Chicago Again

So I finally got there, got to Chicago. That was last week, of course. And it's already Tuesday as I sit down to start writing this. So what's taken me so long? Well, it was a hectic trip, as you'll see. And I came home and just kept drinking and piling it on myself that before I knew it I was sick. Again. So here I am, sorta still sick, a few days off a story I should have written earlier. Well, I got there, so here it is, in a timeline format, with pictures and videos. Not many, but something.

Tuesday

The night before, Nat makes a nice meal. At this stage it was over a week ago so I haven't the foggiest idea what we had but I remember it being good. A table full of empty dishes always indicates that you got some good food on. I'm trying, but just can't remember and empty plates don't ring a bell. We often use that bowl for noodles though. So my guess is noodles and some sort of greens.



After dinner I partake in 2 glasses of red wine. Why do I drink wine when I don't much care for it? I don't know. I'm a beer guy, through and through. I guess it was there, and it spoke to me in that "I'm a bottle of wine and, well, you know, I don't really speak so whatever's going on is all in your head" kind of way.



Wednesday

5:30 I am up. I eat breakfast and have my first cup of coffee. What's the over/under for number of cups of coffee on this trip? 15? 2000? It's cold outside, having snowed a ton the day before which also means that I don't get out on the bike for 2 days before I leave, plus 2-3 days while I'm out there. Either way, it translates to it being cold out. But I'm going to Chicago so I'm bound to be cold anyway, right?

6:15 I start my car to warm it up, and the door won't close. I decided to drive to the airport and use the short-term parking. Check it out. I'll be there 2 days and 5 hours, roughly. That will cost me $75 to drive myself both ways. Last trip the car service was $150 one way. Screw that. While it's not my money that's a little absurd.

6:30 The warming up of the car allows the door to shut, thankfully. I take off for the airport as the sun rises and it is a stunningly beautiful day. The trees are covered in snow. Very nice start. Traffic to the airport is light.

7:35 I am checked in and I get coffee #2 at terminal A14. If anyone fails to use the online check-in, they're a fool. It totally removes the need to stand in line at the Departure counter. Why would you not do this? I drink my coffee at the terminal, waiting for the hour to drain away while I read.



8:30 Did I ever mention I hate airplanes? Well I do. Maybe not hate, but there's something about a multiple-ton hunk of steel in the air that doesn't sit right with me. There are no delays and we board right at 8:30. I get on late since I sit in Economy Plus and have the front row behind the "business class" which means they get a curtain drawn between them and us plebes. I drink coffees #3 and #4, watch 2 episodes of Scrubs, and read. There is no turbulence, the flight is uneventful. We land early.

11:00 I am in the office already. I consume coffees #5 and #6 and have then had enough. Travel always makes me drink copious amounts of coffee and they have reasonable coffee there. So I partake in free and decent. I get a turkey sandwich for lunch under the guise that I can maintain some sort of health. We then launch into a sporadic fight to get all our normal work for the day done, which renders this day useless in terms of me learning anything on my first day out here. I sit down with someone for a little bit but we just go over stuff I'm already pretty familiar with. Too much work to do on our NY-side of the fence for me to spend too much on this.

5:00 I check-in to the hotel.



5:30 I at the bar for the next 8+ hours, where I drain far too many beers and eat far too much food. It's good to hang out with the guys out here. They're definitely more of a team than the NY side. I've never gone out once socially with the NY people, and I doubt I ever will. I fit in well with these guys as they're all my age or younger. We eat and drink more.

2:30 I take a video of myself, because I can, I guess.



Thursday

7:30 I wake up with a light headache. I hurt, maybe not as much as I should but only because I stopped drinking hours before I went to bed. The beer just wasn't tasting good anymore. When you get to that point, it's best to stop. In college, you plow on because you're an idiot. But at this stage of the game, it's best to stop.

