Rain, rain go away...

Guess who's blogging? Blogging again? Mike is back, tell your friends.

I apologize to Charles who specifically requested that I blog about the trip to Six Flags Great America with Caleb. He may not be able to read this anyway, with his current computer troubles. I love Charles' quote about what he calls his computer, "a $1000 g-damn Nintendo."

We had planned to spend the whole day at the park, which closes at 10pm, but by 7:30 we were both ready to go home. I had a nasty headache from the Iron Wolf, which is a stand-up coaster. This things slams your head left and right into the so-called "protective padding."

Caleb was happy because we got to ride the go-carts a few times, despite the added $7 fee. It didn't take either of us long to ignore the "no bumping" signs. I mean, what's fun about driving go-carts if you can't bump each other? It's also not fun if you get stuck with the slow car as Caleb did the first time and me the second.

The first two hours at the park was great. We rode 4 different coasters. Then, the people showed up in droves. We waited 2 1/2 hours to ride the Superman coaster which was pretty cool. It takes you so that your body is horizontal to the ground and you're flying like Superman does. We had just gotten off the ride when the sprinkles were turning into a rainstorm and they announced that most of the major rides would have to close until the rain stopped. It was about 4:30 at that time, and we hadn't eaten anything since breakfast. Caleb wasn't hungry so I decided to get some chow while it was raining. I got what they called beef fajitas, fries and a drink. That was $17 and was not very good at all.

After about a half hour the rain let up and we decided to see how many thousand people were in line for the Batman ride. It looked way worse than what we endured early, so we gave up on that. The Iron Wolf beat me up pretty bad and after the go-carts, we decided that it was time to head home.

I made it up to Caleb another night by taking him to a place in the south suburbs that has video games, mini-golf, batting cages and go-carts. We each bought an unlimited ride wristband which included bumper boats and mini-golf, but Caleb spent the next two hours riding the go-carts with me and several other high school kids. Me, being the good uncle that I am, usually let him have the faster car, once we had driven enough to know which ones to avoid. It gets kinda boring putt-putting around the track when everyone else is whizzing by. Again, the no bumping signs were ignored by everyone. The first time that Caleb and I heard the whistle for bumping too hard from the track operators, I thought we were gonna have to sit out the rest of the race, but the operators didn't give anyone a hard time. We found out that they would usually sit in the cars in the pit area and you could bump other cars while their back was turned. Caleb and I employed the classic go-cart technique to slam on your brakes if you were ahead of another car and cutting off cars at the turns. I could tell that he had fun so that made me happy.

In more current news, the first week of kickball playoffs were supposed to be played today, but it has rained heavily since last night. We were 1-9 this year so I was hoping this would be the last week we'd have to play. I doubt that I'll be playing next year, especially since our new apartment is quite a ways from the park.

Today I'm going to catch up on everyone's blog, go through some stuff in our closets, and do some laundry. Good times!