On the first week of March i went on a business trip to Chicago! It was for a promo marketing conference, with speakers talking about the latest and greatest in promotions, trends and an award show for the best promo ads in 2004. I went down with another coworker, who luckily has a client in the US and travels often and could direct me on the way there.

I don't fly often, so each time I always feel like an amateur or a non-flyer. I have no idea where I'm going or what steps i need to take to ensure it's a painless trip over the border. Perhaps it's becuase there's always someone there to do all the thinking that my brain shuts off :).

Anyhoo, the conference had some interesting things to say that i won't bother to write about. Here's what sums it up:

1) ALL ABOUT BIG PROMOS! BIG MONEY! HUGE BUZZ AND EXCITEMENT!
2) ALL ABOUT ONLINE/INTERACTIVE MARKETING!
3) ALL ABOUT EMBRACING AND JUMPING ON THE EMERGING 3RD GENERATION TECHNOLOGY (mobile wireless, multimedia etc.)

Good times. There were a few sleepers though, and man, it was tough to stay a float. It was intro to anthropology all over again! :).

It was actually quite tiring because I had to do some work while I was at the conference. I had my laptop and did work in between some of the speakers/breaks, as well as at night. Luckily, I did get a chance to head out to town and check out some of the shops, where I got my sister a really swanky white bag from a department store call “lord and taylor.” On one of the nights the president came down to hang out with us and we skipped one of the events to have a wicked dinner at this place called Japonais. We had a tapas style appetizer dinner, with incredible sushi, kobe beef and homemade crab cakes.

For those of you asking, yes, I went and tried to Kobe Beef! I’m not a beef eater, and in fact I haven’t had beef since I can remember. But I just had to for this one, b/c Japanese Kobe beef is allegedly the most decadent of all beefs, where the cows are treated like gold (massaged every day, fed top foods, etc). It wasn’t bad :), and definitely not worth $65! It was an experience to remember and I can say that I’ve had it now.

Afterwards, we hit this local blues bar called Kingson Mines. It was a great local venue that supports the blues scene, playing until 4AM each night! There are 2 stages so literally it’s non-stop music. The first band I saw was more of the funky g-love /james brown style, who were O.K. The sax player was great though, walking around and playing for the dancing couples (missing you SBF!). The second band was more traditional Colin James / upbeat wanking blues guitar solos / slide guitar bustin' style, ripping up a storm! It was great to lay back and relax, taking a break from all the business jargon and suits. I made it until about 1AM and had to go since I had to hit the conferce at 8:15AM the next day! Needless to say, the next morning’s workshops was mere pigments of my imagination now!

Overall the trip was great. Expensing everything made it better. It was good to get away from work (although not really) and spend some time in the US. I have some pictures but the rogers website that I usually host the pictures on has suddenly been deactivated and changed to a new yahoo/rogers server! So all my pictures are gone.. I have to set it all up again and cross reference them all on this blog.. yeah right I’m doing that! Bah.

Take care,

RE

“eat drink and be merry