Well it seems like this is going to be another one of those years of travel for me. Three weeks ago I was in Las Vegas for the AICPA TECH+ Conference, a national IT conference for CPAs. This is my second year on the steering committee for that conference and it has been a fun conference to work on because we are really able to help drive the direction of IT in the CPA profession. Needless to say, that also makes the conference a very busy three days for me, especially since this year I was coordinating five session and speaking for two of them. One of the great things about this conference is also that it's at Bellagio, so a great location with a huge bathtub that I can submerge my entire self in...and I did several times on that trip.
After the conference ended, I flew over to the Bay Area to attend a Microsoft partner training at the Microsoft Mountain View office (about a 45 minute drive from San Fran, heading toward San Jose). The training was a good one and I was able to meet some of the Microsoft resource people that help support Hawaii. The training was over by lunch, and then I stayed in San Fran for the rest of the weekend for some much needed R&R.
Then I was home for almost two weeks (12.5 days to be exact), and now I'm here in Chicago getting ready to attend the inaugural AICPA Leadership Academy. I was one of 28 "young" (<35 years old) CPAs chosen from 130+ applicants throughout the nation to attend this prestigious leadership training, that AICPA Chairman Ernie Almonte says will fundamentally change our lives. I had originally though it was going to be a kind of indoctrination into AICPA propaganda and identity (which is not necessarily a bad thing to me), but now that I've talked to Ernie and read the agenda, I can see that we are in a really powerful, paradigm-changing three days.
However, that doesn't begin until Tuesday. Last night (Saturday), I caught the red eye out of Honolulu to Phoenix, and from there jumped up to Chicago. This was my first time flying US Airways and I must say it was quite different from flying American Airlines or United Airlines (my two usual carriers). And having flown Hawaiian Airlines to Vegas, it was way different. I have to say that Hawaiian Airlines actually does a really good job on their flights. I was never really a fan of theirs before (due to some allegations of unfair business dealings by some of my travel industry friends), but I really have to say that I enjoyed the Hawaiian flight and would definitely considering flying them more. Their aircraft was clean, they had pillows and blankets, and they served food!
Anyway back to US Airways, the aircraft was clean but old. Their flight attendants weren't very welcoming and they didn't offer to help you find your seat, they didn't even greet you as you boarded the plane. However, they were nice during the drink service and the cups that they used to serve the drinks were twice the size of the cocktail cups that the other air lines used. No pillows or blankets, but you could purchase a set that included pillow, blanket, eye mask, and ear plugs for $7, which I thought was pretty reasonable. Overall the flights were pretty uneventful, except that for both landings we had some rocky turbulence.
Since I was arriving early, I decided to look for a hotel for tonight different from the Leadership Academy hotel and found an Aloft that was near O'Hare airport for a great deal. I stayed at the Aloft in Phoenix this past April, so I was curious to see if they were all the same--and YES they are, almost exactly. The lobby, hallways, and rooms look like almost exact replicas.
They gave me a handicap accessible room for the night since they had a bunch of very late checkouts and none of the regular rooms were available. The room was pretty much the same as the Phoenix except for the shower, which was just a big open space. From an accessibility standpoint, I could see how this would be really helpful to just have soooo much room to maneuver in, the only flaw I saw is that they didn't have a bench or anything to sit on, so I'm not sure if they expect a wheelchair bound person to take a shower in their own wheelchair. (I'm sure they must bring you something if you call them, but there wasn't any instructions or information provided to indicate so.)Side Note: More Aloft O'Hare pictures in my Picasa Web Album.
Well traveling all day made me really hungry, so I decided to find some dinner. Searching on yelp.com, the first suggestion was HB Home Bistro), I read the reviews and it sounded really good, so I jumped on the subway and headed into the city. I didn't realize how far outside of the city I was...it took me about 45 min to get to the loop (the center of the transit system where all the trains go into a "loop" and you can transfer to various lines). Then it took another 20 minutes to get to the stop. Then it was about a 10 minute walk to Home Bistro.
A couple of the posts on yelp.com indicated that it may be hard to get a table and when I walked in, I could see why. It was a very small space, myabe 15 tables. Luckily my timing was good and I only had to wait 10 minutes for a table. And lucky me, also got a table facing the street, so I was able to watch all the people walking by in between courses. I love people watching, especially in cities that I'm relatively new to.
Home Bistro has a great menu, there were so many things that I wanted to try. I decided to start with the Oven Roasted Red Beets salad. The salad looked good, a combination of mixed greens, thinly sliced beets, and crumbled feta, complimented with some mandarin oranges and candied walnuts (the menu said pecans, but it really tasted like walnuts to me). The sesame truffle vinaigrette was nicely balanced and the rich beet taste was evident throughout the salad. The feta chunks were a little big for me (and I like feta!), they overwhelmed the salad when I ate them with the other ingredients, so I ended up breaking them d own smaller myself. The mandarin oranges added a nice sweetness, but there were only a few wedges, and the candies walnuts were stale. My pickiness aside, the salad was very good, in fact, I'd actually say that it was one of the better beet salads that I've had since everything was so well balanced and the wonder taste of beets was definitely dominant.
For my entree, I decided on the Compart Family Farms Loin of Pork. This was served over a bed of braised collard greens over scalloped potatoes, and topped with sauteed apples. The pork had a nice taste, but was over-salted and slightly over-cooked so a bit dry. The scalloped potatoes were also over-salted, almost to where I couldn't eat it, but I could tell that some of that came from the cheese that was used (I couldn't tell what kind of cheese it was). The collard greens could have been a little softer, but had a good taste, not too bitter and flavorful of the sausage they were cooked with. The favors were all very intense so even though it was over-salted I still enjoyed the meal--I just had to drink two glasses of water to get through it. =)
The taste of the potatoes actually lingered in my mouth so much, I ended up eating some of their herbed foccacia to cleanse my palate. It was served with a garlic balsamic vinegar that also had some herbs in it. The balsamic was actually REALLY good. The foccacia was cold and a little hard (I think on purpose) so I didn't really care for it, but I kept eating it because the balsamic was so yummy.
They actually had two desserts that sounded really yummy, a strawberry tart and a butterscotch chocolate tart (I think that's what he said), but I was so full from the salad and pork that I decided to pass on dessert and go walk around a bit instead.
Well that was the highlights from today. I actually do have pictures of the food this time, so I'll eventually get those posted as well. I hope everyone had a safe 4th of July! More stories to come...
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