Visited Chicago

11:18 PM

The democratic national convention is taking place in Chicago on Monday, August 19th and goes on until Thursday. The Trump International Hotel and Tower is also here in Chicago. My dad made a funny joke, "where is the DNC taking place this year? Trump Tower."

We flew to Chicago yesterday (Thursday) morning. The flight was only two hours and ten minutes. I took off work for this, or I'm just signing off 0 hours for these two days. I finished everything I needed to on Wednesday and Wednesday night / Thursday morning, including my homework that was due on Thursday. So I don't have anything to worry about these next few days.

Actually I am worried a little, there was a hurricane that went by Puerto Rico recently. My friends there said they were affected, but nothing too serious. A few of them don't have any power, which is a pretty common occurrence anyway. I lose electricity at least once every week or two weeks or so, and it can last hours or days. So I do have some worry actually, but it's about circumstances out of my control, so I shouldn't worry at all.

So we flew to the O'Hare Airport in Chicago. The airport was pretty nice I guess. The weather was bleak, it was cloudy and rainy. We then took an Uber to our hotel, and it was an hour's drive away. The fare was around $50 and I tipped 15%. I think the fare was lower than normal because it was on a Thursday morning, and not busy at all. I wonder what it's going to be like on Sunday morning, having to get an hour long Uber ride one day before the DNC?

I've seen on the local news here that Chicago is spending $90 million for the DNC. We went to the park where the Bean is as one of the first things we did here. We didn't go there intentionally, after going to our hotel and dropping off our stuff, we still had 6-7 hours left to go until check-in, so we had to go out and do things. We went out to eat at this vegan restaurant called Fon's which was a vegan restaurant close to our hotel. We ate there for a bit, and then saw that there was this park nearby, and went there.

It turns out to be the major Chicago park, the Millennium Park. That's where the metallic structure known as The Bean is, that's also where there's this outdoors orchestra theater. There was a live concert going on as we went by, and we listened to it for a bit. Then we just went around the park, visiting a few different attractions, and then crossing the PB bridge, and then walking around the park there.

We were out for several hours. We saw a bunch of different sights and buildings, and took a few pictures here and there. By the time we got back to the hotel, it was already 2 PM. We just checked in and put all our stuff down, and rested. My parents were done for the day, they didn't want to go out anymore. But my dad and I still went out anyway, because we had to buy some water. My mom accidentally drank a water bottle the hotel provided without reading the paper on it, it turns out to not be complimentary, and actually costs $5. What a rip off. So my dad and I walked around looking for the same exact water bottle so we could replace the one she drank.

We visited a few different stores, some grocery stores, and pharmacy stores, and none had it, where we could just buy one bottle. We bought two larger water bottles so we could pour it into a cup and drink from that. On the way back home, serendipitously, we found the water bottle. In one of the grocery stores, we did find that water bottle, but you had to buy a bundle of 24 of them for $6. It was heavy and we had already bought water, so we decided not to buy any more. My mom will just have to pay the $5 for drinking that water bottle.

At night time, I told my parents I would check out the hotel's gym, so I did. I ended up exercising for around 30 minutes. Then I took a shower later and went to sleep.

The next morning, today, my mom woke me up as I was having an awesome dream. I do remember parts of it, but it's too fragmented for me to describe it in a coherent way. I barely remember it actually, now that I try to recall it. Again, my theory is that we forget our dreams because if we didn't, they could interfere with our real life memories.

Today I went to the hotel's gym to exercise with my mom. She barely lasted 2 minutes on the elliptical before she said she was done and then we had to go back. I barely had time to do a warmup and one set. We then had breakfast and there was a lot of vegan options. This was an awesome breakfast place, Hyatt Place in Chicago. I especially loved the potatoes, the three different colored potatoes, purple, orange, and white, no salt or any condiments added, but it tastes perfect the way they air fried it.

We then went back to Fons and then found out it was gone. I checked their Facebook page just now, and I had no idea that August 15th was actually their last day. They closed and went out of business, or at least their physical stores, they said they would have booths at some events every now and then. That's pretty sad. They had 3 locations in Chicago, and they were open since 2021, but I guess it wasn't working out. I wish every restaurant was just vegan by default, it's 2024 and there's no reason to eat dead bodies these days, it is weird from my perspective that people still do. It is an odd and rare thing in today's society to be a rational and compassionate person against animal abuse.

