Sweet home Chicago...

First of all... to anyone who caught the extremely lame Blues Brothers reference in the title of this entry... I apologize. Feel free to exit this window right now; I know I deserve that.

To the rest of you... read on. Exciting tales lie ahead. Well, not really. But they're mildly interesting. Maybe.

Anyway! I'm on my laptop right now, using the internet connection in my hotel room in Chicago, Illinois. Because that is the gloriousness that is the National Academic Quiz Tournaments (NAQT) high school championship.

So for those of you who weren't already aware, I'll be livin' it up in the Windy City (misnomer of the century, by the way) 'til late Sunday night. There's a bunch of preliminary rounds tomorrow, and then playoffs Sunday if we finish tomorrow's festivities with a winning record (which we darn well better). So I'll try and write lots of stuff to keep all the adoring fans posted.

The highlight of my day came at about 7:14 pm Central Time... in the lobby of the O'Hare Crowne Plaza hotel. We were just checking in to our wonderfully luxurious suites, when one of my heroes walks by. A god among men. Well, more like a geek among nerds. But whatever... tie my bow tie and stuff a pocket protector in my shirt, I was ecstatic.

It was the one and only Ken Jennings. Better known to many as simply The Jeopardy Guy. He's made over three million bucks answering trivia questions on TV. Dweeb? Perhaps. The man? Most definitely. My heart skipped about eight beats, and I only barely remained conscious. But I got a good glimpse of the man, the legend, the... you know what, I'm rambling just a little bit, let's stop here. Let's leave it at this... it was awesome.

Anyway... in other news... graduation rehearsal was fun (and on a related note, if anyone is one ticket short, I may be able to help... inquire within). Chicago is wicked expensive... or at least the restaurants in this hotel are... I ended up settling on a $10.60 sandwich-and-chips combo. The internet connection in this hotel is awesome and I am totally getting Limewire on this laptop and downloading every song ever made.

That's about all I have floating around in my head right now. More is to come later this weekend, unless I get distracted with other stuff going on here or I get lazy or I'm in a bad mood. So in other words, don't get your hopes up.

And one last thing... Sarah/Lauren/Betsy/Hannah/Sarah/Tiffany... I'm really sorry I'm here and not at your graduation party. Really, seriously, I wish I could be there, but it's not exactly possible what with this whole Nationals thing to take care of. Deepest of apologies... I'll make it up to you guys somehow.

And now, really, I think that's it for now.

Come on, baby.... don't you wanna go back?
To that same old place... sweet home Chicago?

No? Okay, didn't think so. Good night.