8:30 Out of the hotel and walking to the office. If you check the temps it's more or less the same as NJ. But the real bitch is that it's windy as you can imagine a city named "the windy city" would be. It's actually worse. I have a 7 block walk to the office and I stop halfway there to get coffee. By the time I get there I'm totally freezing. I can't imagine living here and riding a bike outside all year around. Incomprehensible.

9:00 I grab some breakfast and coffee #2 then start the day. The morning is more or less me wondering why i would drink so much as well as taking care of some NY-side details from the day before. I knock out my required workload early so I can try and make some use of the trip.

12:00 Group lunch. The day hasn't been productive and we as a group are more or less hungover. We have a meeting in the afternoon to get some things in-line. I'm having fun but the trip wasn't exactly required or anything. But again, good to show my face and be part of the team. I like coming out.

2:00 We have our meeting and I do some one-on-one with one of the girls and pick up some knowledge. The afternoon is more productive so it makes it more worth it. Just getting your feet wet with the code is worth it. It will be good to code again on some level.

5:30 Just my boss and I go out that night, a mere 6 hours this time. It's a different bar with a much better beer selection, for which I'm very grateful for. Everyone else begs off which leaves the 2 of us which is all good. We actually get along pretty well. I have a chicken and guacamole sandwich with a side of hummus. And like 7 beers. As the night winds down, I say, "Sure, just 1 more."

11:00 I leave the bar and I am brutally cold, just shiveringly cold. It's a tough thing to think about living here. Wow, that would be hard.

Friday

6:00 I wake up tired, and again, hurting. What is wrong with me? I've spent more time in the bar than in bed the last 2 days.

6:30 Showered and out of the hotel, in a taxi to the airport. Traffic is light enough and we make it with no issue. I am spaced out, to say the least.

7:05 Through security but not early enough to get stand-by on the early plane. So it's me and 2 cups of coffee in the terminal. I also get a bagel but it sucks. I mean, it just sucks. I also find a revolving seat cover on a toilet.



8:30 I board the plane, again perfectly on time. I'm losing my dislike of airplanes I think. This trip, only the takeoff unnerves me a bit, and not that much. Landing is no issue. I read the entire time, too tired to fish through my bag and get my DVD player or iPod. I have 1 cup of coffee making it 14 cups on the trip.

12:35 I am back home, where I immediately get right back to work and lay down whenever possible. Nat and Julia are at the in-laws today so I get a quiet day. Overall good. But for no good reason I have a few beers that night. Truly, I'm an idiot.

Ok, so that was my trip. It's Wednesday morning and my boss and his boss are back in town tomorrow. So it's only 1 night this time. But the last time we went out in NYC I fell asleep on the train ride home and woke up only because I set my phone alarm. I then called in a sick day after that. These guys are a bad influence on me.

Chicago Stuff

Chicago is so last week. Yet my world has gone into BC and AC to an extreme degree. Boston College and Air Conditioning. BC I was pretty limited on the amount of work I was doing on any given day. In general if I had 4 hours of work to do it was a lot. AC, I'm basically swamped from the time I get in to the time I leave. It's a good thing, as I'm able to contribute in a signifcant way now. There's a lot more work in this group than I thought at first. That's a good thing.

A few Chicago comments:

Woody

"WTF?! I was just in Chicago today. Quick out-n-back day trip. My flight out of Newark was taking off at about the time you were going thru security there. And I was already done with my biz and getting dropped off at the airport in Chicago to leave at the same time you were getting into your cab there. (Like I said, quick trip.) We were probably within shouting distance of each other twice today. Small world. Happy trails, Woody"

Small world bro. I guess if we both did that Twitter shit we would have known that and maybe I could have saved you a trip unless you were there to shit on I-90.

Walter

"Hey chief, looks like its Lake Michigan. 12:30 and beers, I bet Wednesday hurt. Glad to see things are productive for you out there."