Continuing from the other day where I mentioned a legend like Jack Lalanne, who is basically the father of modern day fitness, he invented gyms, workout machines, resistance bands, and the jumping jack. The greatest ultrarunner of all time, is Yiannis Kouros. He is a legend that set many world records, hundreds of them, many lasted decades and still stand today. His Sparthathlon time was thought to be unbeatable, he set that record in 1984, and it wasn't beaten until 2023, even though the best of the best in the world have tried. His records are something people train their entire lives to beat, even though at the time he set them, he was just running and doing his best, literally competing only against himself because no one else could compare to him or even came close.

He was in the very first Sparthathlon. The very first one, and he won that. There's only been two other people in the entire Sparthathlon's history to beat his time in the very first race. People decades later can't even beat his first time, and that's not even his best time. His best time was his second attempt, the next year, when he was supervised and had at least one personnel watching him at all times, because his first place time in the first event was unbelievable. I think they had a few people on bikes follow him and/or they had people running along (although it would be very difficult to keep up), and they would switch off every now and then. His second race was unbeaten, until just last year.

Anyway this is his diet:

"You won’t find the secret to Kouros in either his ability or his training. His marathon best is only 2:24. He rarely takes a training run longer than 12 miles, and is never over 80 miles per week. He follows a strict vegetarian diet that has no red meat. poultry, fish, eggs, or dairy products. Surely the reason for his success lies beyond nutrition, but nobody now following the sport is likely to find it. Like the Trinity, pi, and pyramid power, he is a classic mystery. And the best approach to take with a mystery is to stop trying to solve it and just believe."

Yup it was a fully vegan diet he ate in the 80s. In 2019 he was interviewed again:

"LRC RJ: 5) Diet: Can you tell us about your diet? It’s been reported that you were a vegetarian during your competitive days but are no longer? Is that true? Do you think your diet was a key ingredient to your success? What was your fueling strategy like during races?

YK: No way! People who think that my diet –or any diet- is the key are completely wrong. In this sport, there is no ideal diet and not ideal training, as both lie to earthy parameters. These are personal issues and individuality plays its role. Of course, there are mistakes to be avoided, but not something that suits everybody. So, in my opinion, using animal products during my competitions, I put it to the category of mistakes. I am also against getting energy from gels etc, and I prefer real food and could be anything crossing my mind, except animal products. I had gastropathy in ‘82 and ‘84 and since then I decided to avoid to perform with empty stomach. Again, it’s a personal issue, while I prefer to carry extra kilos, rather to act with liquids/artificial means of technology."

At such a high level, he says it's all mental, and that training and diet don't matter, but he does think that for him, it's a mistake to eat animal products during his competitions. He had a lot of training in his youth too though, he would just run around the track as an escape from his abusive parents. He went from someone his PE teachers said could never be a good runner, to literally being one of the best on the planet.

I think at any level, you think other people can become as good as you are in that activity. Yiannis falls into the trap of thinking that. Someone making Fon's Empanadas probably thinks someone like me could do it too. I might be able to, but it would take me a while to learn. Writing cursive, or even just reading cursive, that's something I have a difficult time with. People that easily write their cursive signatures think I could do it too, but I can't. I shouldn't blame my parents, but, well, nah, I shouldn't disparage them. I could write negative comments about them and how I was brought up and how that relates to my inability to not do well with cursive, but I'll spare it. It's very hard to learn / unlearn things.

I have to face reality, I will live my entire lifetime and not be great at a lot of things, that I'll never learn or improve upon in my entire life. Ultrarunning could be one of those things. It could also be cursive. I might go my entire life not doing well in either of these areas, and that's because I only have a limited amount of time, energy, and resources, I can't focus and learn everything. Still, I need to do better instead of shifting the blame too, I have the opportunity today to learn cursive.

Anyway, back to today. After breakfast, we did the boat architectural tour. Then we ate at Feed Your Head, a vegan restaurant at the River Walk. Then we went to the Willis Tower, previously known as the Sears Tower. We took pictures at the top. Then we ate at Native Foods, another vegan restaurant nearby. The food was prepared basically instantly. We just came in, ordered, and then within 3 minutes the food came out. This was insane, the fastest food prep I've ever experienced in my life. My parents and I were shocked, and so were people ordering things. They also just had the food come out basically instantly.

Then we took an Uber to the Magnificent Mile walk and we visited the Apple Store. After that, we walked down the Magnificent Mile, saw the Starbucks Reserve, and then started walking back to the hotel. At the hotel, we just rested. Actually, I would continue, but I am so sleepy I'm about to pass out. Seriously. My consciousness is drifting in and out of sleep right now. I'm just going to end this and sleep.