Okay, I’m tired. But I thought I’d update the blog before I went off to bed.

I arrived in Chicago yesterday and was met at the airport by my friends John and Susan. We went into town and found a nice place in Chinatown called Moon Palace.

The food was good and the company was great. Afterward we wandered around a bit and then went to the Gold Coast to this dive of a bar called Pippins. We drank some nice Belgian beer and they dropped me off at my hotel.

I don’t know why, but I really like big cities. Not Charlotte or Newark or Toledo, but New York, London, Paris, Munich (everybuddy talk about pop music), real large, amazing concrete, steel and glass places. Places with public transportation.

But where I am staying there really isn’t an option for food outside of high end restaurants. While I don’t mind paying $50 a head for a meal once or twice a year, I don’t feel like doing that on my customer’s nickel and I really don’t want to do it on mine unless there is a special occasion. The cafe’s around here close after the business crowd goes home for the day.

So last night I grabbed my copy of Biodiesel Power and set off to find some cheap eats. I saw a McDonald’s across the river (the Golden Teats of America) and decided to make for that.

When I got there, they were closed, but the pizza joint next to it was open, so I went in to grab a couple of slices and a water.

Since I am reading Lyle’s book, I am very aware of energy flows, and I found myself critiquing my dining experience from an energy point of view:

Walked to the restaurant (+)
Water was in a plastic bottle (-)
Slices showed up on metal trays, not plastic/paper plates (+)
Cutlery was disposable plastic (-)

So, overall pretty neutral. The pie was good though, more New York than Chicago. And I got out for $8.

I wasn’t so lucky tonight. I went to a pretty generic white tablecloth place called Nick and Tony’s. I thought I did okay with the house salad and a Chicken Picatta, but I made the mistake of asking for a glass of the house white which pushed me over my self-imposed $30 budget. Oh well, I’ll try to make it up tomorrow.