Yeah I should have remembered that the only Great Lake entirely in the US is Michigan. I found the water fascinating on the way back, and learned that there are a few little islands on the western part of Lake Erie. I saw them and the fact that they were completely developed and was a little surprised. Check out Google Maps sometime and you'll see what I mean about it. It's called something like Pelee Island.

Anyway, gotta be honest that I'm looking forward to going back. Just not for 5 days.

Chicago Travel 5

7:56 am

My attempts to keep EST while out here have been mildly successful at best. Going out drinking doesn't help that cause. Certainly feeling it this morning. Time to shower up and get ready to head home. Looking forward to seeing the family again. The trip was good but I miss home.

8:23 am

All showered and packed. Time to check out and find me some breakfast. Going with jeans and sneakers for travel today.

8:36 am

Did another Potbelly stop for a breakfast sandwich. Including the $1.55 Starbucks coffee it was $5.05. Some stuff is really friggin cheap out here.

9:17 am

In the office now. I took my time drinking my coffee to just relax a bit. Today could be long, especially with Ohare's bad record on air travel. I'm supposed to land at 7:20 but from the sounds of it I'll be lucky to see that happen.

Have a few more builds to do this morning which really should help solidify this week's work. It's been a solid week.

1:38 pm

In a cab to the airport now. Giving myself 3 hours and change because there's apparently a lot of traffic these days due to consrtruction. I like Chicago but not enough to stay another few hours if I miss my plane.

Got free lunch today which was nice because the company buys for everyone on Fridays. So we all sat together and talked over lunch.

I didn't get as much done today as I had hoped. There were a lot of problems with the build from yesterday so we battled back and forth with it and finally it was time to go so one of the other guys took over while I jumped out to catch a cab.

2:10 pm

Pulling into the airport already, almost no traffic at all. So I have about 2 hours to kill before we board. Since I did online checkin I didn't have to wait in the huge line. I got to walk right up and go through while 200 people stood in line waiting.

There's a flight to Newark that leaves here at 3:30. I'm going to try and see if I can hop on that plane. I'm sure it will be full but why not try?

2:52 pm

Put myself on the wait list for the 3:30 flight. No idea what the chances are but it striked me that I'll get to Newark during rush hour traffic if I do make this. Maybe I should just chill and be happy to get there later. Then again this flight has now been bumped to 3:40 so if I wait for my actual flight it may end up being much later than expected.

3:08 pm

Woo hoo! I got a seat on the 2:40. Turns out I was 6th on the standby list, out of 25. Wait, now it's 2:51. At least I see the plane and the passengers getting off. And I have my new boarding pass. So it's all more real now. Somehow I managed to get a window seat too.

3:31 pm

Sitting on the plane now. Got the emergency door row so I have 2 feet between my knees and the seat. Leg room is huge. I was talking to a man and woman who both got standby on this plane, and who were both on the same plane I was. They say that plane is never on time and 2 weeks ago didn't leave until midnight. Damn!

Incredibly we seem to be about to roll at 3:45.

4:08 pm

Now sitting on the runway waiting because all air traffic to Newark has been stopped temporarily due to congestion. In theory the original plane I was supposed to board should be boarding in 6 minutes though I'm sure it's also delayed.

4:16 pm

The traffic half at Newark has been lifted and we should be in the air in 5 minutes says the Captain. Aye aye, Captain. We should get there as expected, roughly 6:00 pm. We actually hit the ground, really hard, at 5:59.

6:52 pm

All done, back home. Saved at least 1:20 with this flight, probably more. When I looked it up it turns out I saved 1:47 of time as my original plane was 30 minutes late.

All in all, it was a very good trip. I'll probably be back before long but not for quite as long of a trip.

Chicago Travel 4

7:23 am

In Millennium Park, drinking a coffee, and there are 4 performers, dressed kinda like mimes, up on these 20 foot poles, doing some sort of routine in front of The Bean. There was an ABC News crew there filming it. Can't make this stuff up. It's amazing what you miss if you just stay in the hotel room. It's a beautiful day.

