Thanks Bryn Mawr!

Thanks to all the people who showed up at Thomas 224 for my speech and the dialogue we had afterward on trans issues.

It was the first time I'd ever set foot on a Seven Sisters campus, and it was wonderful getting to interact with the students, faculty, friends and allies.

Thanks for letting me know how much you appreciate what I do on TransGriot and the hospitality you showed me.

I also want to thank Women's Center director Nicole Matos and Nga Nguyen, a long list of people at Bryn Mawr and my home girl Dionne Stallworth for the several hours of Philly hospitality I got to spend with her. Too bad I can't be there for the panel discussion she's putting together on November 18 during TDOR week.

Despite the fact I forgot to keep up with a tradition I have of picking up a coffee mug from any school I do a speaking engagement at, I still had a wonderful day.

Thanks once again for the invitation, and I hope I have the honor and pleasure of gracing your campus again in the near future.

Gone To Bryn Mawr

Will be traveling all day to give my speech in the Thomas Library at 4 PM on the Bryn Mawr College campus in Bryn Mawr, PA.

My flight leaves Louisville at 5:50 AM EDT and I don't get back to Da Ville until 11:45 PM EDT, so as of midnight, the time I set this post to pop up, I'm getting my beauty sleep. (I love the auto post feature)

If I happen to find a computer on campus I can post from, I'll try to post some of my trip thoughts. If I don't, it's gonna have to wait until I get back to Da Ville.

Lord knows I'm going to have enough time on the flight back to write something.

So to the Bryn Mawr students, faculty and friends who will be there, looking forward to meeting y'all and having a thoughtful dialogue with you while I'm there.

My Dream Canadian Road Trip

Happy Canada Day to all my north of the border readers!

Last year in honor of it I wrote a post in which I revealed the Top Ten places I'd love to visit in the Great White North.

As you long time readers know I love road trips and have chronicled a few of them on the blog for you. I have traveled much of the US Interstate highway system in pursuit of business, fun or just to get away for a few hours from my at home drama.

I've always dreamed of one day driving on the German Autobahn system, and that dream of fast driving on foreign soil also extends to driving the highways and byways of Canada.

The Queen Elizabeth Way, or the QEW for short has my attention because it leads to the city in which a certain Canadian home girl of mine resides and is part of Ontario's 400 series of expressways.

I'm particularly interested in not only driving the 400 series routes in Ontario, but Quebec's kissing cousins to our interstate highway system, the 1,900 kilometer provincial system of expressways known as Autoroutes.

I'm well aware peeps that the speed limit on the expressways and autoroutes is 100 kph (62 mph for the metrically challenged). It's a little slower than the 70 mph (110 kph) we're allowed in Kentucky and some parts of the States, but if I am blessed to do that trip I'm not going any faster than 5 kph over that.

The TransGriot hates and will do her utmost to avoid speeding tickets.

I'd also have a blast taking in the scenery as I happily motored along scarfing up the Timmy's doughnuts as well.

The Autoroutes history dates back to 1959 when the first Autoroute, the Autoroute des Laurentides was built as a toll road.

One of the Autoroutes that Americans are familiar with is the A-15, which connects with Interstate 87 at the US border to provide a continuous link between Montreal and New York. It was completed in time for the 1967 World's Fair that was hosted in Montreal.

Another one is the A-55, which connects with Interstate 91 at the Vermont border.

The A-40 intersects with Ontario's Highway 417 at the Ontario-Quebec border along the north side of the St. Lawrence River. It runs from there to Montreal and continues to Quebec City. The A-20 runs along the southern side of the St. Lawrence.

So yeah, I'm keeping up with the ongoing Autoroute construction updates via Scott Steeves cool website CanHighways similar to AA Roads that focuses on Canada's highways.

And maybe one day soon I'll get to say bonjour to not only a certain blogger in Niagara Falls, but hopefully get to visit Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal at the same time.

Meeting Sylvia Rivera

When I took a vacation trip to New York back in May 2000, little did I realize that I would get a chance to meet a historic figure at the same time.

It was back during my NTAC days and the same weekend as the Millennium March. I had no intention of going to DC because the trans community was dissed and ignored in the planning for the march, then made extremely late additions of Riki Wilchins and Jamison Green to the list of speakers when other transpeeps griped about HRC's 'bidness' as usual 'ignore the trannies' approach to community event planning.

