Ah, to be young and a terrible judge of time.

I love Minnesota and am having a great time here this summer, but I felt the need to get away for a little while. One thing led to another, and I soon found myself leaving work last Friday afternoon, bound for Chicago. I don’t remember much of the drive except that Madison has a good smooth jazz radio station. Six and a half hours after my departure, I entered the throngs of the Windy City roadway labyrinth. Turn, turn, stop, pay toll, go, exit, turn, turn, turn, and suddenly I was at Alex’s house. Although Alex injured his foot in Europe recently, the foot was well enough for Alex to be mobile. Alex was kind enough to give me the guest bed for a night as well as securing a parking permit for my car, both of which I’m grateful for.

Alex and I met up with one of Alex’s longtime friends, his girlfriend, and his sister and proceeded to enjoy the Lincoln Park nightlife. That neighborhood is in the city, so it’s easy to walk just about anywhere one need go. It’s just as well that we walked – there is a pronounced dearth of available parking spots. The area reminded me of Minneapolis’ Uptown district: nice, lots to do, definitely the place to be.

The clock indicated 3:30 a.m., and the party was still going strong. Unlike Minneapolis, Chicago allows some bars to stay open and serving until 4:00 a.m. We walked back to Alex’s house and shot the breeze for a while. I finally got to sleep when 5:00 a.m. rolled around. Four hours later, I was awake and preparing to depart. A half-hour after that, I was rolling down the freeway, bound for Terre Haute.

Back in January, I made the drive from Chicago to Terre Haute under the duress of extreme exhaustion. I don’t remember much of that drive. Although I was wide awake this time, and the sun was shining brightly, I recall very little of the drive. I think there’s a reason for my lack of memory: that drive is bloody BORING. It’s like driving through Iowa, but worse. There aren’t even any cops to make things interesting. I think they feel sorry for everyone making that drive, so they don’t bother setting any speed traps.

At about 2:00 p.m., I pulled into the Pike House. Immediately, I noticed the Annex and its new roof. Too bad the contractors were putzing with the gutters when a powerful storm hit; some areas around the edges of the building sustained considerable water damage.

The main house was quiet and surprisingly clean. Props to the handful of Brothers who are living there and keeping it so presentable. I hung out for a bit with McDonough, Edmonson, and Capizzi before starting work on my room. Martin and Baldauff, new members of the corporate world, also dropped by. It was good to see everybody again.

Tyler and I are completely redoing our room. The plan is to rip out the carpet, refinish the underlying hardwood floor, and build a new loft. The first step of the renovation was to remove the old loft. That process went relatively smoothly until about 12:30 a.m. At that point, I was expecting to separate the loft into two freestanding pieces and carefully take them apart, one at a time. Unfortunately, the pieces turned out not to be freestanding. With a crack and snap, the loft started to collapse. All I could do was direct it away from the windows – stopping the collapse was beyond my abilities. As I examined the tangled mess of wood, I breathed a sigh of relief. The falling loft missed all of the windows and the walls. Unfortunately, two very significant beams were jamming the door shut. I tried to undo the bolts holding the loft together but met little success. In addition to cracking a 2-by-6, the falling loft bent several 3/8-inch carriage bolts, significantly complicating my dismantling efforts. Eventually, I got out my hacksaw and sawed through four bolts, which loosened things up enough to free the door and allowed me to complete the demolition. All of that wrapped up around 2:00 a.m.

Seven hours later, I got up and gathered my things. After a few miscellaneous deeds, I was on my back to Minnesota. I made the 620-mile drive in about 8 hours, 45 minutes, including two stops. The lesson here: that was far too much driving for three days. I now appreciate even more the trips that my parents have made, as they too sometimes do the round trip on a three-day timescale.

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Everybody seems to be doing it, so I’m going to follow the crowd and implement inline comments. It’s a gradual step in the direction of Keacher.com version 3.0. Take a look at the Internet Archive for a humorous view of the past.

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It turns out that keacher.blogspot.com is NOT about oatmeal cookies, as I had previously guessed. I think that the blog author noticed people visiting the blog from my link and visited my blog, as this was posted a few days ago. Not to worry, my fellow unilingual Americans; the referenced post is in English. Apparently, to quote the blog author, it is a site about emotions.