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week's-end and weekend update
Mar. 30th, 2015 05:57 pmI drove down to Chicago on Wednesday night. A coworker and I did some software training all day Thursday and Friday. It was for Creo, my 3d modeling software. It was cold! It was barely above freezing on Thursday, and not at all on Friday. There was snow Thursday night, and some on the ground in the morning. Snow in March is not a big deal, but I didn't expect it to be that cold, and didn't bring winter gear. Fortunately, we only had about three blocks to walk (four times a day, including lunchtime).
Training was interesting. It was three of us in the class. The other guy was someone who is basically camped out there, taking whatever training is offered at any given time. And behind the learning curve, so he was secondary to our training. The instructor was super knowledgeable if a little unconventional, which was good. We got done with the actual subject before lunch on Friday, so he spent the rest of the day showing us other things. I think I learned more useful tricks then.
Our class was in the Restaurant District of the West Loop. On the west side of the freeway, across from the Loop. I saw nearly three dozen restaurants in about three short city blocks. There were probably more on other close-by side streets. We were on a side street, and I could see six across the street and six on the main street, and there were five or six on our side of the street. Some of them belonged to famous names, like Iron Chef winners. Most were fancy, some were uber-fancy. We had dinner at Green Street Smoked Meats. That's a hipster place. All the employees had black t-shirts, beards and/or tattoos. It's in an industrial place, all peeling black-paint brick. Picnic tables, bar in the middle, order at the meat counter. I recommend it. Lunch was at the brand-new Whole Foods one day, and at a hole-in-the-wall Turkish place the next. Had no trouble with Friday afternoon traffic, and got home at 7:00.
Saturday morning Cindy and I drove out to Camp Douglas to visit relatives. Everett and Thelma. They're getting up there. They've been over this way a couple of times in the past, but I don't think they're good for a trip that long. It was about two and a half hours (at my speed). That made for a long day. We got home around... 6:00? Decided to go out to eat. Anyway, it was nice to visit with Everett and Thelma. Cindy made recordings for her family stories project, so it was cool to hear about their lives. Mostly Everett's.
Sunday was a work-around-the-house sort of day. Cleaned in the basement a bit.
Training was interesting. It was three of us in the class. The other guy was someone who is basically camped out there, taking whatever training is offered at any given time. And behind the learning curve, so he was secondary to our training. The instructor was super knowledgeable if a little unconventional, which was good. We got done with the actual subject before lunch on Friday, so he spent the rest of the day showing us other things. I think I learned more useful tricks then.
Our class was in the Restaurant District of the West Loop. On the west side of the freeway, across from the Loop. I saw nearly three dozen restaurants in about three short city blocks. There were probably more on other close-by side streets. We were on a side street, and I could see six across the street and six on the main street, and there were five or six on our side of the street. Some of them belonged to famous names, like Iron Chef winners. Most were fancy, some were uber-fancy. We had dinner at Green Street Smoked Meats. That's a hipster place. All the employees had black t-shirts, beards and/or tattoos. It's in an industrial place, all peeling black-paint brick. Picnic tables, bar in the middle, order at the meat counter. I recommend it. Lunch was at the brand-new Whole Foods one day, and at a hole-in-the-wall Turkish place the next. Had no trouble with Friday afternoon traffic, and got home at 7:00.
Saturday morning Cindy and I drove out to Camp Douglas to visit relatives. Everett and Thelma. They're getting up there. They've been over this way a couple of times in the past, but I don't think they're good for a trip that long. It was about two and a half hours (at my speed). That made for a long day. We got home around... 6:00? Decided to go out to eat. Anyway, it was nice to visit with Everett and Thelma. Cindy made recordings for her family stories project, so it was cool to hear about their lives. Mostly Everett's.
Sunday was a work-around-the-house sort of day. Cleaned in the basement a bit.
