Downloaded some new iTunes songs this morning. Listening to "The Diary of Jane" by Breaking Benjamin.

Chicago was fun, although the fun and glamor of travelling for work is definitely gone. I don't know how people do it because it really is very tiring, but it does have its perks. On Tuesday July 18, I went to the hotel gym and worked out for 30 minutes then sat in the jaccuzzi for 1/2 an hour.

Now listening to "The Kill" by 30 seconds to Mars

In morning, I went to the front desk to get a cab to take me to the conference at the Swissotel in downtown Chicago, and instead I get a car and a driver. Talking about living the high life. My driver was nice and gave me his mobile number in case I wanted to have dinner later that night. I thought that it was pretty funny that my driver guy was hitting on me.

I wasn't sure how people were going to dressed for this conference and was going to go very business casual, but at the last minute I decided to pack a couple of normal work outfits for me which is a silk skirt, shirt and sweater. Sure enough, I get to the conference and most of the guys are in suits and so are the women. I felt appropriately dressed and was glad.

There was a cocktail party after the first day and I indulged myself and had a couple of glasses of wine, and then the three women I ended up talking to invited me out for dinner and we took a cab to Navy Pier to have dinner and to see the fireworks show.

Navy Pier is right in downtown Chicago and was only built in the last five years. It's kind of like SF's Pier 39 but much more fun because they are more things to do. They had this huge ferris wheel which we all went on. For $5 you get on and go around once. The ferris wheel never stops so you have get and get off fairly quickly. It offers some amazing views of downtown Chicago which was very cool at night.

Now listening to "Beautiful Soul" by Jesse McCartney

From Navy Pier, you can take boat cruises. If I ever go back to Chicago again, I'd like to take an architectural boat tour of Chicago. It's weird because it looks like Chicago is on an ocean coast but it's on the shores of Lake Michigan. I never quite noticed that about Chicago before.

We at some restaurant called "Riva's" and then saw fireworks but it started to sprinkle so we cabbed back to the Swissotel. Those sprinkles were a bad sign but I didn't know it yet.

Thursday morning I'm watching the morning Chicago local news and it's storming and causing quite a traffic mess. The conference ended and I'm at O'Hare at 5:30 pm and the place is a zoo and a half. The thunderstorms closed down O'Hare for most of the day. Some girl told me they had only allowed three flights all day. My 8 pm flight back to SF was delayed and if I was thinking right, I should have realized that since the two fights in front of mine were delayed that my flight would be delayed as well, and that I should have tried to go standby on one of the earlier flights.

But I wasn't thinking and the monitor up until 7:30 pm said our flight was on time. What a joke! My flight didnt' take off from Chicago till 11:30 pm and we touched down in San Francisco at a little after 2 am.

Now listening to "Leave the Pieces" by The Wreckers. It's a country song and I only purchased it because I was perusing the iTunes top 100 list and playing every song and I liked this one instantly.

I had already decided to take a cab from the airport to home because my original flight was arriving at 10:30 pm and I didn't want to be stuck in Super Shuttle hell getting home. So at 3 am I was in bed and wondering what time should I get to work in the morning because it wasn't going to be early. I made it into the office by 11 am, and only went in because I had some analysis due that afternoon. Otherwise I think I would have just stayed home.

I was telling someone about my flight back from Chicago and they told me that if I arrived in SF at 2 am, with the time change, it whould have 4 am in Chicago, so I was basically up for almost 24 hours as I had gotten up at 5:30 earlier that morning.

So that was Chi-Town Trip. I was still in recovery all this week and my suitcase is still out waiting to be put away. I'm thinking it must get easier if you travel all the time because then you get into a routine. Travelling by plane somewhere almost feels like commuting if it weren't for the time change I think. I never used to think way and it's only lately that I've equated plane flights with commuting and thinking it's really not bad, except for waiting to get on a plane at the airport of course.

I am blogging from the Windy City - Chicago. I'm staying at a hotel right outside the airport and I can see the Chicago skyline from my hotel window. I was trying to stay in a hotel in downtown Chicago where my conference is being held, but every hotel in the downtwon area was booked.

I am exhausted as I am not a very good traveller. My work Outlook is taking forever to send and receive messages and I am hungry. I don't know why because it's only close to 5 pm in Cali ut it's almost 7 pm here.

I will blog more later ...

I went to lunch with a co-worker I've known for about 10 years. We worked together from 1997-1999, and she just started at the company I worked for a few months ago. We were both remembering how we loved our boss John. We liked him and he liked us, and how rare it's been for both of us since then to have a boss whom we like and likes us.

I hope I get one of these two jobs that are in front of me. The two people I want jobs with like me and I like them. It's not that I don't like my boss now, I just don't like her in the same way I do these two people. There's an empathy missing with my current boss that I have with the other two people. I think it's that I like my boss as a work boss but I'm neutral about her as a person, whereas the two people who are offering me jobs I like both as bosses and as people. It's so hard to explain because it's so intangible.

I know for sure that the new person my boss is reporting to does not get me at all, which so bothers me. I think it's such a post 9/11 feeling for me, but it so doesn't make sense to work for people who don't get you and whom you don't like in and outside of work. Life is way too short for that kind of B.S.

