Had the first class yesterday. I'll begin with the Itasca Sun building. It's huge. 25 floors, a dark red needle that is easily the tallest building in the area (next tallest is not more than 10). The campus is beautiful, with a man made lake/pond, fountains and a large running track around it with a golf driving range. Pictures to come.

Upstairs on the 15th floor is the SunEd facility. I don't know if it's better than Dallas because we were shunted away from the main SunEd floor to one of the conference rooms that time.

Our instructor was insightful, highly technical, and unpresuming. She had the patience of a saint against complete assholes with only the single goal of pedantry (irony/parallels between them and this blog are noted, and refuted by the simple fact that you, the reader can stop reading. We couldn't stop hearing; we were made to sit and listen during one particular 30 minute tirade). The class, on it's own, is far more palatable than the first two. I found myself referencing my Computer Architecture course numerous times.

We made it out of there by 4, and immediately headed for the blue line park-and-ride. After buying our 2-day passes (we intend to go today as well, more later), we took the long yet not-as-long-as-driving trip downtown to the Frontera Grill mentioned yesterday. The food there was quite exquisite, but I don't recommend eating there if you're hungry. Portions are quite small.

The night still young, we hopped over to an inviting pub called Fado. I'm assuming it's Gaelic or Celtic. This is what a pub should be: hardly any tables, everyone standing and talking and drinking. Perfect.

Caught the red/blue line back to the car and came back to the hotel. That was it. Read on however for a side-story that requires a bit of family history...

My parents used to live in Chicago for a few years. My dad, not finishing college in order to play music, was obviously in a band. Every now and then, he'd wax nostalgic for Chicago and also for White Castle burgers that he'd have with his friends at 3am after a gig. These little square burgers we got in a 20 pack were a great end to a great day.

Too bad that their locations in West Chicago suburbs are sparse at best. We had to drive west, figure we came out too far and it was really east, pass the number where it was supposed to be, turn around again to go west and enter another municipality that had the numbers change to fit our directions. Took us 30 minutes to find. It was worth it :-).