The Windy City

I'm hee-eerree!! In the windy city of Chi-town.

This morning was a blur. I slept on my puddle-jumper to Cincinnati, then I slept in the airport during my two-hour layover, and then I slept on the 50-minute flight to Chicago. Apparently I've forgotten all about the months nursing Noah when I survived on just a few hours of sleep strung together here and there; today's 4-a.m. wakeup call just about did me in!

Once I finally arrived, I grabbed a shuttle to my hotel—the Hyatt Regency—and checked into my swanky, modern 250-square foot room for the next few nights. Since the UNITY conference promises thousands of journalists (and hundreds of thousands of room nights), they've negotiated some pretty low rates for these upscale hotels. My room is just $200 a night—a bargain for downtown Chicago in the height of tourist season!



I like that my bed is in the center of the room. It sort of calls out, "Hey, I know you just want to curl up and go to bed right now!" The bed is right. I would LOVE to be sleeping, or at least vegetating.

Instead, I'm at the desk behind the bed, working and blogging the night away.



Once I'm done, I plan to crawl into that big, fluffy bed with the half-dozen pillows and lose some brain cells watching the 40-something-inch flat-panel TV on the wall. All the comforts of home are right here!



The view's not bad either. That's Lake Michigan and (WAY back) Navy Pier in the distance.



Right now, the water's all shimmery and still. Very nice.

My boss Debra and I worked (sort of) hard today setting up our tiny, 10-foot booth today at the enormous exhibit hall in McCormick Place, Chicago's answer to a convention center. You have to understand that all the huge and small media companies are here. Our booth is across from Fox news, down the row from NBC & CBS, and not too far from Oprah's area. Uh-huh. Big.

Regardless, we're proud of our tiny company's setup. I just had three banners printed as decorations for our booth, and they turned out great. Take a look:



After setup, Debra took me on a tour through her old stomping grounds. One of her many degrees is a bachelors in journalism from Northwestern University (one of the most prestigious j-schools in the country). So we wandered out to Evanston to see the sights and stuff our bellies with an Italian dinner. It's an easy-on-the-eyes sort of drive; most of it followed the coast of Lake Michigan.

If it weren't for the darn sub-zero weather and mountains of snow from December to March, I'm thinking Chicago would be an ideal city to live in... if you're into that sort of thing.

At any rate, tomorrow's an early day. We're heading to the exhibit hall by 7:30 AM. I'll be on my feet and smiling brightly at passers-by from 8 to 5. For my sake, let's hope I get to talk to a few potential members so I'm not so lonely all day long.

Until tomorrow...