I'm holding out hope I can rent a bike this morning and maybe zip down and see Soldier Field. Why? I don't know.

7:46 am

I give up hope on the Bicycle Center opening. This is the second time it failed to be open by the scheduled time of 6:30 (our 7:30) so I have to assume it means they're not really open at 6:30. Will need a new plan if I come out again for this long, which I probably won't. No big deal, I'm content looking for breakfast instead, which I find 15 minutes later in the form of a Corner Bakery Cafe. I get a ham/chedder panini and some fruit.

8:43 am

Showered and out the door. Going to swing by the Chicago Art Museum before I hit the office for no discernable reason as I'm sure it's not open yet. It wasn't.

3:51 pm

Boy how the day goes by so fast. My last day of learning is still productive. Very good. Going out for beer and steak with the team tonight.

5:16 pm

Ok, really getting mucked up in the gory details now. This is good, for sure. At the same time I friggin spent. Need beer, and steak, and to wrap this trip up and head home. Next trip just 3 days, 2 nights, and bang it out as best I can.

12:05 am

Damn, this late night shit is going to kill me. Good times tonight with 3 of my teammates. I didn't pay for tonight's dinner, but I caught a glimpse of the bill and it makes my $69 dinner from last night look tame. Gotta make sure I fly out here with the family for the Christmas party.

Chicago Travel 3

7:48 am

Crawl out of bed. I'm not entirely hungover yet but it's still early. I need some breakfast and Advil. Walk to the CVS around the corner first then back across the street to a greasy spoon diner where I get ham and eggs. The coffee is terrible so I'll drink a little to help stave off the headache but I'll hold out for the free hotel coffee which is better.

8:32 am

Sitting in the hotel lobby drinking my free coffee which is so much better than the diner shit. I had 2 sips of that and said no thanks. Luckily it was the fastest food I've ever been served short of a canned food place. I've only been awake for 44 minutes so that gives you an idea.

People watching here in the lobby. There's a chubby older guy with 3 attractive blondes, one of them drop dead gorgeous, all of them as tall as me. Curious what they're in Chicago to sell. The divide between business travelers and tourists is interesting. Not a lot of people splitting the difference in attire, like I am. I'm neither wearing a party shirt nor a suit. I do, however, have to crap soon.

Someone mentioned last night that some people are going out again tonight for a farewell gathering for someone I don't know. Of course at the time I was like, "Hell yeah, sure!" But I can't do this again tonight and tomorrow night. I feel like I got a little lucky with the way the night played out that I don't have a pounding headache. I still have to take a shower so that could always change.

9:16 am

Let's roll to work. All cleaned and caffeined up. Still a bit woozy but I'll take it considering.

11:18 am

Got some more group exposure today which is good. Should be able to make myself more useful going forward but I think there's still a lot of room for me to create stuff to do on my own accord. That's good, as a nice balance of load and freedom makes for the best work environment.

I think I need some fruit.

2:33 pm

The week is basically halfway over at this point. Went out for a chicken sandwich for lunch. Running a bit high on the intake side today so if we go out tonight I may blow a gasket and start to have to unbutton my pants. It's a beautiful day out and we sat outside for lunch as I looked repeatedly at the Sears Tower. I really need to go up in that puppy before I leave. Maybe after work today.

5:57 pm

Ok, time to roll out of the office. Going to do some real meandering tonight. In less than 15 minutes I'm standing in a huge line to buy tickets. Man this is a tourist meat market. At the same time it allows me some time to blather away about my day and trip. This afternoon was more of the same in terms of information discovery and it was productive. I think a 5 day trip is too long but I'll do my best to hang in tomorrow and absorb as much as I can.

