I spent most of the last week in Chicago, going through a training session for new managers.  I was put up in a wonderful hotel, in a single room, with a ridiculously comfortable bed (once I got the sleep-number thing sussed out), fed outstanding meals, and it was almost all paid for by the company.  We worked hard during the four days of the training and the company knows that.  As a result, they made sure we could relax well during our off-times.

I spent a good bit of my off-time blogging and catching up on various anime series, not to mention doing the F1U! for Korea.  I did take advantage of our one free night on Wednesday to take the hotel's shuttle-bus (how cool is that?) to a nearby World Market, and my duck-aware readers are already drooling.  Come to think of it, so are my pockyfriends.  It's been three years since I was last at a World Market, and nearly five since they closed the store here in Duckford.  In all that time, none of their holiday duckies have made their way to The Flock, so there was no way I was going to let this opportunity pass!  You might be seeing the three Halloween duckies in a few days, if I don't get some photojournalism finished in time...

But the best part of the trip was the performance of The DuckMobile.  As long-time readers of The Pond are aware, she's a 16 year-old Toyota Camry, and to be fair, she's showing a bit of her age.  I didn't take her on the trip to Wisconsin back in June for fear that she'd not be able to make the 400+ mile journey through mostly uninhabited northwoods.  On Monday afternoon, I left the Duck U parking lot with wingtips crossed and some apprehension in my heart... the longest drive I'd taken The DuckMobile on in years was 15 miles round-trip.

I need not have worried.  She was a champ!  Never a complaint, no drama, indeed she seemed to relish being unleashed upon I-90 and getting to show her legs a bit.  We never got above 70mph or so (there's a lot of construction between Duckford and Chicago), but we rocked out.  Once we got home, I praised her to the heavens... The DuckMobile is a good girl indeed!

So while it was a good week, and I learned a lot, and all that sort of good stuff... it's good to be home.  Sure, it's messy.  Sure, my mattress is probably older than I am.  Sure, the food isn't as good.  Sure, the chair in front of my computer isn't as good as the one in the hotel room.  And the TV in the room is a darn sight better than the one in Pond Central.  But I'll be damned if I'd rather not be here, typing this post, than there.

There's no place like Pond Central, that's for sure.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 07:10 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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