June 16, 2005
From Lincoln Park to Lincoln Park, part 1 of 2
Patrick and I went to Chicago last Friday through Tuesday for the How Conference. Well, I went for the conference, he went because it's no fun to travel alone and he got a free hotel room out of it.
Friday
Friday, we arrived at about 8:30 and decided to head out to a reccomended restaurant after checking in. We were already tired, but on the transit map it looked like this place was only a couple of blocks from the subway stop. Um... try about 10 blocks.
We arrived very hungry and tired at Enotica Room and proceded to order a flight of wine each (3 small taster glasses, usually themed), 2 bruschetta plates, and a salad. The salad and one plate would have been plenty of food...
The wine was very good, and I would give more of a review, but I was so tired, plus my stomach didn't like me eating at 10:30pm my time, so Patrick had to finish it. The salad was tasty, despite the fact that I accidentally ordered one with gorgonzola cheese.
What was really memorable was the bruschetta. Although some were only ok (mainly because tomatoes aren't in season yet) the unconventional ones were the standouts. Specifically - there was one with mascarpone, strawberries, and a balsamic glaze. So so good. We even reproduced it for dinner last night.
Needless to say, after walking that far, and with work paying for transportation, we took a cab back to the hotel.
Saturday
Saturday began with a fruitless search of the north Michigan Ave area for a good, non-chain breakfast/coffee place, ending up at a Panera clone called Corner Bakery. After that, we had enough time to wander around the loop area looking at the public art (saw the Picasso sculpture and the Chagall mural) before it was time for my networking lunch.
Since I hadn't had breakfast until about 10am, the networking lunch seemed awfully early. Last year, I had been afraid it would be like college orientation and it was actually really fun. Apparently, tho, that was because Pash was a great group leader. Not that the woman leading it was bad, but on their own, the activities just weren't that great.
Plus, in homage to it being the 15th anniversary conference, the soundtrack was the top 40 hits from 1990. Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't it have been better for a room full of creatives to play the top 40 'college' hits, since so many of us don't listen to mainstream pop?
After that I was off to a 3 hour workshop on hand lettering, which was really fun! We started with the differences between writing, lettering, and typography and ended up creating our own lettering samples. Plus, I ended up sitting with good people to talk to (hi Sasha, Brittany and Ron), ironically "networking" more than at the lunch...
I only had an hour and a half between that and the keynote speaker, so Patrick and I sat in Millenium park (beautiful, if a bit overrun with tourists) and caught up on our days. After the keynote address we walked down to Frontera Grill, where we supposedly didn't need reservations (go to the link for yourself - you'll see) only to find out that at 9pm there was a 2 hour wait for a table.
So we started walking and ended up at Gino's East, a legendary deep dish place I believe I have seen on Food Network, and a place that was already on our list. I am not a fan of deep dish pizza, but still I have to say it was really yummy. Especially the tomato sauce, which I wish there had been more of.
Sunday
Got up early for a session by Pash (mentioned above) on his new book Inspirability (unfortunately this was sold out at the bookstore when I went, but I plan to pick it up). The book is a series of interviews with 40 top designers on what inspired them, and the session had various video segments compiled plus of course the author commentary. I'm not translating it well here, but it wasw really good.
After that, I went to see Stefan Sagmeister talk about print production. Yes, I know I'm a web designer (tho I don't like compartmentalizing, but that's another story). But I wanted to hear him speak. He was a really good speaker, and I did actually learn useful things (in addition to learning that interns at his firm get some shitty projects). It was also really funny to watch people come up like he was a rock star to get their picture taken with him. Another bonus is that this is where I met one of the other few people in the sea of 3200+ that I talked to (hi Carrie).
I'm tired of typing... more later... |
Friday
Friday, we arrived at about 8:30 and decided to head out to a reccomended restaurant after checking in. We were already tired, but on the transit map it looked like this place was only a couple of blocks from the subway stop. Um... try about 10 blocks.
We arrived very hungry and tired at Enotica Room and proceded to order a flight of wine each (3 small taster glasses, usually themed), 2 bruschetta plates, and a salad. The salad and one plate would have been plenty of food...
The wine was very good, and I would give more of a review, but I was so tired, plus my stomach didn't like me eating at 10:30pm my time, so Patrick had to finish it. The salad was tasty, despite the fact that I accidentally ordered one with gorgonzola cheese.
What was really memorable was the bruschetta. Although some were only ok (mainly because tomatoes aren't in season yet) the unconventional ones were the standouts. Specifically - there was one with mascarpone, strawberries, and a balsamic glaze. So so good. We even reproduced it for dinner last night.
Needless to say, after walking that far, and with work paying for transportation, we took a cab back to the hotel.
Saturday
Saturday began with a fruitless search of the north Michigan Ave area for a good, non-chain breakfast/coffee place, ending up at a Panera clone called Corner Bakery. After that, we had enough time to wander around the loop area looking at the public art (saw the Picasso sculpture and the Chagall mural) before it was time for my networking lunch.
Since I hadn't had breakfast until about 10am, the networking lunch seemed awfully early. Last year, I had been afraid it would be like college orientation and it was actually really fun. Apparently, tho, that was because Pash was a great group leader. Not that the woman leading it was bad, but on their own, the activities just weren't that great.
Plus, in homage to it being the 15th anniversary conference, the soundtrack was the top 40 hits from 1990. Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't it have been better for a room full of creatives to play the top 40 'college' hits, since so many of us don't listen to mainstream pop?
After that I was off to a 3 hour workshop on hand lettering, which was really fun! We started with the differences between writing, lettering, and typography and ended up creating our own lettering samples. Plus, I ended up sitting with good people to talk to (hi Sasha, Brittany and Ron), ironically "networking" more than at the lunch...
I only had an hour and a half between that and the keynote speaker, so Patrick and I sat in Millenium park (beautiful, if a bit overrun with tourists) and caught up on our days. After the keynote address we walked down to Frontera Grill, where we supposedly didn't need reservations (go to the link for yourself - you'll see) only to find out that at 9pm there was a 2 hour wait for a table.
So we started walking and ended up at Gino's East, a legendary deep dish place I believe I have seen on Food Network, and a place that was already on our list. I am not a fan of deep dish pizza, but still I have to say it was really yummy. Especially the tomato sauce, which I wish there had been more of.
Sunday
Got up early for a session by Pash (mentioned above) on his new book Inspirability (unfortunately this was sold out at the bookstore when I went, but I plan to pick it up). The book is a series of interviews with 40 top designers on what inspired them, and the session had various video segments compiled plus of course the author commentary. I'm not translating it well here, but it wasw really good.
After that, I went to see Stefan Sagmeister talk about print production. Yes, I know I'm a web designer (tho I don't like compartmentalizing, but that's another story). But I wanted to hear him speak. He was a really good speaker, and I did actually learn useful things (in addition to learning that interns at his firm get some shitty projects). It was also really funny to watch people come up like he was a rock star to get their picture taken with him. Another bonus is that this is where I met one of the other few people in the sea of 3200+ that I talked to (hi Carrie).
I'm tired of typing... more later... |