Final trip report
Nov. 8th, 2002 08:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
yendiWell, the good news is, the intestinal stuff has passed (um, not meant as a gross joke). I've still got a major cold, but that's a lot easier to deal with.
The presentation went exactly as expected, with Alan and I meeting to go over it yesterday morning at breakfast, and basically practicing it only once before presenting it. Amazingly enough, in spite of the fact that we were speaking at lunchtime, and that FirstClass was almost unrepresented at the conference, we actually had a nearly-full room. And the presentation went well, even though, as Carole and I had predicted, Alan spoke way longer than planned on during his parts. So instead of finishing with fifteen minutes for questions, we finished with five. But it went over well. People were happy. I could take off the painful black dress shoes and switch to sneakers. All was well.
Rest of the day was pretty mindless, with us really just hanging around because we had a 5:15 meeting with the Centrinity folks about some of the serious service issues we've been having. With hours to go, I hit a bookstore in the Pier which actually had a better graphic novel selection than some comics stores I've seen. I resisted buying anything from there, but I did purchase a book on Illinois for Elayna.
We then hit Bubba Gump's for a piece of Key Lime Pie, and had our meeting, which was much less contentious, apparently, than the one I'd missed the day before. We're making progress, at least.
Afterwards, I still hadn't heard from![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
rollick, so I assumed she was still sick. Turns out the hotel was conspiring against us. When Trish and I went to make sure that room incidentals got charged to the purchasing card (instead of our debit card), we were told that I'd checked out that morning. Even though my key still worked and all my stuff was there. They have no idea what happened or how it happened. They fixed it, of course, but that also meant that when rollick called, she was told I wasn't there. :-( Since Anne was out of town, and I never got ahold of Jenny, that meant that I saw exactly none of my Chicago peeps this trip. However, as I've mentioned, I like this city. A lot. So I damned well intend to be back here.
I did, incidentally, pick up a copy of the Onion, to see if she'd had any articles this week (and because it's been a while since I've had a physical copy of the Onion). I found it interesting that the only two reviews I found by her were of Spirited Away and Jackass: The Movie. Greater cinematic polar opposites have never been dreamed of.
Not having any other plans, I went along with Alan, Carole, and Trish for dinner. Alan decided to treat us to dinner at Smith and Wolensky's. I haven't eaten a steak in a while, and a steak lot that in ages! Damn, it was good! And too much, even with Alan and me at the table. After our appetizers (I had 1/2 a dozen oysters, Alan had 1/2 dozen clams, and the ladies split a spinach salad), we got two porterhouses for the table that were perfect (and medium rare, of course -- if I'm going to eat steak, I'm going to do it right!), along with pureed butternut squash with nutmeg and cinnamon that was to die for. Also had damned good hash browns and creamed spinach. Even though we were all stuffed and bloated, the dessert tray was just too tempting, so we got a pumpkin creme caramel for the table. It was just as good as it sounds.
Um, diet? What diet? All of us vowed to eat lettuce for a week after we got home.
Anyway, check-out is this morning, followed by the remaining conference, lunch, and our flight back this afternoon. By this time tomorrow, I may be back to a fast connection and reading email and LJ regularly again! Woohoo!
Now if only I could kick this cold.
The presentation went exactly as expected, with Alan and I meeting to go over it yesterday morning at breakfast, and basically practicing it only once before presenting it. Amazingly enough, in spite of the fact that we were speaking at lunchtime, and that FirstClass was almost unrepresented at the conference, we actually had a nearly-full room. And the presentation went well, even though, as Carole and I had predicted, Alan spoke way longer than planned on during his parts. So instead of finishing with fifteen minutes for questions, we finished with five. But it went over well. People were happy. I could take off the painful black dress shoes and switch to sneakers. All was well.
Rest of the day was pretty mindless, with us really just hanging around because we had a 5:15 meeting with the Centrinity folks about some of the serious service issues we've been having. With hours to go, I hit a bookstore in the Pier which actually had a better graphic novel selection than some comics stores I've seen. I resisted buying anything from there, but I did purchase a book on Illinois for Elayna.
We then hit Bubba Gump's for a piece of Key Lime Pie, and had our meeting, which was much less contentious, apparently, than the one I'd missed the day before. We're making progress, at least.
Afterwards, I still hadn't heard from
rollick, so I assumed she was still sick. Turns out the hotel was conspiring against us. When Trish and I went to make sure that room incidentals got charged to the purchasing card (instead of our debit card), we were told that I'd checked out that morning. Even though my key still worked and all my stuff was there. They have no idea what happened or how it happened. They fixed it, of course, but that also meant that when rollick called, she was told I wasn't there. :-( Since Anne was out of town, and I never got ahold of Jenny, that meant that I saw exactly none of my Chicago peeps this trip. However, as I've mentioned, I like this city. A lot. So I damned well intend to be back here.I did, incidentally, pick up a copy of the Onion, to see if she'd had any articles this week (and because it's been a while since I've had a physical copy of the Onion). I found it interesting that the only two reviews I found by her were of Spirited Away and Jackass: The Movie. Greater cinematic polar opposites have never been dreamed of.
Not having any other plans, I went along with Alan, Carole, and Trish for dinner. Alan decided to treat us to dinner at Smith and Wolensky's. I haven't eaten a steak in a while, and a steak lot that in ages! Damn, it was good! And too much, even with Alan and me at the table. After our appetizers (I had 1/2 a dozen oysters, Alan had 1/2 dozen clams, and the ladies split a spinach salad), we got two porterhouses for the table that were perfect (and medium rare, of course -- if I'm going to eat steak, I'm going to do it right!), along with pureed butternut squash with nutmeg and cinnamon that was to die for. Also had damned good hash browns and creamed spinach. Even though we were all stuffed and bloated, the dessert tray was just too tempting, so we got a pumpkin creme caramel for the table. It was just as good as it sounds.
Um, diet? What diet? All of us vowed to eat lettuce for a week after we got home.
Anyway, check-out is this morning, followed by the remaining conference, lunch, and our flight back this afternoon. By this time tomorrow, I may be back to a fast connection and reading email and LJ regularly again! Woohoo!
Now if only I could kick this cold.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2002-11-08 07:38 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2002-11-08 08:41 am (UTC)They were kind of rude about it, too. As though I was clearly insane to think it likely that you hadn't just decided to wander the streets of Chicago for 24 hours until your flight.
Mostly, I'm glad you're better. In the absence of any information, and given the fact that the last I'd heard, you'd been horribly sick, and given the fact that
In retrospect, I should have called back later in the evening and tried to talk to someone else; I did suspect that the woman I spoke to didn't know the whole story, but I did believe the hotel thought you'd checked out, since I initially got the automated voice-mail system, but instead of letting me leave a message, it bumped me back down to the operator.
Ah well. Have a safe flight back. *Apu voice* Thank you and come again!
Next time we'll both be healthy instead. How's that for a plan? And next time you should bring the family. The Children's Museum out on Navy Pier is supposedly amazing.