That's a story for a later post

Since I was in the Big Apple I was invited by the denizens of Transy House to meet some of the peeps living there.

One of those peeps as I discovered two hours into the visit was Sylvia Rivera.

Thanks to my dad's job and my then airline one I was used to meeting historical figures, celebrities, public/political figures and icons. It really didn't faze me that I was meeting the Mother of the Transgender Rights movement.

After I received a big hug from her and she had a chance to eat something, we started talking. Sylvia carried herself with a regal elegance, and she was ever the activist. We discussed in a long conversation the state of the trans movement, especially after she discovered I wasn't bamboozled by HRC either and couldn't stand Jim Fouratt's transphobic behind.

We had a long conversation about her Gay Liberation Front days, STAR (the first political organization for transgender rights in the world), the chopping of transpeople from New York City's gay rights bill in 1971 that failed to pass, some of the drama and hateraid that was directed her way when the gay community ejected her, Marsha P. Johnson and our transsisters out of the GLF in order to appear more 'mainstream', and her adamant belief that we needed to do more as transpeople to fight for our rights and ensure we weren't erased from GLBT history.

When Sylvia discovered I was a proud Texan, she started criticizing President Lyndon Johnson and the Vietnam War.

I politely pointed out that as an African-American transperson from the Lone Star State I have a much higher opinion of LBJ. I also pointed out that an Austin high school and NASA's Mission Control Center in Houston are named for him, an Austin radio station bears his initials in addition to his presidential library (which I've visited) being ensconced on the University of Texas campus.

We agreed to disagree on that subject.

It was a little past midnight before we wrapped up the conversation. I ended up staying overnight at Transy House because I was staying in Yonkers with a friend and would have had a long crosstown subway and commuter rail ride there from Brooklyn through Manhattan in the wee hours of the morning. Once I arrived at the Yonkers train station, it would be a 30 minute walk to my friend's condo from the station unless there was a cab parked there. I also wasn't sure if the commuter rail trains were still running all the way to Yonkers that late either.

I was planning to return to expand on our conversations, but my life took a different direction several months later. Sylvia died way too soon in 2002 from lung cancer at age 50. I smiled when I heard that even on her deathbed, she was giving the powers that be hell.

One thing I've regretted over the years is that I didn't have a tape recorder or a notepad with me to record for posterity everything we talked about or I didn't get to see her again. But then again I wasn't expecting to meet a legend either.

I think about the things we discussed when we approach the Stonewall anniversary or when I'm looking at some situation that crops up between the transgender and gay communities that illustrates perfectly the points Sylvia warned me about almost a decade earlier.

I'm also a firm believer in listening to the wisdom of my elders. Some of what Sylvia divulged to me has served me well over the years. I'm also aware of the fact that I'm walking in Sylvia's pumps.

The conversation at times felt like she was passing a torch to me that night. It's my job as I see it, to hold that torch aloft and keep the transgender rights flame lit until it's time for me to pass it on to the next generation.

Moni Goes To Washington-Day 2

The heavy drenching rain ending Day 1 gave way to a beautiful clear, cool and sunny May 6 day in Washington.

After emerging from the Capitol South Metro station Polar and I arrived on the Hill and headed straight to the Longworth HOB cafeteria after dropping off some promised information packets to the offices I'd visited the previous day. I'd finally picked them up during our initial strategy meeting the night before.

My task was simple. I had the mission of hitting as many CBC offices as possible and I was going to have to do it with a rookie lobbyist in tow. Since I knew it was going to be next to impossible for me to cover all 43 offices in the limited amount of time I had, I just decided on the train ride in to hit CBC leadership and whatever offices I passed in the various House Office Buildings along the way.

We arrived in the cafeteria and waited to hook up with Ness and the rest of our party. Since we had two newbies, we decided to take 'errbody' as a group to Rep. Al Green's (D-TX) office to give them an idea of what and how to do it.

On the way there I started my training by explaining to my partner Ro some of the basics. Lobbying is more than just advocating yes or no for a bill and asking for its passage. You have to engage your active and passive listening skills in addition to your powers of observation. You have to build personal relationships. It's calling upon your lifetime accumulated knowledge base. It's having a good working grasp of civics and government and how it works.

Passion and idealism is fine and an excellent starting point, but it must be balanced with discerning 'the art of the politically possible'.

