ChitownLiving | Chicago Real Estate + Life

The blog has been quiet recently.  My daughter brought a little holiday present home from play group in the form of a 24-hour bug.  For the past two days my wife and I have been sicker than we can remember. When I awoke from my trance-like state, I discovered I received a meme from Eric Rojas and Dan Green.  To my mind, it is the equivalent of a chain letter or email.  For infrequent readers scratching your heads as to how this fits with my blog, this meme passing game has been going on for the past several weeks across many other blogs.  The task is to share 5 things about myself and then pass the meme along to keep it going.  Here goes. 1.  I love to ski.  Attending the University of Vermont allowed me to ski most weekends.  Figures I now live in Chicago, one of the flattest cities in the country. 2.  For college spring break, my fraternity brothers and I took a converted yellow school bus on a trek from Burlington, VT to Key West, FL.  We only broke down once.  The bus was equipped with bunks for sleeping, full bar with kegerator, stereo system, rooftop deck, and bathroom.  We slept in the bus all week.  Sicker than a dog when I returned. 3.  My first job out of college was as a customer service representative for a large Boston based bank.  While the salary I made was embarassingly low, I still apply the customer service skills today.  I think many top executives should spend at least a week manning the phones for the companies they run.  4.  I am originally from the Boston area.  I was relocated to Chicago by a software company I was working with, for what I thought would be a temporary stay, met my wife, and decided to stay.  Or maybe I decided to stay and then met my wife, I can’t remember.  In any case, Chicago is a fantastic place to call home. 5.  During the dot com bubble and subsequent bust, I was a consultant implementing large scale computer systems.  Both the boom and the bust were fascinating times to be a consultant. And with that said, I’m passing the torch to Nick Patterson.