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The Ledge

Its stupidly early/late and I can’t sleep for whatever reason, so here is my first photo entry from Chicago

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Let me start by saying that the Sears tower is now officially called the Willis Tower, however, I have always known it as the Sears Tower and I will be using that name in the post. The observation deck (skydeck) of the Sears Tower is 103 stories up which is about 1,353 feet and its got all the touristy things you would expect such as a gift shop, coin-operated binoculars, and factual plaques.

This picture is from a fairly recent addition to the tower’s observation deck. There are four walk outs that are made completely of glass. They stick four feet out of the building and probably are about 10 feet high. The glass is two inches thick and can bear close to five tons of weight.

Personally, I am afraid of heights. I love flying and I didn’t mind being up in either the Seattle’s Space Needle or the Sear’s Tower, but let me tell you walking out on that ledge is a whole different animal. Chelsea just walked out on with no hesitation, but I had to make sure that glass wasn’t going nowhere by putting one foot on it doing the little foot tap thing to make sure it was indeed stable. This picture was actually taken while standing on the glass, so I wasn’t just leaning over it or nothing.

Anyway, I think its bedtime.

Chicago

As you may know I have been in Chicago for the past two weeks with my girlfriend Chelsea. Our vacation is coming to a close and we will be headed back to the cities on Tuesday morning. We have had the pleasure of staying with Chelsea’s generous and kind aunt and uncle. They have given us a free place to stay these past two weeks, fed us, kept us company, and showed us around the Chicagoland (local term for downtown and the many surrounding suburbs) area. Anyway I appreciate all they have done for us and here’s hoping we can return sometime in the near future.

I have taken a lot of photos everywhere we have been and when I get home and go through them all I am going to pick several and do little blog posts explaining them and my experiences there. Also they will be uploaded to PicasaWeb and Flickr where all my other photos are.