Blogs from Chicago, Illinois, United States, North America - page 84

Remember this song by the Village People? "In the navy, Yes, you can sail the seven seas In the navy Yes, you can put your mind at ease..... In the navy, in the navy, in the navy" Welcome to the Navy Pier! We spent a beautiful afternoon walking around the Pier simply enjoying the sun and the breeze from Lake Michigan. First, we heard mass at St. Peter's in the "Loop" at Downtown Chicago. This Catholic church is close to my office. That's what I love about this city -- it's a walkable and a commuter-friendly city! So after the mass, we took a short bus ride to the Navy Pier. As usual, there were lots of tourists and families travelling together at the Pier. It has numerous restaurants and rides like the Ferries Wheel. ... read more

After weeks of phone panel interviews, online exams, and numerous resume revisions, I finally got a job at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, or CME, or "the Merc". CME is the largest futures exchange in the United States and the second largest exchange in the world for the trading of futures and options on futures. Cool eh! I have never worked for a finance company before; so imagine how excited I was, err, aside from the fact that I have recently been doing my own personal study on playing the stock market, etcetera, etcetera. Flying Between Midwest States (Detroit to Chicago) My friend Luisa drove me to the DTW airport (Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport) together with her roomate who was flying to Florida for a vacation. It was 12 noon when my plane took off. ... read more

Julie and I returned this morning from a long weekend / short trip to Chicago. The flights each way were relatively uneventful, as was the Blue Line trip from O'Hare to the stop nearest our airport. Found the Ohio House Motel to be a pretty good deal for the price, especially in the pricey Downtown area. The Ohio House is located in the River North district, and is located within 10 blocks of both the Blue and Red "El" lines. From the red, transfers to Brown and Purple were easy. These are the only four lines we used. Since I'm a huge fan of beer, let me quickly say how wonderful Goose Island-Wrigleyville, Piece Brewpub, and Lewars Inn all are. Goose Island added with Fried Pickels. Piece had some excellent pizza. And Lewars was an excellent ... read more

** Please note that this blog is a publicly-accessible forum. As such, it can be read by anyone, so out of respect for my employer, I will not mention the company name in any entry. If you post a remark or comment, please be kind enough to do the same! Thank you! ** I couldn’t sleep last night. I finally conked out at about 1:00 AM and woke up at 4:00. Then I woke up again at 6:10 and decided just to get up and get an early start. So I had breakfast and chose to try a new route to the facility, which consisted of exactly two turns, including the one leaving the hotel parking lot. This route was far better and it took me through some nicer - albeit cramped - neighborhoods than the ... read more

** Please note that this blog is a publicly-accessible forum. As such, it can be read by anyone, so out of respect for my employer, I will not mention the company name in any entry. If you post a remark or comment, please be kind enough to do the same! Thank you! ** After hanging out in my hotel room for a few minutes, I decided to find our facility on the south side of Chicago (the baddest part of town). I printed directions from Mappoint.com a few day s before, so I took my trusty map with turn-by-turn directions and headed out. And that was the highlight. Let me explain something about Chicago. If you’ve seen Boston, you know exactly what Chi-Town looks like. More specifically, if you’ve ever been through Roxbury or Dorchester, you ... read more