Ben’s Blog

This past weekend Holly and I traveled to Chicago for the Bayes-McGee wedding…not just a wedding, a rock wedding.  Holly and I made the trip down Friday morning with our friends Mark and Dauvan and decided mid-trip that we were going to drive all the way into the city rather than taking the south shore train in as previously planned.  Aside from the normal traffic this wasn’t such a bad plan - we ended up getting into the hotel a couple hours earlier than planned which gave us plenty of time to walk around the Miracle Mile.  We walked everywhere and then some, by the end of the day we all had very sore feet when we returned to the hotel.  We shopped a bit and found the ipod vending machine at Macy’s - pretty cool.

We stayed at the Affinia Hotel - a very nice place but a little over-priced in my opinion.  The location was great (right off Michigan Ave.) but the place looks like a work in progress, like mid-renovation.  The lobby and lobby restaurant/bar were great but the rooms were a bit run down.  The best part of the stay was the “pillow menu,” when you get there you can select from a number of different pillows ranging from the ipod pillow to the Swedish memory foam pillow.

The rock wedding was fun; leave it to Corey and Alisa to plan such a fun and non-traditional event.  The ceremony was held at an art gallery with a great open bar before and afterwards - this was the first wedding I’ve sat through while sipping a beer.  No traditional music either - Corey controlled (remotely) the soundtrack with a custom playlist on his iphone.  Alisa walked down the “aisle” to Bryan Adam’s Heaven and the ceremony wrapped up with some Van Halen.  After the ceremony we dined on some very eclectic food that was catered in and then finally moved the party over the W hotel / Whiskey Sky bar on the 33rd floor over looking Navy Pier.  We spent the rest of the evening imbibing only the finest spirits while enjoying  a fun night out with friends.  Many thanks to Corey and Alisa for giving such a great reason to get together and celebrate.