If you're planning on lobbying Congress or any governmental body on behalf of this community, one thing that must end is your detachment to politics or the news. You cannot be willfully politically ignorant and be an effective lobbyist.

Watching CNN, C-SPAN, MSNBC, FOX (to know what The Enemy is up to) The Hill newspaper/website is a must and reading various newspapers becomes necessary as well.

You must also acquire a broad based knowledge as to what's transpiring in the transgender community so that you can converse intelligently and authoritatively about it. You never know if you'll be called on in an office or to give bill testimony about a hate crime that happened in California, a discrimination case that occurred in Texas, a police beatdown in Tennessee or an ID case in Illinois.

We arrived at the office a few moments later in the Rayburn building. One thing I also noted is that the CBC members, now reflecting the increased clout of seniority and the important leadership roles many have in the 110th Congress aren't clustered in the Cannon HOB. They now have offices in the Rayburn and Longworth buildings where the House power players are.

While Ness was talking to the LA in Rep. Green's office, I poked my head in to see his Chief of Staff Jacqueline Ellis. The last time I was there in 2007 she was catching hell on the phone from a local minister who was expressing in not so Christian terms his opposition to the hate crimes bill. We had a wonderful conversation in the aftermath of that.

When I poked my head in, I said to her "I see you aren't getting screamed at on the phone today." She looked up, saw my smiling face and gave me a big hug as we talked for a few minutes about the office move.

I stopped in Rep. Bobby Scott's (D-VA) office, and had wonderful conversations in Rep. Keith Ellison's (D-MN) and Rep. Gwen Moore's (D-WI) offices. I advised Rep. Moore's LA about the Sierra Broussard discrimination lawsuit that's about to kick off in Appleton, WI. I also asked them to convey my appreciation for their hate crime votes and hoped they would do the same for ENDA.

I ended up cutting my day short because my partner had finals to study for. After dropping off some promised information packets in a few offices I'd visited the previous day, it was off to the Capitol South Metro station and dinner at a Fuddruckers near our hotel. I haven't eaten at one since I moved from Houston and I was eagerly awaiting to opportunity to chow down there once again.

Two days down, one to go.

Moni Goes To Washington-Day 1

I've spent the last three days post birthday exercising my constitutional right to petitioning my legislators for 'redress of grievances'.

Translation: I've been lobbying.

Lobbying isn't just for high priced hired guns operating out of K Street offices, anyone can do it. Besides, I get the additional benefit of being in a large city once again, and a 9 hour drive from Louisville to Washington to boot.

We hit the road after stopping by a post office to drop off my mom and sister's Mother's Day cards. After a lovely drive down I-64 dodging showers through eastern Kentucky, the mountains of West Virginia, crossing the Virginia border and up and down I-81 and I-66 past several Civil War battlefields, Polar and I arrived at our hotel in Fairfax, VA a little after 9:30 PM EDT.

I found it a little amusing and inspiring that our hotel room had pictures of the Declaration of Independence and Thomas Jefferson on the wall. We also flipped it on the local news after grabbing a bite to eat and grabbing some supplies.

We watched the fireworks erupting over the 12-1 DC City council vote to recognize same gender marriages performed in other states. We discussed the irony of Marion Barry being the lone no vote as we watched the bigoted Black minsters show their anuses as well.

Polar and I beat 'errbody to DC, so we decided Wednesday morning (May 6) not to do any sightseeing and just get the lobbying party started since I had the daunting task of trying to hit as many of the 43 CBC offices as possible.

We clambered aboard the bus for our trip to the Vienna Metro Rail station. One of the reasons Polar chose that hotel was its proximity to the Washington Metro Orange line. Finding parking in the capital, much less battling it on the various freeways in and around the Washington area including the infamous Capital Beltway is a pain in the rear. Even though we had a longer commute in, we didn't have to change trains.

So our first stop was to see our own congressmember John Yarmuth (D-KY). He's a much busier guy on the Hill this session and he wasn't in. We'd just run into him at the local ACLU dinner a few weeks ago anyway and were paying our respects.

So we bounced over to see Andre Carson (D-IN). Although I am thoroughly pleased by my current Congressional representation, Andre being the rep for Indianapolis is my closest CBC rep. He's also the grandson of the late Julia Carson, who represented the area for ten years.