Now I have 4 hours to burn and I suspect this will be at least an hour when all is said and done. It's a nice clear day out so I should be able to see my house. Or at least Lake Michigan. I feel like a loser here by myself. Everyone else is in groups of 2 or more. I'm the only solo guy. After you buy the ticket they make you wait in another room. Then they make you sit and watch some Over Chicago movie, which is just a History Channel video. What is all this shit? I just want to go up and look out over the city. Why must they torture me?

7:08 pm

Back on the street and looking for a place to eat dinner. The tower was cool once you get up there but man they really milk out the process. After 10 minutes I was good to go. It was a good perspective and really shows how much there is to Chicago. I'll definitely have to plan out my next trip better.

I ended up looking for a Japanese place but came up empty so I went back to the hotel restaurant. I got a beer, a scallop appetizer, walleye entre, and a side of beets. This place is top notch so the food is excellent. And remember, I'm not paying!

Boy this beer tastes good, too good. I'm probably going to have to get another. After 3 bites of bread, 3 scallops, and a beer I'm almost full. That doesn't mean I'm not going to eat the fish, mind you. And the beets.

I ate the fish, and some of the beets, but not all of the "stuff" that comes with it. It was pretty good but maybe a little confused, trying a bit too hard. A for effort, B for execution. I'm certainly full now.

8:28 pm

Back in the hotel room and I'm full. With tip, dinner came to something like $69. That's a lot. Whatever, my dinner Monday was $4.19 and last night I skipped dinner in lieu of beer. So it all evens out. I wanted a nice meal and I got it. Back to beer tomorrow night.

I'm considering whether or not I should go back out for a walk or not. I took my pants off and turned the TV on. I figure either this will be really comfortable or I'll get bored and go out.

Laid around for 10 minutes then got up to go out and Nat called. By the time I was done talking it was 9:00 and I had lost some mojo. After 15 minutes I finally get up and go.

10:05 pm

Back at the hotel after a 45 minute walk. I'm glad I went out because it's a gorgeous night and a load of people were out at Millennium Park. I'm starting to like this town more and more.

And I found The Bean.

Chicago Travel 2

7:13 am

I think I mentioned that I'm keeping EST while I'm out here so I'm awake at 5:30 their time and out the door in less than a half hour so the city is slow right now. I'm sitting in the lobby drinking a cup of coffee. In a few minutes I may take a walk to the lake because I have nearly 3 hours to kill before anyone gets into the office. Hoping today will be a productive day.

The hotel is nice but old. I'm indifferent as the stuff I care about is good. The A/C works, the TV is new, the water pressure is great, and the bed is crazy comfortable. I slept extremely well last night. The one thing I do hope to get out of this trip is 4 solid nights of sleep. So far so good.

8:15 am

Sitting in the hotel restaurant now after a little walk to the lake. Lake...um, I don't know? Michigan? Superior? Shit I used to be good at geography. It's water is all I know. I also found a bike rental place and the path along the lake is like 9 miles. So I'm thinking now but I need to see what time they open. They claim 6:30 but by 7:00 their time it was still closed. Apparently they're open late Wednesday so another option there. Dan also has a bike which he offered a few weeks ago so I'm rethinking my non-bike week because I'd like to shlep along the lake and check it out.

I feel like a loser all by myself eating breakfast. I guess this is the life of the business traveller. Another cup of coffee, water, egg white omlette, fresh fruit, and wheat toast. I'm finding that this world is based on cheap carbs. Here's another food observation. Almost everything has cheese in it. When the meal comes it's enough for 3 people. The parmesan roasted potatoes are crazy good.

11:44 am

Spent most of the last 2 hours with Bozhao who is a bit of the star of the team out here. She's overworked and really excited that I'm going to be picking up some of her work. I'm excited too because it means I'll be able to start really integrating myself into the team more and more. Without question I'm on an island out in Brooklyn most of the time. Things are just different there. Everywhere is different but these are both my work environments so I notice it.

So the morning still has some legs left and I'm already getting mentally taxed. Need a little down time before the next sit down with another coworker.

