Kari pretty much ordered us a set of Riot Fest tickets as soon as she saw this year's line-up. There wasn't many current acts, but it was chock full of bands we would've gone to 10+ years ago if we had money... or knew that we liked going to shows. I'd barely seen any of these people play before, but was definitely into a ton of them at least one point in my life.

After watching Lollapalooza get a bigger and bigger, molly fueled, EDM crowd over the last 10 years, the crowd at Riot Fest was a much welcomed change. Almost everyone there knew how to go to a show and navigate crowds without being a huge dick. Everyone was still partying, dancing, and having a good time, but the vibe, older crowd and smaller fest was just super awesome.

Add …

So when Kari was diagnosed with MS last fall, no joke, one of the first things she asked me (nearly in tears) from her hospital bed was, "what are we going to do about lollapalooza?" Not even lying, she wanted to know that if she wasn't able to walk anymore, I'd be able to get her to the front like the guy we saw at Kendrick Lamar last year. It sounds totally cheesy, but live music is just something we do and it's been a huge part of our relationship.

Well, fast forward 10 crazy months and aside from needing an arm through some rough terrain, Lollapalooza was absolutely no thang for Kari. No handicapped pass was needed, we had a blast, saw some amazing shows, walked ~60,000 steps, and hung out with some good friends.

As far as music …

Didn't have the best lineup ever, but it was definitely better than 2012… Add in not having a crazy job to pull me back to the office, a free place to stay, the beautiful weather, and the amount of butts hanging out of daisy duke mom jorts, this turned out to be one of the best lollapalooza experiences so far.

Here's how it went...

Friday

• Crystal Castles - This was my 3rd time seeing them. Their producer, Ethan is amazing and Alice is batshit crazy on stage… smoking, drinking jameson out of the bottle, and just putting on a great show. They sounded awesome.
• Theophilus London - was a nice surprise. He sounded great and sort of quick mixed his set which made things fun and let us hear a ton of songs. He actually moved a bit too fast and …

I moved to Chicago for 466 days, where I lived in 3 different neighborhoods and visited 375 different places — 239 of which were restaurants or bars. I walked around 10,087 steps (or 7.67 miles) per day, slept roughly 7.19 hours per night, and gained 1 pound before returning to Iowa.

I was actually in the city on 400 of those days and ventured out of Chicago on 117 of them. 68 of those (spread across 17 different trips) were spent in my actual home, with my wife in Iowa. I was also fortunate enough to get out to Washington DC, San Francisco, Arizona, and Napa Valley.

I spent 302 days at Obama's campaign headquarters, where as an engineer I committed over 140,000 lines of code written in 6 languages to 19 applications across 1,675 commits. …

I'll start off by saying that the weirdest part about lollapalooza this year was the line-up. I wasn't really stoked about ANY of the headliners and kinda "meh" about most of the other shows. This has never really happened to me on any other year. However, I'm living in Chicago right now and couldn't pass up the ease of going to the festival.

Here's how things went...

Friday

I obviously had to work on getting that President re-elected, but was able to sneak out and catch some music in my downtime. Actually, The Head and The Heart came to perform IN our office, but I missed most of their performance for a meeting, which was a bummer.

The other shows I saw were...

• Anamanguchi - I took a lunch break to check out this 8-bit rock …

The 20 year anniversary of Lollapalooza, my 5th year at the festival, the 30th anniversary of my life, and the turning point of a pretty major change in my (and Kari's) life. We had some huge milestones going on this year... all of which sort of overshadowed each other, and moved too fast for me to fully appreciate them like I should have.

Either way, Lollapalooza was a giant, super expensive blast again this year. There's the standard eating of great foods, dealing with crowds, late night dinners and even later night partying, so I won't get into all that… but here's a breakdown of the shows we saw this year.

Friday

• Tinie Tempah sounded great. We only stayed for a few songs of his set, but I wish we would've stayed longer.
• Skrillex was …

Soooo, Lollapalooza is starting to make some really nice changes.

First of all, the space. They expanded the fest grounds across Columbus (adding 4 city blocks of space) and moved some of the small stages over there. It definitely, definitely opened things up and made the entire weekend much more comfortable. Everyone was gushing over the new grounds.

Secondly the water. They made a big effort this year to conserve bottles - so there was no more $3 smart water or wedging your water bottle into the crappy fountains. You could buy a little cardboard water bottle thing (or bring your own bottle) and get it filled for free at all these Event Water stations. We loved it.

