windy city (Day 2)

So today was my second day in the windy city. I love chicago. It's such a distinctly better city than New York. A native described it as a large city made up of a lot of small neighborhoods, which is definately the feel that you get when on the north side of the city. The south side might be a completely different story.

Didn't get a whole lot accomplished off the whole to do list today. I did finish preparing my presentation for the conference, so I was a good boy. (Yay me!) After that, I went down to Michigan Avenue for lunch and a little shopping. God, I love the apple store. It's such a great place... from the see through stairs to the bean bag chairs to lecture hall... it is definately a place I could spend a lot of time. (I got out with minimal damage to the ole pocket book... just picked up a couple of kid proofing items to better protect my expensive toys from my lovely but non-price discerning daugther.) I imagine I will go again tomorrow. From there I walked down Michigan Avenue, across the river (see photo) to Monroe Avenue so that I could head over to the conference, which is at the Palmer House Hilton. So you are thinking, hey went to your conference, that's one thing you can scratch of your list right? No. I didn' get there until after 5 and I just snuck in to meet my coauthor and my buddy so we could go get drinks. Found a little dive in the basement of a pizza parlor which had pints for 2 dollars. Good thing to, because they tasted more like water than beer.

I am including another shot off the river... if you look on the left hand edge you can make out the corn cob buildings that are on the cover of wilco's "yankee hotel foxtrot" album.

tomorrow we have pretty solid plans to head to the art museum...