I know its been a few days since I last posted but with that wait you’ll get a much better than usual post. Jeff and I went to Chicago (actually Rosemont) for a metal roofing trade show. We sell a fair amount of sheet metal hand tools and this show fits specifically in the industry. Taking a booth at a show like this proves to be expensive so attending is a cheaper option with similar results. Here is a picture of the show. You can click on the pictures for better views.

We took a class on soldering which is the process of joining two pieces of sheet metal. We also met some of our vendors, potential vendors, competitors, and customers. These shows are sometimes difficult to know how much value you really get from them but they are necessary because you have to not only think out of the box but get out of the box. Ideas are really flowing at these types of shows and we come away with a much better perspective of the industry.

I booked a late flight on Thursday which gave us a chance to take a 45 minute train from Rosemont into the heart of Chicago to do some sightseeing. The train was $2.25 to the city which was a great relief considering we were paying 10 dollars to take a taxi from our hotel to the convention center for 1.5 miles. We visited Navy Pier first and had lunch at Harry Carey’s which is a pretty popular restaurant in Chicago. I snapped this picture of Ari’s suit from Entourage. They have so much memorabilia is unreal.

After lunch we walked over to the area where Soldier Field is. In that same spot they have a museum, aquarium, and planetarium. We only had 2 hours and decided to check out the planetarium. For a mere 20 bucks we got to see a really great perspective of how tiny the Earth is and how insignificant we are. Also the funniest part of the trip happened when the teacher leading the planetarium asked people what a certain constellation was and some random (super stoned) guy came up with the answer “StickMan”, which you can decide for yourself whether it was a good answer or not (picture below). We then walked back to the L and got to the airport with plenty of time. I was running the time management and gave us buffers all over the place and we literally ran into no problems whatsoever which should be a thumbs up for Chicago.

It was a really fun trip and today was super busy going over the last few days. I’ve been partaking in Ck4’s favorite pastime of “processing orders”. I’m hoping this is the start to really taking our business to the next level and things really seem to be heading in a positive direction. Hope this post was better than most.