Jodi and I helped to contribute to the $66.4M record setting amount that The Dark Knight took in on its first day. I really liked the movie and I thought that the acting was very good, especially Heath Ledger’s role of The Joker. This movie is by far the darkest Batman movie ever made; the Joker is no joke in this movie, just downright evil, corrupt, and insane. The special effects were top notch and batman, once again, had some incredible moves and awesome gadgets. They said a lot of the movie was shot in Chicago so there was a lot of hype and excitement here because of that.

Jodi and I arrived in Chicago today. She has to be here for the CHA convention for work and I just came to tag along. We both work a lot when we travel for her conventions but we do get to do some sight-seeing also and this is my first time in Chicago so it will be a new experience for me.

We flew in to O’Hare this morning on American Airlines. The last 20 minutes of our flight was bumpy and the landing was pretty hard but other than that it was a smooth flight. After a meeting that Jodi had to go to we went downtown with Brent and Jen and their 15 month old, Isaac.

We drove to Michigan Avenue and found a place to park the car and walked to the John Hancock Center where we went up to the observatory and looked out over Lake Michigan and the city. They had headsets that we each listened to that described the sights and history of downtown Chicago, narrated by David Schwimmer. We happened to drive by the Weber Grill Restaurant and stopped there for dinner. Jodi and I had seen something about that place on the Food Network so we were excited when we saw it and the wait wasn’t too long. It was good; all of their cooking is done over charcoal. I wouldn’t say that the food was amazing, but it is unique how they cook it so the flavor is a little different than most restaurants. I had a steak and they did a good job of cooking it the way I wanted.

Downtown Chicago traffic was pretty crazy. The roads are narrow and cars just park and drive all over the place. The buses are the worst; they just change lanes and drive between lanes whenever they want. Drivers are also quick to honk their horns if the vehicle in front of them isn’t moving even if that car would have to hit the car in front of them or drive over pedestrians to be able to go forward. Jen made the comment a couple of times that she was glad I drove so she and her husband didn’t have to deal with the traffic. I made the mistake once of trying to change lanes behind a parked bus so I could turn at an intersection and didn’t realize the bus wasn’t going anywhere until it was too late and I was still blocking the lane of traffic I had been in, I got a lot of honks! Whoops!