Park Tool Summit (road trip to Chi-town)

This past weekend I journeyed north to The Windy City to take in the Park Tool Summit which is a two day (Mon/Tues), 9hr (+ lunch and other breaks)/day hands on training conference for bicycle mechanics. It is broken into 3 3hr classes per day put on by people who represent different companies where they give you step by step hands on experience w/ their product(s). It was a cool set of seminars and I had fun hanging out w/ friends that either were there for the summit and/or live in Chicago now. Plus I got to sit in a class w/ this guy who basically IS Park Tool. Having only seen Calvin Jones in pictures and never meeting him I figured he was a total weirdo and probably a pompous know-it-all. He's totally down to earth and really funny/personable. I guess you can't judge a book by its cover.

(I didn't take many pics there, but this is the Shimano class room)

I stayed at my brother's place in Chinatown, just south of downtown and the event was at an airport hotel, so it was ~1hr to get there w/ traffic. So w/ the commute and the schedule of classes I was gone most of the time, but I still got to hang out w/ Evin and Lisa and their daughter Ramona. And Sunday night Evin and I got some good Chinese food in Chinatown square.
So w/ the trip I missed a couple days of riding, but no big deal.This turned into a scheduled "rest week" (as if traveling, sitting through classes all day, etc is "resting"), so I'm back at it next week.
It was a nice little trip but I'm glad to be back/ Now I'm getting the details down for our annual spring training camp in Knoxville, TN.