off by one for 2005 April 22 (entry 0)

(1) Fri Apr 22 11:39:01 april showers, may flowers / I-90:

I'm gonna miss spring in Chicago, specifically the April showers. It rains here a lot in April, which usually means that the North Branch almost floods. It was one of those markings of the passage of time every year when the North Branch would push it's banks; you knew that soon you too, would overflow the banks of NPU and go somewhere else for a while. (That last sentence was a perfect example of the wordy crap I wrote for several years in the paper here.)

That, in combination with the nice spring weather, the magnolia trees, girls wearing tank tops, etc. has often inspired people to new feats of lunacy with regards to the North Branch. My freshman year, a guy named Andy something (I can't remember his last name... sorry man!) from Park Falls was given something like $25 which was collected from a number of "investors" to do the "Nestea Plunge" off the high railing of the bridge into the North Branch. He went straight to the bottom like a rock and came out of the river about a block downstream, quite a bit worse for wear, but thankfully, not dead.

This is what spring does to the heart of a man.

I'm starting to struggle to come up with obvious things that I actively dislike about Chicago, so this may seem like a stretch, but I'm not going to miss I-90. I'm an I-94 driver myself; I-90 is always full of traffic and (it seems) construction; you always have to go by O'Hare which is usually backed up, and there's something like 7 tolls instead of 2 on 94 (although it is not cheaper either way). I-90 is technically about 20 miles shorter if you're going to Madison, but I hate it so much I never drive it unless I absolutely have to.

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