I always get to talk to at least one living breathing US congressmember, and this time it was Andre. I got to thank him and his staffers personally for his support of HR 1913 and for the piece he wrote on The Bilerico Project in support of GLBT rights. They were also pleased to discover that I was a contributing writer to the Project as well.

After that, it was off to Barney Frank's (D-MA) office to fulfill a promise I made to shake Diego Sanchez's hand. He was happy to see us and took a few moments out of his busy schedule to outline some of the issues of importance to the community he was working on as well as the constituents in the district.

I popped into Sheila Jackson-Lee's office to pay my respects to her. She'd sent me greetings through Vanessa Edwards Foster when Ness ran into her in Austin doing some lobbying back home. She wasn't in, but I did express my thanks to her staffer for her positive vote on HR 1913.

I ended the day with a stop at Rep. Barbara Lee's (D-CA) office. I'd visited it during my 2007 trip to DC and wanted to congratulate her on becoming the new chair of the Congressional Black Caucus. Had a nice chat with her chief of staff and asked him to convey mine and the transgender community's appreciation for being a ally standing up for the transgender community.

It was getting close to our planned 4 PM meeting in the Longworth cafeteria with the rest of our intrepid lobbying team, so it was time to bounce. We kiled some time checking out the new Capitol visitors center, looking at the Supreme Court building and musing about who the president was going to nominate for the soon to be vacated seat of Justice Souter. I ended the day not only getting reunited with my Houston homegirl, but meeting Toni, Ro, and Rebekah as well.

We shoved off after the planning meeting to the Dupont Circle area for dinner. After a few hours of lively conversation about the past, present and future state of the transgender community, Polar and I had to call it a night in order to get back to hotel before the last train to our station stopped running along with the bus we'd have to catch to get there.

We did have some technical difficulties. We discovered the difference between the Green 1 and Green 2 bus routes as we left the rail station and endured a long winding bus tour through Fairfax and the George Mason University Fairfax campus. Just as we stepped off the bus in front of the hotel the skies opened up and we got drenched in a deluge.

But despite the detour, the first day we could consider a success. We'd gotten information that would serve us well over the next two days, set up our lobbying strategy and were ready to hit the Hill running tomorrow.

After we got some sleep.

Back From DC

Just walked into the house after a few days in our nation's capital. It was a much needed mini vacation, even though I spent it lobbying the Senate to pass SR 909, the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Bill and saying 'Thank You' to the House members who passed their version I got the pleasure to visit.

It was great seeing some old friends, meeting some new ones and getting my exercise bouncing back and forth between the various office buildings and exploring the area round the hotel in Fairfax, VA.

After I roll over and get some well-deserved sleep after the 10 plus hour drive I'll tell y'all what transpired in DC.

Heading To DC

Once again I'm hitting I-64 east and heading to our nation's capital to talk to some congressmembers. I may even take some time on this trip to do a little sightseeing and souvenir hunting.

This time we're going to try a different routing. Instead of heading east on I-64 to Charleston WV, heading north up I-79 through Morgantown, and catching I-68/I-70 into Maryland and then dropping down I-270 into the Washington area, we're going to run through Virginia and see if the southern routing shaves off some time.

Either way, we're going to have to cross a mountain range, so the scenery will be just as beautiful no matter what direction we take.

If I get a chance to access a computer I'll keep you peeps posted. In the interim I'll do a diary of my time up there and post it when I get back from DC.

Oh, Deer!

Hey peeps, if you're hitting the roads in preparation for Turkey Day, be careful since deer are out looking for love in the wrong places.

Like the middle of a highway.

There was a front page article in the Courier-Journal yesterday warning folks that October-December is prime time for deer vs. car crashes since they're out looking to get their freak on. The female deer that aren't in heat and don't want to be bothered loiter around the highways to prevent a love connection.

The article brought back memories not only what happened to Polar back in 2002 when he had an up close and personal encounter with a pregnant doe on I-77 in West Virginia, but some close encounters I've had with Bambis inside and outside the Louisville city limits.

In 2005 I was a passenger in a westbound van headed back to Louisville on I-64 from a meeting in Lexington. Near Waddy, KY I spotted the deer up ahead meandering blithely in the left lane and warned my friend Erica, who promptly changed lanes and fortunately passed the deer without incident. The 18 wheeler behind us probably turned it into deer burgers.

