Back in the Windy City again...

... this time for NeoCon, a gi-normous interior design trade show. I went in to register today & maybe walk around... okay first, the show takes up around 8 floors of this building, and there must have been over 200,000 people milling around this place (half of them in line for the elevators). No thanks. I grabbed my nametag & a guidebook and headed back to my hotel to forge a plan of attack for tomorrow.

On my way to the show I noticed one street blocked off by cops and a rather large crowd gathered. I'm not a rubbernecker, but it didn't seem to be an accident or anything bad going on so I stopped to see... and they're filming a movie! It's Public Enemies, a gangster film about John Dillinger, so they'd re-done a bunch of buildings with 1920's facades and there were a bunch of cars and motorcycles from the era driving up & down the street. I looked up the movie on IMBD when I got back to my room, and discovered that Johnny Depp, Christian Bale, and Giovanni Ribisi are all in this movie! Holy crap! Not like I'd get to see any of them (they had the street blocked off several blocks down from where the filming was happening) but it's still pretty cool.
Otherwise this trip is okay so far. I went to check in to my original hotel this morning & they were oversold, so they moved me to Hilton Garden Inn which I think is probably a bit nicer than the other one (The Silversmith), but I'm not really that picky. I'm in a wheelchair-accessible room actually, which is kind of neat because the bathroom is big enough for a wheelchair to spin donuts in (and considering my hotel last week had bathrooms that even MY ass couldn't turn around in, that's definitely exciting) and the shower is a roll-in type with one of those cool overhead showerheads. The bed is like a faux "Sleep Number" with dials on each side to adjust the comfort level, which is interesting. I'll definitely be experimenting with it to see what my back really likes. It can't seem to decide whether soft or firm matresses are better... so far both have given me kinks & made my arms fall asleep!

I can't wait to be home for a while though. I only get to see B one day this week before he heads up to Michigan to do Army stuff, so I'm kind of bummed about that... plus we're still dog-sitting Bailey, my in-law's stubborn as hell Lab, and he and Jake are pretty obnoxious together. My next trip after this is mid-July out in Boulder, which is going to be friggin awesome! Partly because the seminar is held at this swanky resort (St. Julien's) but mainly because I get to see my BFF Kelly while I'm there! I haven't seen her in about 2 years and I miss her a ton.

My dinner is not sitting well, so I'm off to drink some water & read a book. 'Nite all.