Chicago 2012, Part 1a: "Holy Cow!" Edition

Well, if it's April, it must be time for the annual Midwest Political Science Association conference. The formal reason for the trip was a roundtable discussion on Tea Party politics, but the side effects are fun fun fun. Hey look, Mom and Jefferson are enjoying the Amtrak. Thanks for the subsidy, American taxpayer!












Carbondale, IL, was just listed as the 95th most dangerous city in America. Get us out of here, Amtrak!!









Will is my co-editor, roundtable co-chair, and buddy. We all took the Amtrak together this time. Will referred to the trip as "two adults, two children."









In an earlier post, I discussed our trip to the Art Institute of Chicago. The commentary was written for Jefferson's pre-K class and contains only kid friendly photos and words. Therefore, I could not include the following two photos. CONTENT WARNING. There. You've been warned. The following piece is called Eviscerated Corpse and is made entirely of filthy discared stuffed animals. And you know what? It's ART.












Around the corner from the stupid corpse thing was a wing of suggestive pieces, most of which Jefferson didn't really get. However, when he saw this Picasso piece made of what looked like Sharpie on corrugated cardboard, he announced: "His winkie's out."












Look, I've been a Cardinals fan my entire life. I was 8 when they won the 1982 World Series and it was the greatest thing ever. I was 11 when they lost the '85 Series and it was the worst thing that had ever happened to me. The problem is that I grew up in the 80s and watched a lot of Cubs day baseball on WGN. So although I'm a lifelong Cardinals fan, I just don't hate the Cubs the way other Cardinals fans do. Don't get me wrong. I don't like the Cubs. But I had a chance to see day baseball at Wrigley Field and I took it, okay?









Mom and Jefferson.









Me and Jefferson.









Our seats were amazing. We bought them for $11 off StubHub and weren't entirely sure what we were getting. We got seats in the lower deck about 40 rows back from home plate.









The hot dogs at Wrigley are fantastic. Seek out the grill cart and hold the atomic green relish.









First pitch.









This was directly above our seats.









The ivy.









The famous hand-operated scoreboard.









Zach Greinke is about to have a bad day.









Our two boys are playing Angry Birds. PS. An usher stuck that Cubs sticker on Jefferson's jacket in a semi-threatening manner. So we left it on. Go Cardinals!












The Cubs beat the Brewers 8-0. Other than our amazing $11 seats, the main triumph of the day was making back to the conference in time. The game started at 1:20 and our panel started at 4:35. We left at the top of the 7th and had 20 minutes or so to spare.