Last November I was headed home after I got off from work at 5 AM. I was four blocks from home when something told me to slow my butt down as I approached the curve near the back side of the Southern Baptist Seminary.

All of a sudden a deer jumped out in the road from the seminary twenty yards in front of my car and started running in the wrong lanes away from me. Fortunately for the deer, the TARC bus that's usually headed westbound hadn't approached my street yet otherwise me and the neighbors would have been feasting on deer sausage and venison.

While I'm making humorous cracks about it, deer vs. car crashes are serious business. Polar's encounter totaled his car, and people have been killed or seriously injured as a result of these types of car (and sometimes motorcycle) crashes.

When I drove to Dallas for my cousin's November 2006 wedding, I was concerned because most of the driving I was doing was going to be at night, when deer are most active. I made it a point to have 18 wheelers run interference for me on I-65, I-40 and I-30 while I was motoring through rural Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas and northeast Texas enroute there and back to Da Ville. Better they hit Bambi than me.

But be careful, peeps. The car (and life) you save may be your own.

Bye CU, Hello Louisville

I'm back in Da Ville after a wonderful weekend in Boulder taking part in this weekend's Transforming Gender Symposium. Thanks to Stephanie, Andee and Angela for the invitation and all the volunteers and panelists who helped make this weekend a well run and informative one.

It was also an honor to finally meet and talk to Katastrophe, Ryka, Krista, and Michelle and to continue the conversations we started during this weekend. It was also neat to have a Canadian perspective on some of these issues courtesy of Krista and Michelle.

I was also surprised and pleased to receive a visit from Liz, one of my TSTB sisters. We spent a few hours laughing and talking about a few issues until we both started dozing on each other around 11 PM MST.

But unfortunately, all good things must come to an end, and I had to reluctantly hug and say goodbye to Liz since I had to get some sleep and get up at 3 AM for my shuttle which was picking me up at 3:30 AM. I had a 6 AM MST flight out of Denver International to Chicago-O'Hare and my connecting flight to Louisville.

After two uneventful flights, I ended up at home about 2:30 PM EST. Dawn caught me up with local events before I trudged up to my room and opened my bag to see if my CU coffee mug survived the trip.

It did, and I drifted off to some well deserved rest after a long but satisfying weekend in Boulder.

Thanks for the invite CU GLBT Resource Center. I hope it doesn't take me twenty more years to return to the Denver area next time.

Still In Colorado

Hey people. Still in Boulder checking out the conference and will be heading back to the Bluegrass State tomorrow. I almost don't want to leave, it's so beautiful out here and on the CU campus.

Got a chance to walk around it yesterday. It is so close to the mountains. Was a little windy yesterday, but has calmed down today.

My keynote speech was last night and I'll post the full text of it later. I ended up having to cut a few pages. I always worry about not having enough speech to cover my allotted time, but it turns out I tend to have far more speech than time to deliver it.

Still getting compliments for it, so as long as the people attending it and the wonderful people who brought me out here liked it, then it's a success. I've also had fun meeting some of the CU students who read TransGriot and getting to know some of my fellow panelists.

Still tripping about how fast the fallout over the Prop 8 loss turned racist and ugly, spurred on and stirred up by Rush and his conservafriends. I wrote a post about it on Bilerico called 'Fallin' For The Okey-Doke' that I haven't checked for nasty grams yet.

While I'm saddened and disgusted about the Prop 8 loss, instead of getting pissed off at African-Americans in general, the GLB community needs to remember who the real culprits are: the folks who put this up to a vote in the first place.

Hope the GLB community remembers this and how they felt the next time they hear one of their own suggest that transpeople need to be cut out of ENDA.

On my lunch break before my 4 PM MST panel discussion, so I'm gonna rustle up some food. The hosts were feeding me, but its vegan fare and y'all know I like my beef.

Live From Boulder, It's Moni!

Finally made it to Boulder, CO after flying since 12:45 PM EST from Da Ville. Weather was beautiful for most of the trip down to DFW and up to DEN with very little chop. I was also pleased to discover that this hotel, the Boulder Outlook not only is within rock throwing distance of the CU campus, it has complementary Internet access.

As I mentioned in some earlier posts this is my first trip back to the area in 20 years. This town has definitely changed and Boulder is more beautiful than I remember it.

