Inventors Galore

I'm back from my weekend in Chicago with my mom and aunt. As a reminder, we were there for the Everyday Edisons' casting call for inventors. My aunt was the one with an actual invention, and then my mom and I came up with ideas so we could join her.

None of our ideas were picked, but that's okay. The real fun of the event was seeing all the other crazy inventor people there. I was so entertained by the whole thing that I even started making a list on my iPhone of bad invention ideas. I'll admit that my idea wasn't groundbreaking. (My idea was a "Nanny Pack" where you put together fun games, toys, etc. all in one bag to entertain kids.) But some of the people at the casting call were just crazy. Here are some of my favorite unusual ideas of the day.

*One person had the idea of having this mystery ball. When you turn it over, it gives you inspirational messages like "You can do it," "Success is in your future soon," and stuff like that. (Anyone thinking Magic 8 ball here?)
*The same person wanted to present a second idea about how you can make Ramen noodles in a cup. Hmmmm.
*One woman wanted to put HARD, PLASTIC organizers in the bottom of a purse, so you can transfer them from purse to purse. Okay, this sounds good in theory, but who has hard, plastic organizers in the bottom of a purse?!? Weird.
*One guy created an elastic strap that goes OVER a baby's head to hold its bottle. This way, he said, the parent doesn't have to get up to give the baby its bottle back if it drops it. (There are so many things wrong with this one. I just don't know where to begin.)

So, yes. There were some crazy inventor people. But we sure had a lot of fun. And after we got done standing around in lines for most of the day, we still had time to go to Navy Pier. And after that, we went to a sketch comedy show at Second City. (That's where a lot of comedians and Saturday Night Live people have come out of.)

Good weekend overall. Here's a picture of us riding the Ferris Wheel at Navy Pier.