn. Well, when I went through all my pictures just before writing this, I was surprised to find that, anytime the camera came upon Carolyn’s beautiful visage, she covered her face!! Sooo, Carolyn has no photos of this party. Booo! 🙂

So I’m back in London. It wasn’t exactly easy, but I’m back. Let me preface this by saying that I’m pretty lucky to have made it out of town at all. My flight was scheduled for Saturday around 8pm. Everyone had been predicting snow, rain and ice from Friday night onward. But Saturday dawned overcast, but still none of the bad stuff. I spent the day doing all sorts of errands just getting ready for the trip. Carolyn came by to drive me to the airport and still nothing. But, the second we got into the car, down came the ice. And it kept getting progressively worse.

I arrived to the airport, said goodbye to Carolyn (sniffle) and found that my flight was still on time. I met up with my boss, Andrew, and we went to the terminal. The plane boarded nicely and on time. But outside, the wind was swirling and ice was sticking to the plane. And then, miracles of miracles, the de-icers showed up. I don’t know if you have seen a de-icing vehicle but it’s basically a cherry picker with a hose in the basket (which is often covered) that spews some freaky colored chemicals. One of the de-icers didn’t have cover for the poor guy in the cherry picker. He looked really miserable.

They needed to do three passes over the plane to get it nice and clear of the ice. And then we got to experience what it’s like for a Boeing 777 to back out of a space onto runways covered with snow and ice. And then taking off on an icy runway. But we got into the air without a problem. That pilot has to have nerves of steel for that takeoff.

I figured the rest of the flight would be smooth but then came dinner. As soon as everyone had their food and drinks the plane hit some nasty ass turbulence. It was bad enough that the pilot called out to the flight attendants to get themselves to a seat  immediately and we all sat gasping for about ten minutes whilst trying not to get all our food and drink spilled on us as the plane bumped and dropped and shuddered.

Anyway, with all that fun, we managed to only be an hour late, which seems to be kind of normal for the long haul flights, even with good weather. The news is mentioned many flights at O’hare being canceled, but I get the impression that the international flights don’t get canceled unless the airport is closed outright.

Now I’m in London in a swanky place. I’ll post pictures later. I’m good and jetlagged but need to make it through dinner before passing out. I’ll also post pics from my going away party, too!

Nothing exciting to report. I’m back in Chicago doing the work thing. Trying to keep up with the class I’m taking (I’m about a week behind and have an assignment due on Thursday).

It’s absolutely frigid. The river is frozen for the first time in years and there was a nice snow today. And the Bears lost the Super Bowl. That was not a fun game to watch 🙂

At this point, here’s the plan. They would like me to have a start date of March 5th. That gives me a month to take care of a whole lot of things. I’m not going to bother to list them right now. This week, I’m going to finish up my responsibilities for getting my house sold. Then I start the process of getting a work entry visa, packing things up and figuring out what I’ll do with all my furniture (sell, scrap, store, ETC). There’s a calm right now, but it’s going to get very stressful very soon. Oh yeah, and amongst all this fun, I want to try to see everyone I know and love here as much as possible and see all the things I’ve loved about Chicago these past 5 years. And then it’s on to a new adventure in a new country. cool!

So until we landed, I had a very lovely 8 hour flight home. I had my own row, which meant I could stretch out, read, watch movies and eat the food and drink provided by the nice people of British Airways (who kindly didn’t strike last week). Alas, O’Hare wasn’t exactly running so well and we sat in the plane for 25 minutes whilst we got a gate (what good is getting in on time if they don’t have a parking space for ya?). And, to make it even more fun, it was so cold, the baggage grabbing thingys weren’t working so we sat waiting in customs for 30 more minutes for our bags (and they kindly block cell phone service meaning the kind people who come to pick you up have no idea what’s happening).

But, I’m back in the US, just in time to see what will hopefully be a triumphant Bears Super Bowl win. From what I saw on the car ride home, half the billboards and all the neon sign thingys have something about it. It should be entertaining.

On an unrelated note, I was sad to see that the area I was visiting during my sabbatical decided to resort to violence during a Palermo-Catania soccer match. I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised. It also explains why Italian stadiums are designed entirely for riot control.

Not to be morbid or anything, but two years ago today, I was sitting in a hospital room after a pretty bad car crash. I was very lucky and feel pretty good that I’m here today and walking without any permanent problems. So let me show you how I looked two years ago:

Meanwhile, here would be the car I was in.

Picture me in the part of the car that’s pretty much pushed into where the driver sits (I was the driver). One fractured pelvis and three ribs later, I have been running and trying to take good care of myself. Let’s hope I have many more healthy days ahead of me 🙂