Only drama I had was when I was trying to make my connection out of DFW to my Denver flight and the gate info I was given turned out to be incorrect. I ended up in Terminal B instead of next door in Terminal C where my bird was departing from, but fortunately I got there early, and thanks to the efficient Skylink trains I got there in enough time to grab a barbecue sandwich before boarding my flight.

I'm revising the speech as I write this. A lot of what I'll be talking about hinged on Tuesday's election results, so although I usually like having these speeches done with plenty of time to revise and polish them, I'll have until 6:30 PM MST tomorrow to get it as close to perfect as I'd like it.

Speaking of working on speeches, guess I better get back to the room and handle my business. I've been operating on three hours of sleep and if the Phenomenal Transwoman is going to look her best, she needs to crash.

Headed To Boulder, CO!

Hey peeps!
Headed to Boulder CO to be the keynote speaker for the TRANScending Gender Conference kicking off tomorrow on the CU Boulder campus.

Will tell y'all about it either when I get back or if I manage to get computer access sometime during my stay there.

Interesting Chi-Town Day

Hey TransGriot readers,
As you know I hit the road Saturday morning with Dawn to watch her fence in this year's edition of the Remenyik Open along with our other roomie Karen.

We bounced out of Da Ville a little after 6 AM EDT local time even though Dawn's check in for this event wasn't until 3 PM CDT. We decided we were going to partake in some of Chicago's cultural attractions and kill a few hours in the Field Museum.

As usual Dawn and I made excellent time while Karen slept in the backseat. As we approached Greenwood, IN (the southern 'burbs of Indianapolis) we discovered the gas price was only $2.30 a gallon. Since we had 3/4 of a tank we pressed onward under the assumption it would be at the same price or cheaper on the other side of Indy.

Wrong.

We painfully discovered that the closer we got to Chicagoland the higher the gas price got. In fact we ended up refueling in Merrillville where we paid $2.60 and I picked up my bag of Jay's Potato Chips. It wasn't $2.30 a gallon but it was cheaper than what we were paying in Da Ville, and I correctly guessed they were still paying over $3.00 a gallon in Chicago.

A few minutes later we crossed the Illinois-Indiana line and saw the first evidence of the extent of the search for Jennifer Hudson's young nephew Julian King. We passed an electronic highway sign with the description of the white SUV and plate number as we sped toward the Dan Ryan exit off I-80/94

We pulled into the parking garage underneath Soldier Field a little after 12 noon CDT and sauntered toward the world famous Field Museum. We were planning to kill about two hours there before heading off to Northwestern University.

After spending an enjoyable two hours checking out the various exhibits we headed back toward the car and shoved off up Lake Shore Drive in the direction of Evanston.

For those of you who haven't guessed by now, I'm blessed with a formidable memory. When it comes to road trips, some of my family members and friends have remarked that I'm better than a GPS unit. All it takes me is one time to travel somewhere and I never forget how to get there or need a map from that point.

I have relatives and friends in the Chicagoland area and have been there numerous times, so I know my way around the city. Dawn does as well since she was born there.

Since I was along for the ride last year, I knew where the SPAC was and called off the necessary turns from Lake Shore Drive onto N. Sheridan Rd and the NU campus. A few minutes later we were gliding into the parking lot in front of the SPAC in plenty of time for Dawn to check in for the tournament.

From what Dawn told me earlier in the week and on the trip up I-65 the competition in the women's saber division was going to be formidable. She's a C ranked fencer, and this tournament had two A ranked fencers, several B's and several C's.

This tournament also had in it a sistah competitor she has a friendly rivalry with from the Detroit area by the name of Ashlee McLemore. We last saw her in Columbus at the Great Lakes Regional Tournament with her sistah training partner Roberta Sims.

Dawn went 3-3 in her pool matches, but got bounced out of her DE 15-9. She wasn't too upset about it since this was her first serious fencing action since she finished third at the summer nationals in San Jose.

We had to get Karen back to Louisville since she had to work Sunday afternoon, but we weren't going to leave Chicago without hitting Giordano's and chowing down on one of their world famous deep dish pizzas. There was one in Rogers Park on N. Sheridan, so after we found a parking space two blocks from the restaurant we eagerly headed in to partake of it before hitting the road.

We caught up on the latest Chicagoland news and ended up taking four slices with us since we were stuffed. We usually order a partially baked one to take home, but forgot to do that when we arrived (we won't make that mistake again).

