Gotta come back to Chicago!

Day 2 of Neocon and I'm hearing that there are not as many people as previous years. Really? Seemed like a lot to me and the traffic is terrible. People are always talking about LA traffic, but I've never been in anything as bad as Chicago. To and from the airport, slow crawl all the way taking an hour. Plus taxis here don't seem to believe in air conditioning and it's hot and humid here. In the city, people honking and driving between lanes, completely crazy.

Again today, great food. I went with Becky and Sandra to Frontera, which is Rick Bayless' casual dining restaurant. He has a ton of cookbooks and apparently is on PBS occasionally. The food was again marvelous. I had a mango cooler and we all decided on the special of the day, pork in corn massa wrapped in banana leaf (so like a tamale but different). The sauce was a red sauce and was really delicious. We had ice cream with two sauces, but the knockout was the goat cheese, which was caramel coloured and had the most amazing balance of spices, it was like tasting fireworks. We also had flan which was very creamy but after that sauce, they kind of paled.

Dinner was at Japonais again. This time cocktails by the river with yummy spring rolls and sushi rolls. Dinner was shared plates, 2 different kinds of special sushi, 3 different kinds of rolls, plus a chicken, beef and tuna entree. I was so full by the time entrees hit that I could only taste the beef and skipped the other two. My favourite dessert was the 'Coffee and donuts', which were beignets with chocolate inside with green tea ice cream. After dinner, we hit the Mohawk party. Wow, what a bash. Huge crowd with an absolutely amazing live band that totally rocked the house.

Unfortunately the trip must end, however Chicago has impressed me a lot. I barely scratched the surface of the great architecture here (FLW, Mies' Farnsworth, all the Louis Sullivan). We ate a lot of great food, but there is much more where that came from. Plus there's the Field Museum, Art Institute, and more!! This city deserves a longer stay, for sure. One interesting observation about the city, the people are very warm and down to earth, but the population here is very black and white. Most of the Asians I saw were at the Mart (there was a large foreign contingent here for the show). Becky's colleague also noticed the dearth of Latinos (she is one herself).

I found Neocon itself to be totally exhausting but I came away realizing that what you get here that it's not possible to get at home is the ability to put all of the various manufacturers in context with each other. I really got a sense for what they all think is the future of their industries and hence of how they think our workplaces will look in the not too distant future. Whether or not they are right only time will tell, but there were clear patterns here and I really enjoyed getting that perspective. I also enjoyed meeting various people from the manufacturers who are not located in LA.