Chicago - Day One

Finally! Time to add to the blog.

Wednesday. September 9, 2009. We arrived on Tuesday the 8th, and on Wednesday the 9th we went to the convention center to set up. The nightmares I'd had were realized: my boxes were not there. I had my receipts showing the tracking numbers, and we'd checked online the night before and it said that a notice had been left at the warehouse. Not quite sure what that meant, Viper Tradeshow services checked the tracking numbers and claimed to be confused, because the warehouse is one that is always staffed, and they claimed there is no way the post office tried to deliver something and found nobody there. As I tried really hard NOT to totally freak out, but in the back of my mind was thinking that maybe the boxes had been returned to CA and I was there with no product, we went to lunch and perused the area. Then we went back around noon and sat in our empty booth and knitted for an hour, and then we were presented with the shipment. The folks from Viper Tradeshow had gone to the post office and picked up the boxes. Unfortunately they'd taken my receipts with them and left them. $300 in tax-deductible receipts. Gone. I still have to deal with trying to reprint those.

Anyway, we set up the tables/cubes in record time, finishing in only 2 hours. We opted not to stock the cubes that day because we knew we could fill them with inventory on Thursday. Less chance of theft, and more time to think about the layout. And time to go to U.S. Cellular Field to see our hometown Oakland A's lose to the White Sox.