Chicago

One more day to go here in Chicago.  I’ve been here since Wednesday for the eBay Live! conference for work and it has been quite a bit more fun than I expected – albeit exhausting.  I have never attended anything like this, let alone on the exhibitor side of things.

Thursday started off with a few very unusual things.   At 6am I went… running in downtown Chicago with Brian and Wes.  That’s right, go ahead and re-read that.  Running.  Me.  Crazy.  I went nowhere near as far as these guys, but did end up making it further than I thought I would before it felt like my lungs were going to explode.  I went a total of just under a mile; they went something like 6+. 

Fast forward an hour or so and we were on our shuttle bus headed to the conference center.  What should have been a simple, uneventful, quick drive ended up being something worth writing about.   First, we get on the bus to find the driver holding Google Maps directions.  Ummm, you’re a driver in Chicago and you’re using Google Maps?  Hmmm…  We chat with him for a while and learn of his disdain for the ol’ Chicago cabbies, making a few jokes about passing laws so they could shoot them.  Hmm, neat.  

Fast forward 20 minutes and we’ve made something like 12 left hand turns (think Spirograph) and were hardly anywhere closer to our destination.   Then comes a turn down a narrow street (with a charter bus…) where we enter into a battle of wills with an oncoming cab driver that doesn’t want to move over a little bit to let the bus pass.  Our driver yells and honks; cabbie backs up a TINY bit and… throws it in park in protest.  A cab and a bus are now blocking the street and backing up traffic.  What does our driver do?  Gets out of the bus and yells at him!  I had my camera:

After this heated discussion, the cab driver backs up and lets us through.  All in all, the 3 mile drive took 40 minutes and made us a few minutes late for the opening. 

On to the conference… I’m not one that usually talks to many people, or enjoys talking to people for that matter.  So I spent time between agreeing to attend and now being pretty nervous about the whole thing.  But once it got started I just did my best to ignore that and everything seems to be going pretty well.

An finally (for now), thanks to Mr. Long for recommending Howl at the Moon.   We’ve had a couple of fun evenings there listening to the great music and enjoying some refreshments.  And… in what may be a record, the first evening we got called out by the musicians no less than 7 times.

Tomorrow is another full day of exhibiting, then we’ll be headed back home.