Chicago

My colleague and I had to go to Chicago for a few days for a work seminar. Well, to say we were in Chicago is a broad overstatement. We were in O'Hare airport and The Hyatt Regency, 9 miles west of the airport. Granted it was a lovely hotel and they took good care of us, but as with my Boston trip, it could have been anywhere.

The training this session seemed to be more beneficial to me; it was a lot more theorizing and less dissemination of information and small group practicing.

The highlight of the trip was yesterday's lunch when the regional manger invited everyone to join her at the hotel's buffet and I was lucky enough to get to sit across from her. She is a remarkable person and great role model, especially since my first impression of the company was that is solely a boy's club, as far as management went. When Sue arrived at our store opening, it was deeply significant to me to see a woman in a position of power, and gave me more hope for my future career. So, it was very nice to see her again, especially after coming up in the ranks twice.

I did not get to find out WHY Chicago is a toddlin town, in fact, I did not discover what toddlin' town even means.

So, this afternoon, we get out of the seminar an hour early, which is grand, as we had to run off to the airport to catch our flight home, and oh yeah, it's snowing.

So, after a 2 hour delay, we finally get on the plane, and the only good news was that there were so few folks on the final flight out that I got to sit in the single seat on one side of the plane. That was great for me, because you can put your legs out into the aisle and no one bugs you.

What I have really learned from my training seminars so far this year is this: no matter if you fly east or west, you are going to get screwed trying to get back to Cleveland.

Oh, and driving home from the airport at midnight was fun, too, because it was one of those horizontal snowstorms, that look like you are traveling at warp speed through a starfield, making it next to impossible to see the road. I found that turning off the headlights and using the light of the moon to see the road and my familiarity with the route was much, much easier. And happily, no other idiots were out but me, so I didn't have to worry about freaking them out by turning my headlights back on when I crept up on them....