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so I haven’t had time at all to keep up on life and the like, until today! I figured out something amazing, I came home right after school and meetings finished, so I got home at 10, I grabbed some water, read my mail, then at 10:30pm I layed down for a nap. I set the alarm, layed down, and was up at 2am. I wrote a paper, surfed the net (oh sweetness that used to be, I surfed the internet!) caught up on all my news feeds I’ve missed so dearly, replied to emails (some) graded papers, and am now getting ready to write up my report and then expense report for my trip to Chicago. So now I am here, I’ll write this and get the creative juices out so I can write a nice dry report for the center and they won’t think less of me.

So last week, like Monday, I finally got progress out of the Center for International Entrepreneurship. (CIE) The center is a great idea, but I got a taste of what its like to work with a great and slow taped up policy heavy administration. I mean, I’m excited for the potential of this place more so than our decision maker it seems, which is weird. But I digress. So we’ve found this organization called C.E.O. or Collegiate Entrepreneurs Organization, and they were having their national conference this last weekend. I got things all setup, and the guys from CEO up in Provo were probably the most gracious and accommodating group of fellas I’ve encountered to date, as they let me bunk in their room, gave me some of their swag to wear, and pretty much let me tag along the whole weekend. We had a blast.

First, the conference was good. You can tell they’re all entrepreneurs though, cause it’s probably the cheapest production I’ve ever seen. I mean, all but one of the keynote addresses over three days were done without any media support at all. No power point, no projector, no wireless mic’s, I mean we’re paying a decent chunk of change to get out there, and this is an organization heavily funded by those who have walked its halls and gone on to greater things, I’m just saying we could spend some money and make it great, eh’? Even for having an off year, with a few of their big names canceling, some others pulled through, and all were really interested in the success of everyone else. Ideas were flowing, people were improving ideas and relationships were forged. Good stuff and great networking opportunity. I think the biggest asset of this conference was simply being submerged in entrepreneurship for a weekend. I had more ideas and thoughts come to me as I sat there, eating, drinking, sleeping business, it was very worthwhile in that regard. They are weak in their competitions though, and have a relatively arbitrary judging process which is frustrating. In order for them to continue to be an asset to entrepreneurs, they are going to need to step up their game, challenge them, make teams work and come together as they attend this conference.

second, after the day’s activities, we would strike out as a group of fellas out to see the town. We ate some amazing pizza, (seriously, this was the biggest surprise, I thought pizza was pizza, but this is chicago style, and amazing) we saw some sights and walked the town. It was fun riding in my first US cab, walking around a big city again (Laie is nice, but its fun to hustle and bustle) and in the process, we ran into some great characters. Me and Ryan, a fella from Provo, were lagging behind the group as we walked to dinner one night and crossed the street into the arms essentially of this enormous black guy, the guy was huge, my height, and probably 4 of my weights, a monster. So Ryan, being very interested in people it seemed, jumped up next to him and got a cameo shot of him and this guy, we were laughing, asked this guy his name and he said “Bear” like the big black guy in Armageddon, I never found a name to be so fitting as it was then. We laugh a bit more, and then turn to go and Bear pulls his ploy, “can you help a brotha out? I just need some food for my family, a few bucks?” naturally, we’d heard this a few times, and successfully weeded through all the schmucks making a living off of begging by offering to buy them food instead, well Bear readily accepted this offer, and wondering where this would take us, Bear led us to a little pantry shop down the road. Ryan and I walked in there and looked around, then asked Bear what he wanted, anything in the store we said. Bear led us straight to the deli, and requested some smoked turkey sliced, needless to say we were a bit surprised, but amusedly we inquired “you got turkey?” then Bear adamantly corrects us “SMOKED turkey” he says, the lady finds the corresponding pressed meat and pulls it out and asks “how much?” to which Bear replies “10 bucks”, “5 dollars” I interject, Bear then turns and gives us that kind of “you kidding me” look only a monstrous black guy can give when dealing with dinner, and Ryan and I defensively throw out the poor student card and finally talk him down to 5 bucks. Bear gets his meat, and we parted ways grinning ear to ear, cause seriously, who begs for smoked turkey?

Well also we were able to hit up a broadway show, Wicked. This was a highlight. I wasn’t planning on going, but Travis was winning in an elevator pitch competition and wasn’t able to attend so I got his ticket through the grace of God. :) We went and saw this all star performance, and I fell in love. It was amazing. I seriously don’t get giddy about musicals very often anymore, but this one was wonderful. And so well done, it made me miss my starlight theater days. :) Oh, did I mention it was in the historic oriental theater? :) Yeah.

So that was my chi town extravaganza, thanks to Scott and Gary, the faculty and advisors for BYU Provo that were so accommodating, Derek, their CEO president who was assertive enough to help me get my trip planned out in time to make it possible, and all the fellas, LaDon, Travis, Tyler, Ryan, Mike, and Jamon, you guys were great.

CEO here we come. (yeah, that’s my end of the bargain, start a chapter out here, that’s aight, I’m not doing anything from 2:30am to 7am anyway. :)