And most importantly, the shows..

Friday

• Devo - The dudes a…

So, everyone is asking about it, I've told the story 1,000 times.. might as well get it down in a blog.

It all started Saturday when we somehow forgot to eat more than 2 slices of pizza, walked all over Chicago, then partied. All of that combined... turned out to be a really solid recipe for low-blood sugar, which is no stranger to me and my family. My dad is hypoglycemic, and I'm pretty sure this has been passed down to my sister and I.

I've passed out a few other times due to low blood sugar. The last time was my freshman year in college. We were doing these crazy exercises in my morning acting class. I put my arms above my head, and passed right out. Luckily that time though, there was a mirrored wall behind me. I …

Let me start off on a negative note by saying that Lollapalooza 2009 was the worst Lollapalooza I've been to. I mean, it wasn't awful or anything, I just think we got spoiled in 2006 and 2007. The artists this year weren't as good, we missed a lot of acts due to traveling, we didn't go to any afterparties, we didn't get to see many friends, and the weather was rough. ...Aside from all that though - It was still pretty awesome and I'm really glad we went. We got to hang out with Jon and Liz quite a bit, had Sushi Wabi, heard a ton of good music, and of course, got to visit our favorite city - Chicago.

So everything started Friday morning when we (slowly) busted out of Cedar Rapids (late). By the time we got to Lollapalooza we'd …

So Kari's aunt Joyce is a traveling nurse. As such, she gets her choice of where (and when) to work in various cities around the country - 6 weeks here, 6 weeks there, 12 weeks at home, etc, etc. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't jealous; I'm incredibly jealous.

Anyway, lately Joyce has been in Chicago to be near Kari's cousins; helping Stephanie with the baby, ya know. And Kari just happened to be flying back (through Chicago) from math camp on Joyce's birthday. So, we all decided to celebrate!

Friday afternoon, Kari's parents and I braved the longest drive to Chicago ever. I don't mean long as in "road trip with the in-laws" long, cause my in-laws are awesome. I mean long as in, "htf did it take 10 hours to drive 5 hours away" …

Kari and I's buddy, Steph, recently bought a place in Chicago - a really nice place right downtown. Last Friday was her condo-warming party and we of course couldn't miss it. So we planned the trip and everything fell into place. Family was in town for Elias' baptism, and our Chicago friends were ready to party. There was much visiting to be done.

So Friday we rolled to Steph's, which was quite an awesome place. Very nice decor, paint, location, atmosphere - an all around nice place to live. I'm both happy for and jealous of her, ha.

The party was good too. There was a ridiculous amount of food and probably 30 people. It was really nice to see the Froehlich's, however I was a little sad when Dr. Bob and Cheryl left so early. …

Until I am done working at Pioneer.

That's right. On Monday this week I put in my 2 week notice at my cushy corporate job. Why?

Back up to a month ago when my promotion (supported by 3 levels of management) was brought forward and then shot down by the director of Information Management. This caused much frustration with the corporate mind state - which I'm not going to get into...

• Tuesday, Sept 25th: I was informed that my promotion got denied - so I immediately applied for several external jobs and one internal job.
• Thursday, Oct 18th: I interviewed for a job within Pioneer that would be the same level I was supposed to be promoted to.
• Friday, Oct 19th: I interviewed for a job at a small (8 employee) web dev company called Red …

My last 2 birthdays have been the most insanely awesome/draining weekends ever. My birthday, in Chicago, on Lollapalooza weekend. The best thing about this year was that I saw every band that I had written down to see, except for silverchair. I even saw some shows on conflicting schedules, yessss.

However, my feet always kill me during the entire weekend. I either need some better walking shoes or a better walking job. I sit way to much for walking 1.5 miles from the hotel to the park, which is 3/4 mile from end to end. I bet during lollapalooza weekend I walk 20-30 miles, which is about 1 mile for every pound of food I probably eat.

Anyway... here's how the weekend went.

Thursday

We got into town and went to visit Harper …

So, Nehru planned on driving to Chicago with some of his STI and EVO buddies last weekend. However, at the last minute someone canceled, which opened up a seat for me. Of course, I accepted.

The drive was definitely interesting. 4 pretty different people with really the only thing in common being our love for cars - and maybe beer. It was a good time, they were cool guys.

