Having had weekly travel for six straight weeks though April, it was good to have nearly the entire month of May at home base.  Not only did I get a chance to help recruit, select and train two new future KTN superstar training coaches, but I also got to be there for Julia's three band concerts, Adam's Karate show, my 5th anniversary, and other major family events.  I enjoyed focusing on my running routine and eating healthy so I also managed to drop about 7 pounds.  What does that tell you about how hard it is to eat healthy on the road eh?

But this morning when the alarm when off at 4:45am my instincts kicked-in and soon I was boarding an on-time, non-stop Southwest flight to Chicago Midway.  Although I'm very Delta-loyal, non-stops win out over free upgrades when you really need to be there on time. 

It was great to meet my new contact at our latest KTN client, who is Minsung Lee, the new Reservations Manager.  Tomorrow I get to meet the reservations team and have them for a full day workshop which is really going to be fun.  What an awesome hotel.  My son Adam is very excited that I'm staying at the Hotel 71 because out my window I'm looking at where they filmed major scenes from Transformers 3, which he has already been reminding me is out in July.  I had not been back to Chicago for several years, and right across the street was the Hotel Sax, my former client before it got sold.  It felt like going home as over my 20 years of hotel training I'm sure I've been here almost 50 times.  Plus as a middle school kid my parents used to bring me here in the early 1970's when they came for craft conventions, so it was my first big city experience.  The weather was perfect today and below are some of the pictures I took right across the street: