Ratio and Proportion

I was thinking as I was tooling around the lakefront on my Segway, that one of the problems with taking a trip like this is that the ratio of the time you take planning it and the time you're actually in the place is way too high. We're in Chicago for four full days, but I must have spent more than a dozen hours planning, or nearly a quarter of the time we're here. That seems like a less than optimal work:fun ratio. That's why spontaneity is nice. There's no work in that ratio.

BTAIM, this has been a pretty good trip considering it's 2 parents and an almost 17 year-old girl. On the first night we had an amazing dinner at a place called Moto. The restaurant is famous for its odd preparations and presentations. We had a 10 course tasting menu, which didn't include any of the dishes prepared with liquid nitrogen, but did include an edible piece of paper that tasted like Buffalo chicken wings with blue cheese dressing and celery, a liquified greek salad in a pipette, "road kill" duck with beet puree blood and yellow lines on the plate and black salt gravel, and "cracker jack," a peanut flavored ball with a liquid popcorn center. And it was all delicious.

We've seen Blue Man Group and Second City, all very funny, taken a boat ride and a Segway tour along the lake front, and walked through Millennium Park with its giant silver bean. We're still visiting a couple of colleges, going to a baseball game (unfortunately not a Wrigley Field, the Cubbies are out of town) and seeing some cool modern art and maybe a Frank Lloyd Wright house. It's been a pretty good trip so far.