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Saturday, June 28, 2003
I'm back from Chicago. Spent the week there on a lovely business trip in the lovely windy city. Actually, it wasn't all that lovely until the last day. But the business show I went to was fun. I flew out on the red-eye Monday morning and arrived around 2. I hadn't even arrived at the hotel yet and my coworker was calling me on my cell phone; I had a message waiting for me in my room too. It's good to be wanted. ;) The day was a whirlwind of sorts and I was a bit tired. Went to dinner with yet another coworker - this one from Germany. :) It's nice to work in a global team... We ended up at some random restaurant. I had good mushroom ravioli - it was one of those fancy dishes where they don't give you much food. I think they call that "gourmet"? My friend ordered a disappointing salad... :( I didn't find the good cuisine in Chicago - I'm sure it exists. I managed to lose a couple pounds on this trip. Terrible! Tuesday I slept in a bit. Long night. Did work stuff, but that's too boring to record forever more in writing. Tuesday night was the "big event" for the conference. A night at The House of Blues. House is really an understatement. It was four stories, had two bands, and many bars - all of which serving free alcohol. Of course I took advantage of the hospitality. I hung out with more of my coworkers - many I don't get to see except at these shows. My French coworker showed me a dance at the last conference in Lisbon and he tried to refresh my memory. Too much twirling... (Twirling and drinking... bad combo). And if that place wasn't enough, when it closed down, we headed to "Buddy Guy's". Some old blues guy opened a blues bar that had blues bands. A hole in the wall and right across the way from the hotel. The band was good too. One of the singers had this ammunition belt (at least it looked like one), full of harmonicas. Pretty cool. They only come in one key so you have to get several. I was so inspired I went out and bought myself a harmonica today. No, really! It's harder than it looks! Anyway. That was Tuesday. Wednesday morning was more work. I had to validate some computer setup thingy for my thingy the next day. This thingy was the reason I was even there. :) They do pay me to do something useful... We came back later that evening to setup our room and it, of course, took longer than we'd hoped. A group was waiting for us downstairs to go to dinner and I had to send them off without us. :( Group outings are the best part of these shindigs - it was disappointing. But it was for the better. We got our room all set up and the 3 of us followed after the group. I don't know why since we sat at a different table... This was supposed to be some great steak house. Pah! My $40 aged steak didn't compare to what we can do on the grill at home. I was severly disappointed. But too hungry to care. I recalled my meals over the course of the day. Let's see. Orange juice for breakfast (freshly squeezed!) Pretzels in the VIP lounge for lunch. By dinner time, I was faint with hunger. *sigh* What a dope! Wed night I must have had nerves or something because I didn't get much sleep... Our session thingy was at 8:00 the next morning. Needless to say, not much sleep that night. At some point along the way I decided to paint my toenails. I knew I'd be wearing sandals all week so I wanted to relax 15 minutes and do this. Sitting on the toilet (lid down!) with my foot on the tub edge, I painted away. Only I got careless and knocked the open bottle of nail polish into the tub, spilling pink polish all over. OOPS. That's gonna stain... I tried to wipe it up with Kleenex, but alas, it only smeared. Worried the cleaning people would freak out, I made a plan to buy nail polish remover to clean it myself. Until then, I kept the "do not disturb" sign hung. Moving on. Thursday was the big thingy. The thingy went well and I'm relieved. There's a lot of prep work for these thingies, and customers pay to attend, so they really need to be smooth. And it was. By 12pm I was free of all obligation and responsibility. What a nice feeling... Thursday night was sushi night with the team (minus one). The big boss too. We got a big, round table, and proceeded to have an awesome sushi dinner. A bit more sashimi and nigiri than I prefer (gimme maki), but it was fresh. There was exotic eating as well, none of which I was interested in. The craziest was the oyster shooter with the (raw) quail egg. Hey, all four of them said it was good, and none of them died. Positive testimony. After dinner, the big boss was ready to party, as were some colleagues. I however, was falling asleep standing up. Ready for bed. We split off and some of us went back. We took the train to and from dinner - an authentic experience considering we don't have trains like that locally. Cool stuff. I wish we did have trains, but they're not so compatible with "urban sprawl". Friday - a free day. I went to bed around 11 the night before, and gee, got up around 11. My first sound sleep in the hotel room. Pillow was hard as a rock, but didn't matter that night. Guess I was used to it. My coworkers' sessions were wrapping up around noon and I caught them for lunch. They had successful sessions as well and I was pleased to hear it. Played the tourist after lunch. Trip up to the Sear's tower. What an awesome view. I could stare at the horizon for hours. So serene. What else did we do? Walked the Navy Pier, which was not so exciting, but it was windy. And they DON'T have an IMAX theater. Took the free trolley around a bit, and did some walking as well. It's nice to know you're never far from a Starbuck's. By this time, some people were heading home. I however stayed over another night so I could play in the city a little. A couple coworkers did as well so I had company. Chicago was a foreign place to all of us. :) I had done some research on things to do. Most of it was totally worthless, but I at least had a list of sushi restaurant reviews. We took the train (I was the expert) and got off in a more residential looking area. Reminded me of old town. Very quaint. Cute little shops. And a good sushi restaurant. We ate maki, and it was yummy. The firecracker roll was my favorite - it had some tempura batter in it. Just the crunchy batter. Surprisingly tasty. :) That sums up the evening. Next day was breakfast on the sidewalk at some place that served way too many eggs. There was a Puerto Rican parade and many were walking by in T-shirts showing their Puerto Rican pride. There were also pictures in front of a neighboring hotel. They had been marching around in a circle for weeks, megaphone and signs in hand. Chicago does have a lot of unions... You don't see picketers here so much. The rest of the afternoon was spent finding a boat, then riding a boat, and getting an architecture tour on the Chicago river. Did you know they reversed the flow of the river? And that some rich guy had nude parties at the lighthouse? Lunch at the California Pizza Kitchen - Thai chicken pizza - my favorite. Then it was back to the hotel to grab my junk, take a nearly-vomit-inducing cab ride to the airport, say my goodbyes to the city, and head home. A memorable trip.
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