There's GOTTA be a Connection

All but the last 17 miles of my drive to the Chicago Pen Show were a breeze.  I'd done a bit of work at the office before taking off shortly before noon, then stopped to have a leisurely lunch with Janet on the way through Columbus.  It was sunny and 80 degrees, and I hummed along with a Gotye CD as I cruised across western Ohio and through Indiana.   

But things got ominous as I neared the end of I-65.  I was driving the wife's car because it has GPS, and the nice lady was telling me in a soothing voice to turn right when I didn't think it was a very good idea. 

Turns out I was right . . . I was exiting onto 15th Avenue in Gary, Indiana, and as I was leaving the highway -- with no way to reenter -- I saw the exit for I-90 just a couple hundred yards away.  It might as well have been a million miles away.

I had quite the one-sided discussion with the GPS lady as she calmly recalculated my route, sending me down a Martin Luther King Jr. Parkway that didn't look like it had been mowed yet this year, and through a war zone of a neighborhood where mine was the newest car by a decade and three out of four houses had plywood for windows.  I finally decided to quit yelling and listen to her, since she was the only chance I had of getting out of Gary, Indiana alive.   I have never been so happy to see an Interstate sign in my life. 

Turns out my little detour did bypass the tollbooth to get onto I-90 and saved me 60 cents, but I can tell you with confidence:  they could charge 60 dollars to avoid that little jaunt and I'd still pay it!

Anyway, just as I was beginning to relax again, I hit two obstacles:  Chicago traffic and a gullywasher of a rainstorm.  I was becoming irritated with GPS lady again, as she calmly told me to "proceed on the current road" when I was at a dead stop in the pouring rain.  But hey, I thought to myself, things could be worse:  I could be in Gary, Indiana!

I arrived at the Westin O'hare and was in my room at around 8 o'clock.  Trading for the day was over, but Judd Perlson's pizza party was just getting started, so the day was by no means a total loss!  After a bit of socializing and unwinding, Michael Little and I decided we should go through each other's stuff and do our swapping that evening.

He pulled a bunch of stuff out of my boxes, and I pulled a bunch from his. We compared piles and decided that we were both happy.  Among the things I got from him were these . . .

NOTE:  This article is now included in the print version of The Leadhead's Pencil Blog, available anywhere you buy books, or also from The Legendary Lead Company.

To order, here's the link:  Volume 1 at Legendary Lead Company