My Trip To Chicago, September 8-11

I had the opportunity to go to Chicago for the first time in my life to train for a company I am now working for called 'Books Are Fun' The company is owned by Reader's Digest, and has corporate offices in Skokie, IL

Day One I woke up early to drive down to Portland International Airport so that I could catch the plane that was supposed to leave around 10:47, but it was two hours late, so I spent a long time waiting in the airport doing nothing, except reading the newspaper and the magazine that I had bought. By the time I got to Chicago, and then caught my shuttle ride to the hotel, it was around 9 or 10 local time. The driver was cool who took me to the hotel in Skokie, and the room was nice. I didn't stay up too late, but I went to bed because it had been a long day.

Day Two, I was the first one ready of the group. I went down and had breakfast, went back to my room and watched a little tv, and then went to where we were supposed to meet. I thought for a moment that no one else from the group had shown up, but finally I met Patty who is from Kelowna. I didn't know it, but it seems to me that Canadians do have a distinct accent. It seems they sometimes over pronounciate things. Then I met the rest of the group.

Cheryl Peterson was the trainer. She is a sweet lady probably nearing 60 who has been doing books are fun for about 8 years. We basically covered the software for Bstar, and also some other basic things like ordering books and doing reports for the job.

In my group was Jonathan, also from Washington, David from Tuscon, Maria from Kansas City, Art from Houston, Catherine from Bradenton, FL, Michelle, from New Jersey, Lisa from Cincinatti, and Patty from BC of course.

On the first evening after class, I went and actually worked out in the gym, watched some TV and went to bed.

The 2nd day, a group of us went down to downtown Chicago and saw the Navy Pier. It is kind of like a mall, with a big ferris wheel outside and a bunch of ships for cruising on Lake Michigan. Chicago is one big city, with lots and lots of skyscrapers. It is much bigger than Seattle or Portland. I thought with the traffic we dealt with it was too big to deal with for my tastes.
I ate at the Bubba Gump Shrimp place, which is completely based on the movie Forest Gump. It was good food. I ate an appetizer. One of the other places we looked at was very expensive, with plates starting at 50 dollars a piece.

Then the next day we packed and took our items for the final day. The trainer, Cheryl had to leave early with Art, one of the other class members because of Hurricane Ike bearing down on Houston to the South. So we just basically sat around waiting for our shuttle. A group of us did go over to Old Orchard Mall, which was kind of cool. There was this interesting older guy who lead us around for a few minutes. It is an outdoor type of mall, and has some cool artwork and statues there.

It took us an hour and a half to get down to Chicago O'Hare Airport. What a nightmare that place was. The lines the check in luggage are too big, and the security is horrible. I barely made it to my plan to leave. Then the flight seemed too long. I sat next to a couple of computer nerds talking with each other, and I kind of listened and snoozed. Then I came home, got my luggage, and drove for and hour and 1 half home. I almost fell asleep at the wheel a couple of times, and probably should have pulled over to the side of the road for a rest on the way.

Well, I must say Chicago is a nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there.