Chi-Town ... Again

So here I am in the windy city once again.  Life/work has been absolutely insane, so insane I missed a complete trip last week.  I went to Orlando Monday of last week for a one hour meeting Tuesday.  Tuesday night I got home around midnight.  Gee what a fun one, nothing to report ... other than I saw the inside of hotel and an airport and that's about it! 

Back to now ... in Chicago for a hardware show and then some customer visits as well as another major customer meeting on Tuesday.  Yes you read correctly.  I'm here for a full week.  Honestly I miss Elizabeth.  We just Skyped (I got in too late last night, 1am) and boy do I miss her.  I feel as though she is changing day by day again.  Even tonight Ben told me that I will probably miss two more toofers coming in.  Sadness.  I knew the day would come when I would miss something.  Some big monument in her life.  But I don't think I'm prepared for it.  I know, I know she already has three teeth so it's not the 'first' but it is still her changing and I want to be there for that.

For now that I will need to concentrate on work.  I have three show days ahead, busy show days in a cramped booth.  Luckily I know the gal that I am sharing a booth with really well because we are tight, really tight!  We are getting to the point where we have FAR to much product to share booth space.  Oh well budgets are what they are.  Saturday will be fun because we are going to the conventions' evening event ... oh can anyone say Keith Urban!?!  Woohoo!  Or should it be yeehaw! 

Room service and club floor lounge tonight.  Status has its perks although I feel so guilty eating in the hotel in a city with some of the best food anywhere.  I think we'll hit up OySy tomorrow or maybe Shaw's ... we will see.  Check out the view from my room.  Beautiful don't you think?

go, Go, GO!

Gee whiz I am exhausted.  I just jumped on Skype with Lizzy and Ben and wow did it just hit me like a ton of bricks how much I miss my little girl.  I cannot wait to get home tomorrow evening.  Too bad my flight gets in around midnight.  Sucky. 

Luckily the days have gone by very quickly.  The show has been insane.  Insane in a good way and a bad way but insane is an appropriate word for it.  Overall lots of appointments and lots of impromptu meetings with great opportunity for 2011 and beyond.  That being said it is amazing how one crappy meeting can ruin an amazing day.  One step forward two steps back.  Crap.

On my way to dinner at some awesome restaurant I'm sure.  Friday night was Quartino (love this laid back, family style Italian restaurant).  Saturday night was an interesting dinner at Boka.  Although the appetizers of fresh oysters and hamachi was incredible, dinner was far too salty for me.  By the end of the night I was so congested I could hardly speak.  Not the best way to network.  Sunday evening we went to true traditional deep dish pizza and then Monday headed to ... I'm drawing a blank.  Suppose I'll need to fill in the blank later!  I'm on my way home ... chow!

Chi-Town

Well it's here. The biggest show of the year. I am writing to you from seat 1A on my way to Chicago. Make note of the time and then if this post does not make any legitimate sense you will know why.

Exhausted before we begin. I got about three hours of sleep last night and my incoming head coldis not helping a lick. But I am here. Along with a 50lb suitcase, a garment bag full of suits and a wig. Haha ... Sounds like a good time is about to be had! Pictures to follow, hopefully!

Lizzy, mommy misses you already but I love you and I'll be home soon. No more teeth and no crawling until I'm back okay? Continue to be the happy baby you are. I know daddy and you will have a blast!

Enough typing on the iPhone ... See you in the windy city!

Restaurants in Orlando ...

Just a few notes on restaurants ... Seito Sushi is amazing, Amora Sushi wasn't all that bad either ... Carraba's is a chain that I wish we had in Seattle (yes I know there is one in Mount Vernon, not close enough for dinner) and Flippers was just plain nasty.  Although you can't expect much when you order pizza 12am. 

At Seito get the Eelbow Roll, it is amazing.  As is the sashimi ... all big chunks of fresh fish.  It was amazing.  At Amora be sure to get the Blue Fin sashimi if it is available.  It too was some of the freshest fish I've had in a long time.

Now back to working on getting home!

Tired.

There is no other word to describe how you feel at the end of a trade show besides tired.  On your feet from 7am-6pm, dinners following the show, maybe an after dinner drink.  Tired.  It just sums it all up. I'm tired.  Very tired.

Add to the exhaustion dealing with literally hundreds of people who travel maybe once a year or five or ten.  Really people ... it has been over ten years and you still don't know you have to take your shoes off and you cannot have liquids over 3 ounces?  Where have you been?  Living under a rock I'm assuming.  Ben tells me I need more patience when I travel.  Problem is when you travel upwards of 80,000 miles a year patience runs thin.  It is generally helped by a priority security checkpoint or first class upgrades ... this trip I got one, not both. 

