Our offsite R&D Conference wrapped up today. It was a 2 day event where the R&D departments from all of our locations gathered in Downers Grove to get to know each other, to talk serious ideation,...and to party. :) Things kicked off with a 2 hour town hall meeting led by our division's CEO and then we had lunch which was made up of new products you should be seeing by early next year. We then took tours of the new coporate headquarters which, like I was telling Mich and Kev, confirmed for me that I indeed work in a s-h-i-t-h-o-l-e. The new headquarters is huge and is surrounded by forest preserves with nature paths and overlooks a pond that has swans! Our new Tech Center will be built next door and is supposed to be super cool but that's 2 years down the road.

Afterwards I checked into my hotel room which was also situated in the woods and chilled out on my balcony overlooking a meadow. Geez I could get used to this. Luckily they let us Chicago people stay in the hotel too even though the meeting was held in the area. I guess they figured we'd all get trashed after the Spirit of Chicago dinner cruise we had that night. God it's so funny seeing your coworkers tipsy especially when they're trying to put together a congo line.

Today was all business though. Two hours of financial forecasts, 2 hours of leadership competencies, 2 hours of LEAN manufacturing training, and 2 hours of innovation and ideation. You thought that sentence was boring? Imagine sitting through a whole day of this. Blah blah blah. Today was a LONG day.

But anyways...Depeche Mode concert tomorrow! I'm looking to successfully smuggle my camera into this concert too.