Once we got into Chicago we hung out at Nandy's Place for a second. It's pretty tiny, but she is on Wacker and Michigan, wtf. Seriously. So I decided I'd go hang out with some of my other buddies and find a more comfortable place to sleep.

Tag, Clock, and Mikey picked me up at Nandy's around midnight. They played a really good trick on me saying that Mikey …

Ahhh, another weekend well spent in my home away from home. I love how comfortable I'm getting with Chicago. It's quite nice.

This time we visited the city for 2 milestone events - Vic's college graduation and Kari's 25th birthday. Thursday was Vic's ceremony, which ruled. They had 30 graduates so it was only like 40 minutes, haha. Plus Vic gave me a rose. We celebrated with much Giordano's.

Friday, Kari's B-day - ridiculous. We started the day out right with some mad omelettes at ihop. Then we met up with Kari's dad to shop around Michigan Avenue, etc. Kari got lots of clothes, we all got new Levi's, I got this insane mashup by Girl Talk, etc. We then hung out at a Viand for a second before meeting everyone at Sushi Wabi. …

The question is not about where I want to live, because the answer would obviously be Chicago. However, that can't happen right now, so...

I want to make this piece of art that is basically a skyline sitting on a chunk of earth. The actual skyline would be black painted metal sitting on a piece of "earth" to give a sort of glacial effect. The earth would be made of plywood. It's a pretty simple piece representing 2 things I love, the city, and the underground. Plus it would be nice to put some sort of urbanization in my extremely suburban home, haha.

My Dilemma is that I don't know what skyline to use. I really like Chicago's skyline from the southeast side, over by the Aquarium and what not. I also really like the Des Moines …

So, this weekend I went to Chicago for a few minutes, which will put an end to a month straight of weekends I was out of town - without Kari, haha. Rochester, Minneapolis, Orlando, and Chicago. Traveling without Kari was a little weird, a little lame, but also nice. We both enjoy time with each other as much as we enjoy time without each other. However, 4 weeks in a row may be a little excessive... So this weekend, I am in Des Moines! Where Kari, her fam, and I will eat sushi, watch movies, drink homebrew, and love life.

And now for a recap of Chicago.

I drove straight there - no need to drop off Ninja, no tolls, etc. It ruled so much, and seemed like a super short drive - especially after that Orlando trip. And now I'm to …

What an insane birthday. Seriously. And now that my life is 1/3 over, my insurance should go down now, ha. W00t.

Ok. Thursday, kari and I went to my parents' house for pizza, hanging out, etc.

Friday morning, we met my grandparents for breakfast, then headed into chicago for lollapalooza - my birthday present from kari. First we got the hotel - on the 37th floor of the grand Marriott on Michigan ave - my birthday present from jeff. Then we headed to lollapalooza, checked out the grounds, met up with the DSM peeps, and ended friday's fest with Ween. What a live show - incredible.

Later, we all met up @ Sushi Wabi for my bday dinner, which was amazing as usual.

After dinner we went to Sonotheque to see lady sovereign play. …

Kari and I drove out to Chicago again for New Years Eve. The plan was usual: hanging out with harper, good food, going out, along with going to the party/Gaylords concert at Kill Hannah's Practice Space.

Friday we pulled into town and met Harper at Sushi wabi for a great great meal, then we went to Kill Hannah's practice space and hung out for a bit while the band practiced, heh. It was pretty nice, they were totally rocking out. Then we got to listen to the new Kill Hannah album. It sounded really good. I think it will be much more popular than some of the past stuff. I can't wait for it to come out. Kari's cousin and her bf also met up with us at their apartment, then we went out to Ybar for a bit. After Ybar, Crobar, then …

Sorry Cedric, but I think Chicago was much better than your party, haha. No, the visit was nice as always. I'm becoming quite comfortable with my visits to Harper and the city. It's almost routine - I love it.

So yeah, Friday I drove to Chicago, got there around 10, we hung out a bit then went to dinner @ Ziggy's. After that we went to Crobar, met up with Tag @ Hard Rock hotel, closed out Redno5, then bed at 4:30. It was a pretty laid back night actually.

Later that morning I woke up for a Heely Demo at Oakbrook mall. It was definitely a good one. The guys were cool, the Nordstrom staff was cool, and we sold 5 pairs of Heelys or so. Afterwards Harper and I played computer while watching Mischeif 3000. I totally want to do a …