I really shouldn't complain as I'd prefer first class any day to priority security, especially when I leave enough time to make it through security.  But boy ... I just struggle with those people who don't read the ten signs while you wait in the security line that tell you to remove your liquids or your laptop.  Or the person shouting while you are waiting in line telling you to take off your jacket and shoes. 

But as I sit here and type this all I can think about is getting home to my baby girl.  I miss her terribly and it has been a long time since I've been gone this long.  I just want to hold her and love her!  Time to fight my way through, enjoy first class and get home to my baby girl!

Thanks for letting me rant.

M-I-C ... K-E-Y

How many of you ended with m-o-u-s-e?  Too bad I'm not going to DisneyWorld.  I am however on my way to sunny, warm Orlando!  Aren't you jealous?  I assure you if you were in Lynnwood this morning around 8am you would be.  I woke up to all sun.  (Do I mention here that my little princess is finally sleeping until 5:30am, woohoo!)  Two hours later I look outside and it is dumping, yes dumping, snow.  I left the house at 8:30am just to be sure I could make it to the airport.  Within fifteen minutes our entire lawn/drive was covered in snow.  They said it might snow ... hmmm I'd say they were a bit off.  I love living in a convergence zone.

That being said once I hit Seattle it was all sun again and I made it to the airport in plenty of time.  Whizzed through security thanks to the status that I have now attained and I am sitting at the gate with an hour to spare.  With as crazy as things are at work it will be nice to take an hour to catch up on a few things via email before I'm unreachable for about six hours. 

It is nice to be traveling again but also hard.  I had a two week break due to half our office heading to Ambiente (major trade show in Germany).  We like to keep one sales person in the office, this year it was me.  Okay generally it is me, but I'm anxious when my time comes to get to experience this trade show.  But now we are back at it.  We are literally less than two weeks away from our largest product launch in history.  No stress!  Although there is plenty to do I'm on my way to attend a hardware show and try and land some new business.  I'll be hanging out at the Orange County Convention Center tomorrow through Saturday, selling to LOTS of hardware store owners ... hopefully it is worth the dollars spent. 

I will miss my Lizster ... a lot.  She is changing week by week again.  Over the last four weeks we have gotten two front teeth, learned to roll over (and over and over), actually smile - gums/teeth and all, started eating meat, we began clapping and saying mamama!  Needless to say I'm a bit scared/sad to see what I'll miss this week or even next week.  Yup you read correctly, back-to-back, week long trips.  Orlando today through the weekend and Chicago next Thursday through Tuesday.  Oh the joys of sales and trade show season!

See you in the sun!

Raider Nation

Who reading this does not LOVE to visit Oakland!?!  Me.

So flying in here is so much easier than flying into SFO but it is Oakland.  As I'm sitting here catching up on some work before my next flight I just saw an inmate escorted off the plane by eight, count 'em eight, police officers.  Scary.  I firmly believe in the innocent until proven guilty theory but if you have eight cops waiting for you ... I'm going to assume you aren't the nicest of people.

Okay so back to the traveling last week.  I didn't write from the Twin Cities, my fingers couldn't type.  It was too cold.  I woke up Sunday to go to market and it was negative 12 degrees.  Brrr.  Okay, never mind it was damn cold.  But market went great and it was wonderful to meet five of our new reps in the Midwest region.  What topped off the entire weekend trip was dinner with my almost 91 year old grandma.  I have not seen her in over two years and I missed the 90 year bash last year due to being just about 36 weeks preggars.  We enjoyed a nice dinner, I cleaned/dusted/re-placed all her china, and I placed her roosters back on their ledge for show.  I know what an exciting evening.  But I can say I definitely made her week! 

Last week was definitely a whirlwind though.  I got home Monday and Lizzy came home sick from daycare.  She ended up staying out of daycare until Friday and by then Ben had left for a boys weekend in Whistler.  Must be nice!  So Miss Lizzy and I hung out and did a ton of shopping and cleaning this past weekend.  Such fun!

This is actually my last trip for a bit.  Half our office will head to Frankfurt next week for Ambiente (a international housewares/furniture/lighting trade show) and I try to stay in the office when he is traveling, especially out of the country.  My next trip is on the 22nd and I'll head to Orlando for about five days.  Should be warm (crossing my fingers) but extremely busy as it is for a hardware trade show.  We will see ... it is a new one, so hopefully we do some good business!