in him is the fullness of all things

For all you Corvallis/Albany natives: Have you ever gotten on highway 34 or highway 20 and thought to yourself "Gee, this highway is so deplorable, I really wish that I was charged a small fee every time I got on it so that the city could 'maintain' it!" ? What's that you say? That's what our tax dollars are for? Yeah, I am aching to give a good kick in the rear to whoever deemed that to be a good idea. However, that is one of the many ways that I've noticed that the Chicago area is different than Oregon. Aside from that there are the other small details of sales tax, pumping my own gas, HIGH gas prices, and SIDEWALKS( or the lack thereof)! And bike lanes. But this whole experience has really opened my eyes up to how blessed I was to be living in Oregon...the rest of the U.S. has to deal with this stuff on a fairly regular basis! Oregonians are spoiled!* *But I would say we make up for it with the amount of rain we get, yeah? On Tuesday and Wednesd...

Well, it has been nearly 24 hours since I touched down in the windy city and let me tell you, it has been NOTHING like what I expected it to be. First off, the rain I encountered upon arriving would have seriously given Oregon rain a run for it's wet money. I kid you not, there was seriously a flash flood advisory for the evening! However, unlike Oregon, the weather was probably 75 degrees--something I was NOT used to. Luckily, I didn't have to spend too much time in the rain because my shuttle driver had arrived on time and was ready to whisk me off to my hotel in the 'burbs. *here is some free advice: when traveling to somewhere you are not familiar with like, say, CHICAGO, check to see if the airport has a shuttle service--that way you do not have to pay up the wazoo in taxi fares.  After a somewhat awkward ride in the shuttle bus,(while taking a shuttle may be the cheaper option, keep in mind that you get what you pay for. In my case, since the driver was not expect...