6:17 pm

Taxing day is over. Let's go drink some beer. Lunch was chicken on salad. More learning with Bozhao. Very productive but mentally taxing. Did I suggest we drink some beer?

12:31 am

Been out drinking. My boss expensed the night. Horay business expense! Send in the clowns.

Chicago Travel 1

I am not a business traveller. I'm not "good" at this. As they say.

It is 7:12 am. I am in Newark International Airport and my flight leaves at 9:00. I was here at 7:02, have checked in online, and am so early I could have actually taken the 7:35 to Chicago. Next time I know. They've made this so easy that it's really a bang-bang operation. I have yet to go through security.

This is the first of my 5 part Chicago Travelling series on the week. I'm going out because my boss and his boss are in Chicago. I still have a lot to learn. Hopefully this will be a productive trip for that. I am drinking a cup of coffee.

NOTE. I'm going to post this all from my Blackberry. So there will be no HTML markup, no bold, italics, or lists. And it won't be spell checked. I'm also going to mark new sections within each day with a time as opposed to trying to make it flow continuously.

7:44 am

I am through security and I have to crap, big time. I rode a lot of bike this weekend and plenty, so my body tends to go into chipmunk mode and store as much "stuff" as it can. Now I'm "releasing" it. We board in 45 minutes. They make you take out your laptop but no longer make you turn it on. Nothing much happens for the next 45 minutes other than my buying a skim milk.

8:25 am

They call my name! Oh shit this can't be good can it? Turns out my seat is something they call "in-op" which I assume means inoperable. There's no seat back. They move me to a window seat instead, same aisle. 15 seconds and I have a new boarding pass.

11:48 am

In the cab. An uneventful flight which is good. The landing was about the best I've ever experienced. I got a free coffee and not much else to report. We landed on time. This cab is blisteringly hot until he turns on the A/C when we get on the interstate. It takes us about 25 minutes

2:18 pm

Back from lunch. Went to some place in the basement of the Sears tower. I got a colossal amount of lemon chicken which was good. I left the pasta and bread almost entirely uneaten because I'm all about the protein these days. No empty carbs.

6:54 pm

Eating dinner at a Potbelly Sandwich Works shop. The rest of the day was moderately useful but nothing to fly out to Chicago for. But we're ramping up on what we need to do over the next 3 days. That's the meat of the trip and I'm optimistic it will have been worth coming out here for. First thing tomorrow morning I'm working with one of the girls on a build process she takes care of. Then we have a few other obvious things to take care of as well. After dinner I cross the street and buy a gallon of water at Walgreens.

7:21 pm

I get on the phone and talk mostly to Julia for 20 minutes telling her a story I tell her every night at bedtime. She constantly says "more" when I pause. It's a feedback loop though so I know she's listening because she answers at the right times. Good stuff.

7:55 pm

I check out the fitness room and there's no exercise bike so looks like I'll be 5 straight days off the bike which is no big deal. I may hit the stair climber Thursday just to keep my legs honest.

I then go down to the bar and get a Stone Mill Pale Ale. It's not really that good. I think 1 will be enough for me. Despite the large amount of chicken for lunch I haven't had a lot of food today. So this goes straight to my head. I guess I could have timed it better as I could see myself going up and going to bed but it's a hair early.

Having a buzz softens the edges of being nowhere. This town reminds me of Pittsburgh in some ways.

8:35 pm

Back in the hotel room with a nice low-grade buzz. I'm thinking I might need to go back to Walgreens and get a can of tuna for later. I'm a bit obsessed with the protein thing, I admit. I really want to get as close to 180 as I can in the next month before the Dark Horse 40. I saw 189 again this weekend for the first time since the day after I got back from Taiwan. Is my narrative drifting? What the hell does this have to do with Chicago?

That's enough for now. Going to zone out and watch TV and go to bed early tonight.