My coworker thinks it is very rare for an employee to really like their boss, and that we were so lucky when we met in 1997 because we both had a boss we respected and liked and who respected and liked us. If only John didn't get sick, I would probably still be working for him. But he did get sick, and I just recently found out he died about three years ago. I knew he had a very decidedly uncertain future, and I guess I was right. It's such a shame because John was so smart and so nice, and the perfect boss in a ton of ways.

I may have posted about this before, but in going thru my writing notes I ran across an idea I had for christian writer's class.

Class Title: Riffing on the Bible: Adventures in Christian Storytelling

Using well-known biblical verses and/or texts of the discples' interaction with Jesus as a jumping off point, participants will explore the art of storytelling by telling stories of their own or a character's faith journey.

I even wrote biblical verses to use:
Matthew 4: 18-22 - Jesus invites his disciples to join him saying they will be a fisher of people
This story could be about when you were called to follow Jesus, when you had an evangelizing moment, when your faith inspired someone to christian action, etc.

Matthew 14: 25-34 - Jesus walking on the sea, "Take heart, it is I, do not be afraid."
This story could be about witnessing miracles or when there was a miracle in your life, or when Jesus came to you and pulled you out of a dark situation.

Matthew 26 - Peter's Denial of Jesus
Maybe these are stories about the ways you deny Jesus in your ife, the way you deny your faith, your humanity, your higher self.

Luke 9: 18-20 - Jesus asks his discples who am I and Peter says you are the "messiah of God."
These could be stories of recognizing who Jesus is in your life, recognition of your level of faith.

John 20-21 - the story of Doubting Thomas (the biblical character I relate to the most next to Father Abraham when he is about to sacrifice his son
These could stories about what else, doubt, I'm sure people could write volumes about their doubts about faith and Jesus

Acts 9 - Paul's conversion on the road to Damascus
These stories could be about conversion, faith and doubt.

So like out of left field, the only woman I get along with in my whole group asks me if I wanted to work for her. She's been assigned the creation of this huge writing project and says there is no way she can do it herself. She's going to ask for headcount and she immediately thought of me. She wanted to ask me first so she mentioned it to her boss, so very late on Friday she asked me.

It would be so cool if I could work for her. She and I get along really hell. She's been meditating for years and years like I have, and we think very similarly about a lot of things at work. I already sit in a cube next to her, so I w0uldn't be disrupted by moving. I think politically taking a job with her will be less freaky than taking a job with the guy I spoke to on June 23.

That guy would be great to work for as he is so smart and we also really get along, but he won't be hiring till September. If y cube mate gets headcount, I would probably be able to start as soon as the job is open.

So please pray for me that my cube mate gets headcount and I can transfer my job. I want to hedge my bets and apply for two jobs I found on Friday, because whether my cubemate gets the position or not, I will definitely leave my job one way or another. I don't like the new person my boss and I are now reporting to.

I don't know. Life since 9/11 is way too short for me to be in a job with someone I don't like and whom I definitely know doesn't like me. I stayed in my last job because the economy was bad after the dotcom crash. It wasn't the best job but at least I was liked.

This job hasn't been a good fit, and I knew it three months after I took the job. But then I was distracted by the red-haired guy and then by M-Square, and then when I met my new friend S I thought it was well worth it because she has become such a close friend. She's a writer as well and wants to collaborate with me on writing projects. I think she's also much more visual than I am and would probably be an ideal person to adapt my novels into screenplays. She even wants to do it, which is so cool.

I know most novelists want to adapt their novels into screenplays, but I'm not one of them. If I wanted to write the story as a screenplay I would do it. I know how to write screenplays. If I'm writing the story as a novel, it's because it's coming to me as a novel and not as a screenplay. And at that point, I want someone else to adapt my story for the screen.

Anyway, my new friend S and I are going to try and write every Thursday for a couple of hours together. We both need the inspiration and discipline of writing with a partner, and we both think we would make good writing partners for each other. I hope so.

I knew I had to stay in my job for a reason, and I think all of those reasons are now gone. I would love to stay in my job ony if I could transfer my job and work for my cubemate. If I can't then I don't think I should even take the job with that guy I spoke to a couple of weeks ago. I don't know. I feel like it's time to move on to another company. I get bad feelings about my company. We lost some market share this year and even though we won a big contract this year, strategically we are really floundering. Our competitors are so aggressive and we are so conservative. Our competitors are coming up with innovative products and bringing them to market quicker than we can.

My division hired a consultant to regorg our division, and when I met him I wasn't very impressed. The leadership in my company seem to be so lacking in vision and direction that everyone is basically running around like chickens with their heads cut off. It's too bad because my company is a good company, they have a great mission and all, but they are just floundering and I think everyone knows it but no one knows what to do about it.

They're also doing this weird thing with finances because invoices are taking forever to get paid. Having been in finance, this behaviour is never a good sign. There is no reason for companies not to pay their invoices on time, unless there is a good reason like they're having problems with cash flow or because they're watching the balance on the books. I just get a bad feeling about the place and I don't think I'm the only one becuase our attrition rate is so high, so high that they are basing VP performances on whatever attrition rate they promised. Can you imagine a VP not getting his bonus because too many left their division? Employees are bailing the ship like rats, and I'm like what are the rats smelling that I can't smell very clearly.