Never Buy a Used Rental Car

Today was the first day of my new twice-weekly schedule of renting a car to drive into my work's Chicago office. I've driven Fords for the past 20 years so when I do rent cars, I spent the first 15 minutes trying to figure out how everything works.

Today's rental was a 2009 Nissan Altima with .5 miles (not a typo -- it had one half of one mile on it). The rental car guy told me how to start it (step on the brake and push the start button), but he didn't mention there was anything out of the norm about the gear shifter.

I put it in drive -- take a close look at the photo above. The shifter moves down and then to the left and down. I assumed this was some way to lock it into the drive position. So, I pulled out of the airport car rental area, and drove about a mile toward the highway. I could see, hear and smell that the transmission was burning up. It wasn't shifting. I had it up to about 40 mph, the tachometer was up to 6 and still it wasn't shifting out of first.

Before I got onto the highway I stopped, pulled over and called Enterprise and reported the problem. I figured I'd have to go back and get a different car. The rental car guy told me to move the shifter over to the right. Apparently, the right position is for automatic transmission and the left position is for manual transmission.

No where near the shifter did it say anything about automatic vs. manual. And, who's ever heard of a car that has both automatic transmission and manual transmission.

Seems to me like a lot of rental car companies are soon going to be selling very, very low-mileage Nissan Altimas with burned out transmissions.

Where is Room 800?

I had a business dinner in Chicago Thursday night followed by a meeting Friday morning so I had to stay in a hotel rather than drive back and forth twice.

I checked into the hotel and took the elevator up to the 8th floor and made two complete rounds of the floor without finding my room. I had to call down to the front desk for directions. They sent up a security guard to escort me to my room.

Turns out room 800 was hiding in a corner, between rooms 839 and 826. My guess is they turned a former conference or utility room into a regular hotel room and didn't want to go to the expense of changing out all of the room number plates on the floor.

Chicago Air and Water Show

My co-worker, Lukasz, shared some photos he took at last weekend's Chicago air and water show. They are absolutely incredible. The one below is my favorite. If you'd like to see more, check out his photo album.

Eli's New Hair Style

From across the office today, I noticed that Eli was wearing a hat. I thought it was odd since it's the middle of summer.

As I got closer I saw that it wasn't a hat, but a dye job on his hair.

For some reason he decided it would be a good idea to paint a bullseye on his head. Guess he thought using red dye would be too over the top.

Poor Planning Leaves Me Stuck in Lakeshore Drive Traffic

I haven't been to the Chicago office in a while but needed to go for a meeting to prep for a big client presentation.

Grant Park was packed with people for the Taste of Chicago. And, Lakeshore Drive was bumper to bumper for miles.

At least it gave me the opportunity to take a quick shot of the Buckingham fountain. Too bad that big light pole and the side of a few cars are in the shot.

Thermal Bruce and Sharon

If you woke up one day with thermal imaging vision and ran into us; this is what you'd see.

This is a photo of us through the thermal imaging camera at the Museum of Science and Industry.

Star Wars in Chicago

The Star Wars exhibit at the Museum of Science and Industry was a geek's delight.

Chicago in Style

Most of the South Bend office staff traveled to the company Christmas party in Chicago in a limo. Not sure, but I think there were 11 people squeezed into the stretch limo for the two-hour trip.

Bruce and I drove into Chicago ourselves because we planned to go to the Star Wars exhibit at the Museum of Science and Industry on Sunday.

But, our hotel was not within walking distance to the restaurant so after the limo driver dropped off everyone at the party, he came to our hotel to pick us up for a private limo ride. Cool! We felt like rock stars.

SantaCon Chicago

While we were waiting for the limo to pick us up from our hotel in Chicago for the company Christmas party, we were nearly stampeded by a pack of Santas.

Turns out it was the start of SantaCon Chicago. It's an annual pub crawl that requires all participants to dress in full Santa suits.

Club Quarters, Chicago

We got a great deal on a room at Club Quarters through Price Line. The room even came with this incredible view of the Chicago river.

Check-in at the hotel was a bit stressful for me. Bruce went to give our car keys to the valet while I checked in. He was gone for a loooonnnnnngggg time.

When he didn't come back right away, I imagined that someone posing as the valet had knocked him out and stolen our van.

I asked the front-desk clerk to call the valet to ask what he did with my husband. Turns out the valet couldn't park our van because it was too tall for their parking garage. So, Bruce had to self-park at an outdoor parking lot.

Counting Cars

Traffic leaving Chicago Friday afternoon was really heavy. It took us about an hour to get from Lincoln Park to Grant Park.

As we came around the bend near Navy Pier, I noticed this guy off the side of the road counting cars. What an overwhelming task that must be.

Bowling in Chicago

Our end-of-summer party at work was at the Seven Ten Lounge in Chicago's Lincoln Park neighborhood.

I bowled a 78 my first game, but after that warm up, bowled a 109 the second time around.

View from the Smurfit-Stone Building in Chicago

Friday I had a meeting at the Smurfit-Stone Building in downtown Chicago.

The view was incredible!

We were just to the west of Millennium Park.


The shiney silver object that looks like a giant bean is called the Cloud Gate. It's a 110-ton elliptical sculpture made up of a series of polished stainless steel plates that reflect the city's skyline and the clouds above it. It has a 12 foot high arch that serves as a gate to the concave chamber beneath the sculpture.

Lunch at The Green Door in Chicago

The point of going into the Chicago office on Friday was to join the staff of that office for a celebration lunch.

They've all been working hard and putting in late hours for the launch of a new website.

We held the celebration lunch at the Green Door Tavern which is right next door to "Mr. Beef."

Lake Shore Drive

If you haven't seen the space ship that landed on top of Soldier Field...







Lollapalooza started Friday in Chicago. Looks like they have plenty of port-o-johns. That was about all I could see, all along the Lake Shore Drive side of Grant Park.



This is an interesting view of Navy Pier, as I was exiting Lake Shore Drive onto Grant Avenue. That vertical pole you see is my radio antenna.

63rd Street Beach House @ Jackson Park in Chicago

The 40 minute pit stop in LaPorte (for client conference call) turned my usual two hour commute into the Chicago office in to nearly three hours. After drinking my usual massive amounts of Diet Coke during the drive, I was in need of a pit stop by the time I got to Lake Shore Drive.

I've passed the 63rd Street Beach House quite often, but never took the time to stop and check it out. Surely there would be a public restroom at this place. It took a bit of walking around to find it, but the walk was worth it as the place was really picturesque.

Scary Semi on the Indiana Toll Road

Imagine my fright when I glanced into my rear view mirror and saw this scary semi ready to bite my rear bumper.

Sights of Chicago

I traveled into Chicago today for a web marketing conference. As I was driving down Lake Shore Drive, I saw a low-flying plane, between the Sears Tower and the John Hancock Building. Actually, I see this quite often, and it always sort of freaks me out. The only difference today was I had a camera.

After I took the plane picture, I thought I'd just capture a couple more shots along the way. My boss always used to challenge my logic in taking Lake Shore Drive to our Chicago office, rather than using the Dan Ryan. My thought is, if I'm going to get stuck in traffic, I'd much rather be enjoying the beauty along Lake Shore Drive.




A view of the boat docks in Lake Michigan near Navy Pier.
















Buckingham Fountain in Grant Park.








The Chicago River in front of the Sheraton Hotel (where I attended the conference.)