Windy City

I’ve never been to Chicago before, yet I’m sitting in my hotel room playing around on myspace. I got into town at about 10:30 a.m. & spent the better part of the day at the Art Institute, which turned out to be a farther walk from the hotel than anticipated, so my feet are tired & I just want to chill for a bit before dinnertime.

The train ride was pretty good, despite the dude behind me with his shoes off & the delays outside Chicago that held us up about 40 minutes. I slept for a while which was nice, but I have a kink in my neck because of it. Also I noticed that neighborhoods near the tracks, no matter what town, are shitty neighborhoods. There was occasionally a nicer house, surrounded on all sides by trash. Sad, & kind of ruined the view.

Tomorrow is day 1 of the "Sustainable Manufacturing Summit" and I hope it turns out to be good. Speakers from GE, Toyota, & a few other big names should make it either really interesting & motivating, or horribly dry & boring, OR completely unrelated to what I need to learn. At this point, who cares?

My hotel is pretty nice, for being one of the less expensive places downtown (most hotels from the Mag Mile down through The Loop run $300+ a night so finding one at the south end of the Loop for less than $200 was amazing, and a Best Western so it’s actually not bad). My cab ride from the train station was absolutely terrifying though, I swear this dude was doing 55 through city streets! The only bummer is I’m too far from the shopping district to walk... which is maybe a good thing?

Have a business dinner tonight that I’m not really looking forward to, I’d much rather chill by myself. Think I’ll take a nap beforehand though.