My Kind of Town

ahhh yes...Chicago. How fun. I wish I had more pictures, but I'll put what I got. And to recap...I'll tell y'all about my week.

First - I get here Weds and come to the event and register say hey to some people I hadn't seen in a while (ummmm...like in a week since St Louis) and go through the rigamaroll (which included me giving a one and a half hour workshop to other members there – I knew I was going to speak but thought I was only going to speak for 20 minutes – and to my surprise it was 1.5 hours – it went really well though and I got a lot of great feedback, which was encouraging) then it comes down to the dinner and award show of the evening...and guess what? Yes...if you guessed that I won an award you would be correct. ;) A total surprise to me. I won the "most outstanding member award". Very cool. Pics and all - I think it'll even be in an upcoming magazine issue. Anyway, I can get pics of it and post it later. After that, I got invited to a VIP party in the suites and had quite a bit of fun. After hanging there for a while I decided to go to bed – around 1 or so.

Thursday was a little different. I got up for breakfast and then had to help set up for the expo (for our software). The expo went extremely well and was lots of fun. After that there was lunch and the rest of the conference. At the end of the day, we went out to Ditka’s, a restaurant by none other than Mike Ditka. And yes, he was there! He was pretty cool, but I didn’t get a pic with him. Bummer. There were a couple other players there but honestly I don’t know who they were, one named Dent and McMichael, I think. Anyway…Bears football – I don’t keep up with it much. After dinner we went to a club called “Level” – which was pretty awesome – right up the street from Syn (another good one). We hung out there until about 2 or so and then walked back to the hotel.

Friday (today) – got up, breakfast, conference, nothing big. After lunch, had free time and we went to Bubba Gump at the pier to eat. Then came back and changed and a bunch of us went to a really good pizza place in old town and then went to second city to see “War!”, which was pretty funny. I was pretty worn out after that and decided to come back and blog about it all since I have to return tomorrow and won’t get a chance to blog again until Sunday or Monday. So I hope you enjoy some of the pics – it was a good time… ;) I love Chicago.