We discovered on the return trip that the gas station we passed that morning in Greenwood had dropped its price to $2.29 but didn't bother doing anything except switching off drivers. I'd taken us from Merrillville to that point and the lack of sleep was kicking my behind. We eventually ended up in Da Ville at 1 AM after a long but interesting day.

We'll be back next year for the Remenyik since it's one of Dawn's fave tournaments. I also hope that I'll FINALLY get to do a Chicago trip and spend some quality time with Jackie and Monica as well.

Rolling Towards The Remenyik Open

Dag, has it been a year already since the last Remenyik Open?

Hitting the road in a few hours. I'm heading back to Chicago with Dawn once again to watch her compete in this year's edition of the Remenyik Open Fencing tournament on the Northwestern University campus.

Of course, I'll tell y'all about my latest road trip when I get back.

Win, Place And Show Me The Money

I mentioned I spent a few hours in Lexington yesterday at Keeneland along with Polar.

We were doing our annual traditional trip to Keeneland to help Dawn celebrate her October 12 birthday but I was the one having a very good day.

I've been living here for seven years and yesterday was only my third trip to a racetrack despite living in Louisville and having Churchill Downs not far from me.

The only track I've been to is Keeneland, and to be honest it's actually prettier than the Downs. It's a beautiful facility on a large plot of land near the airport with ample parking and a parklike setting. It's especially beautiful in the fall with all the trees starting to turn.

My first visit occurred only two weeks after I moved here in 2001. Dawn and Polar knew I was still severely homesick and took me there just to get me out of my funk and being down about my situation. I had a memorably entertaining one in 2004 involving a humorous race call with a horse named Scripture.

When Scripture stumbled and fell out of the starting gate, the track announcer without skipping a beat replied, "Scripture kneels to pray at the starting gate."

Unfortunately Scripture's stumble was more serious than it looked because when the race was over the horse ambulance came out and whisked him off to the vet. I discovered later he'd broken one of his legs and had to be euthanized.

While nothing that serious happened on this trip, I did have something happen for the first time since I started coming to the track. I actually won money.

Usually when I go I make my win, place and show bets on a few horses and don't win anything, Polar's hit and miss while it seems like everything Dawn bets she cashes winning tickets on.

We happened to go on one of the themed racing days, so almost everyone in honor of Big Blue Day was wearing either UK colors or their own collegiate gear. We arrived there just after the second race concluded and in time to bet the third race. I'm still learning what to look for as a horse racing neophyte in terms of picking winners, and my luck held true to form in the third race.

But the fourth race was different. There was a horse named Galloping Home in this one, and I just liked the name. When I saw his workout times I liked him even better and bet him. I did have an anxious moment when he balked at being loaded into the starting gate. But once the race started he did his thing and lived up to his name by galloping home down the stretch in first place.

After doing the happy dance I cashed the ticket out and used some of my proceeds to bet on a horse called Dookie Duck in the fifth race. He finished in second.

Feeling adventurous, I decided to bet two horses since I couldn't decide which one I liked better in the sixth race between Sweet Ransom and Impressionism.

Impressionism just beat out Sweet Ransom for third place while everybody else chased a 61-1 longshot called Cure For Sale to the pole. If I'd bet that one it would have payed $128 on a $2 bet, but alas I didn't. I had to be happy with the $2.80 I won for Impressionism's not so picture perfect third place finish.

But that made the third straight race I'd won something on, and we decided to bet one more before we called it a day.

In the seventh race I once again bet two horses, Santana Strings and Natural Speed. Natural Speed showed it late, but just finished out of the money behind Santana Strings, keeping my money winning streak alive.

It's the best day I'd ever had on our horse racing jaunts, and we topped it off with the Nighthawk special at the downtown Lexington Columbia Steakhouse location.

While the day belonged to Dawn since we were celebrating her birthday, as Polar's car headed westbound on I-64 back toward Da Ville I began humming Ice Cube's Today Was A Good Day while pondering the wonderful one I'd had as well.

A Day At The Races

As part of Dawn's birthday celebration (it was Sunday) I'm getting dressed and ready to roll with her and Polar to Lexington.

It's one of our traditions, and since the fall racing season has commenced at her favorite track, we're going to give Dawn the chance to go home, hang out with her friends and release her inner elitist by spending a few hours hobnobbing at Keeneland.

Tell y'all about it later.