Chicago

Nic went to Chicago for work May 17th-19th. Since I have never been to Chicago and didn't get to tag along on this trip, I decided to force let Nic write this entry. :)

Crystal is currently holding my wrists, forcing my fingers on to the keyboard…. Not really, but a pretty dramatic opening to my first ever blog post. I anticipate the fact I am blogging will create widespread fan fare throughout the online social world. This success will not come without cost. I will undoubtedly face much criticism from any of my friends reading this. Most of this will center around questioning of my manhood.

Before moving on to Chicago, I would like to praise Crystal. She has done a really good job with this blog. It is really cool to be able to look back at all the events in our lives over the last year or so. I think it will be even more enjoyable to look back on in the coming years. I know she puts a lot of time and effort in to this, and I definitely appreciate it. It also makes me realize how lucky we are, and how many great things we get to see and do.

I did go to Chicago for a couple of days in May for work. I attended a trade show with two other guys from Mailer’s Haven. We left on the 6:45am flight from LAX on the 17^th. Had a direct flight through to Chi Town. We went directly to the convention center to set up the boot. The convention center was at the end of Navy Pier, so we grabbed some food on the water. Then we went and checked in to the Double Tree hotel. We each had our own hotel room which was nice.

Later in the day I met up with Crystal’s friend Amy who splits her time between LA and Chicago. She is in a management position on the NBC show Judge Mathis. I went over to the studio to meet her and checked out some of the filming. It was pretty interesting, especially watching the idiots they get in there to take part in the cases. I ended up actually sitting in the audience for one of the cases. It was a black couple fighting over custody and child payments of their kids. Amy got a me a seat in the very front row and she made sure the camera man got me some air time. I was basically the only white person in the audience so I won’t be hard to miss. We will keep you posted on the date it airs. After we grabbed some food and drinks at a Mexican restaurant where she knew the owners.

We had the first day of the trade show on the 18^th. It was a new experience for me and got to meet some potential new clients. It was game two of the Eastern conference finals between the Bulls and Heat. The week prior I had been trying to tap into my basketball network to see if I had any connects to tickets. I had a few leads, but nothing actually came through. I ended up meeting Amy again after the trade show was done and we watched the game at a pub. It was a pretty cool atmosphere and all of the locals were really in to the game. The Heat ended up winning so that deflated things a little.

We worked until about 1pm on the 19^th, packed up the booth and headed to the airport. I had really wanted to eat some Chicago style pizza, so on the way I made sure we stopped and found some. We ended up eating at Giordano’s Pizza. It takes about 35 minutes for the pizza to cook, so I was getting a little nervous we were cutting it close to make the flight. It ended up working out ok, and the pizza was bomb. I even had enough to take 2 pieces home on the plane. When I got home at about 11:00pm PST Crystal and I ate them.

It was a short, but busy trip. Sorry I didn’t elaborate more on the work side of things, but that part of the trip was not very exciting.

I definitely want to go back and visit with Crystal as she has never been there. It is a cool city.

Well there is my first blog entry. I kind of feel like a kid in 2^nd grade. You know when you had to go to school on Monday and write about what you did over the weekend…

Until Crystal forces me to do this again.

Yours Truly,

Nic.