busy busy

Man, these past few weeks have flown by!

- Greg and Kelly's wedding
Congratulations to a fantastic couple! Lauren and I had a blast at their wedding, and as always, it was great to catch up with everyone. As fate had it, the hotel we booked through Priceline was the same hotel the wedding party was staying in!

- OCI
I finished two weeks of Northwestern's on campus interviewing program. Long, but worth it as I am now excited to start learning more about the firms and eventually find out where I'll be next summer.

- Moto Dining Experience
Winnie and I had a great dinner at Moto through a Visa Signature promotion. I took lots of photos, but forgot the details about the food. Luckily, Chicagoist was there as well and had much better notes about the meal.

- KWEST
Tomorrow I leave for one week in the Galapagos!

chicago distance classic

This past weekend I finished the Lasalle Bank Distance Classic, a fairly tough half-marathon considering the heat and humidity in Chicago. I was shooting for under two hours, but just missed it as my body gave out in the last two miles - all I had to run were two 10 minute miles to finish under two hours, but I couldn't do it. I'm still glad I was close to my target time though :)



Now I'm in the midst of interviewing for firm positions for next summer. 10 down and 17 more to go in the next week and a half!

san francisco weekend

I had a fantastic weekend in San Francisco, as I was in town for a job fair this past Saturday. Here's how it went -

Friday
Early (6:00AM) flight from Chicago to Oakland, but thankfully I was able to hitch a ride with Bert. After arriving we visited my sister at her office, dropped off our stuff, and I took Bert to check out Fisherman's Wharf. If you haven't been to Musee Mecanique, I highly recommend it. Even though it's new location is not as cool as it's old home in the Cliff House, it's still worth a visit. Plus it's free, and most machines are only 25¢. It was a bit of a disappointment, as I couldn't complete one of the strength games that I used to be able to do with ease in the past. Here's the hammer game I hope to conquer on my next visit:

Saturday
I had to rush to the career fair after having a delicious Chinatown breakfast with my sister. The career fair took up most of the day, but I was able to run out to Yuet Lee for lunch with a bunch of my classmates also in town for the fair. For dinner, a bunch of us went to Cha Cha Cha, and then closed the night at Matrix Fillmore.

Sunday
I was hoping to squeeze in arun while I was visiting, but I forogt how cold it gets in SF over the summer. Instead, Jennifer, Emily, Eric and I all met for brunch at Zuni Cafe. Their hamburger had been on my list for a long, long time, and it did not disappoint. Then Jennifer and I went to the Asian Art museum, which had two very impressive exhibits - Tezuka and a Japanese woodblock print master. From there we went to the Legion of Honor, which also hosted a cool exhibit. Along the way, Jennifer dashed my hopes of every owning an original piece of art by my favorite artists. Finally, I drove down to San Mateo for a fun dinner at Kingfish with my old BUILD co-workers.

Monday
Although I had a 4:45PM flight out of Oakland, I attempted to squeeze as much SF as I could in one morning and afternoon. I had breakfast in Chinatown again, then met up with Gerald and one of his FCI friends. We took a short walk around Chinatown and North Beach before driving out to the Mission to meet Thien for lunch at Taqueria Cancun. Then we went to Tartine Bakery for dessert, and finally Gerald drove me to the airport from the city.

All in all, a superfun trip!

congratulations chris and bo!

I flew back to Los Angeles this weekend to attend Chris and Bo's wedding. The ceremony was in Palos Verdes, and the reception was at the Trump National Golf Course along the coast. I had a great time, the wedding was beautiful, and as always, it was great to see my family and friends back in LA.

Now it's back to class, with two midterms and multiple papers and memos due this week!

road trip!

Even though this was a busy weekend, with on-campus-recruiting and fall class registration deadlines, but I still made time for a fantastic road trip to Milwaukee. After relaxing all-day Saturday, I have planned to do a ton of work and research on Sunday, until I woke up to an email about watching the Giants play the Brewers in Milwaukee. After some quick phone calls and logistical planning, four of us were off to Wisconsin!

Three more weeks before the Chicago Long Distance Classic Half Marathon, and I've got a lot of training to do!

pitchfork

Even without much prior knowledge of the bands performing, the Pitchfork Music Festival was one of the coolest music festivals I've ever been to. I spent nearly all of Saturday at Union Park, and most of Sunday afternoon and evening. Here's why it was so awesome:

- Public transportation. Getting there couldn't have been easier, as the park was right off the Ashland stop on the Green Line, and only three stops outside of the Loop.
- Great music. Although I knew of only a few bands in advance (The New Pornographers and Of Montreal), I enjoyed listening to most of the acts.
- Superb planning. The festival was spread across three stages, and the layout/schedule was planned perfectly such that there was no overcrowding or volume interference at any of the shows.
- Flatstock. This trade poster festival at Pitchfork was awesome. I've always been a fan of cool concert art, and this was a collection of companies that all made cool, unique, modern posters for indie rock bands and venues.
- Affordable prices. The two-day ticket was only $35, and most impressively, bottled water was only $1!!!

wow! time flies!

I can't believe it's been almost a month since I last posted! Sadly, my return post will also be a short one, as this is one crazy week for me. Who'd have thought that my summer class schedule would be even busier than my routine during the regular school year?!

A lot of it has been trying to catch up after missing a week of class while I was in Pasadena, but even before I left town class has been mad busy. I plan on posting a better update next week, once things calm down and I've turned in my assignments for this week.

festivals galore

People weren't kidding when they told me about all of the outdoor activities in Chicago over the summer.

All summer:
Movies in the Park
Millennium Park Free Programs

Upcoming:
Taste of Chicago
Wicker Park Summerfest
Plus tons more...

There was even a World of Warcraft festival this past weekend, Darkmoon Faire!

boat tour

I went on my second Chicago boat tour yesterday. My first one was the "Barge" Review last fall, when they packed law students onto a boat, in the cold, with nothing but an open bar to entertain us. Basically we all got trashed and I remember little of the actual Chicago architecture.

This time around, the weather was much better but my city views were limited as I didn't want to deal with the crowded roof deck. My favorite views were when we were in Lake Michigan facing the city, with the sun going down.

Afterwards we tried to get the whole LLM group of 30+ students into Timothy O'Tooles (the only place we thought could fit all of us). However, they were being extremely strict with checking IDs - even on a Wednesday evening at like 8:30PM. Not used to carrying around their passports, a bunch of LLMs only had their student ID cards, or ID cards with no age info, so sadly, most of them ended up just going elsewhere (although I'm sure they enjoyed much better food).

land of the free

As a child, I was a library rat. I could spend all day, every day, inside the library. It was always quiet, cool, and filled with exciting ways to kill time. In addition to reading books, I could play Oregon Trail and other educational games on the Apple II's, watch old videos on their film reel machine, and look up news articles of all sorts on the fancy microfiche machine.

One of the first things I try to do when I move to a new city is get a library card. You can always count on libraries to provide free wireless internet, movie and book rental, and sometimes a few other cool bonuses. However, the Chicago Public Library tops what I know of the last two library systems I used (New York and San Francisco). First off, they have an awesome Museum Passport program - library members can check out free passes to Chicago museums that are good for one week and for up to four adults! I picked one up yesterday for the Art Institute.

Then today I learned that Chicago public libraries also give out free tickets to Ravinia! Each library only has a limited supply for each night, and each member can only request a total of four tickets for the whole season, and up to two for any one event. Call your local library to see what free concert tickets you can score! (Too bad they don't have Lollapalooza tickets!)