Better late than never!

I am impressed that some people have actually noticed the lack of my daily blog... Let me explain, it's mostly simple. I arrived in Chicago on Friday night after yet another horrid experience with Kevin Rudd Airlines (United Airlines say Sorry a hell of a lot) and was pretty wrecked. The real reason though, before starting my chronology of events is that I haven't had a photo to post because every time I have pulled out my camera I have remembered that my memory card is back here in my laptop so no pics!

Believe me, I'm in Chicago!

Saturday was a really early start, I got picked up by Steve from Red Cross at 6am to head out to Aurora (just under an hour west of Chicago) to see the Team Firestoppers event being run by the team over here. We get out there and I meet up with David who runs it and his buddy Jeff - Jeff was along to play with the Comms truck they were showing off for the day. Being childishly excited by cool toys, I spent the first two hours hanging out with Jeff checking out their gear - satellites, radios, 52 feet masts and the scariest little childrens toy you will ever see (more on that another day :P). It was a seriously impressive rig but we had some site selection issues and I didnt get to see the satellite connection all fired up in the morning.

I then went in and saw the Team Firestopper seminar which was being held in partership with the fire service to teach the vulnerable parts of the community about fire safety. Whilst there were no more satellite dishes and crazy cool toys, it was incredibly effective. The opportunity to partner with our fire brigades and do something very similar is quite exciting because the program has a visible impact on the participants and goes along way to getting them "REDi" to prevent and prepare for housefires.

David, Jeff and I then grabbed some lunch at "Outback" the USA's attempt at a genuine Aussie experience. Laughably and perhaps not so surprisingly, I struggled to find one thing about the place that was even remotely Australian - having pointed out that Fosters doesn't count, since we can't even buy it! Lunch was good none-the-less and we then ventured out on a bit of a suburban shopping trip. Now this was enlightening! I got to see a real Abercrombie & Fitch store and the all time American Shopping Extravaganza that is Costco. Costco is the Bunnings of grocery shopping, it's big, bulk and cheap. CK Jeans for $23, Movado watches for $300 and the list goes on. I also bought a USA bomber jacket for $14.98 at Jen's favourite store, Steve and Barry's.

We then got to go and play with the ECRV (Comms Truck) again and set it up on a good site. It reminded me how much I used to love doing comms in St John and made me think a lot about how much a small amount of enabling technology could make the absolute world of difference for Red Cross back home. After that it was off to a nice place called Carmines for dinner. It was Italian and some of the nicest food I have had in the USA.

Sunday was brunch in Algonquin, yes Jen - we went there! - with David and Jeff, followed by a follow up visit to a cheap suit place where I put aside a couple of suits for prices I can't imagine. Just for Matty, when we got back into the city I went to the Apple Store. It was enormous and packed full of Apple heads just playing with stuff - really cool. David and I headed north for some drinks and dinner before retiring for the day.

Today I went into the Red Cross office for the first of three pretty full on days. I spent the morning meeting and greeting and chatting with people in the various parts of their Disaster Services department. I learned about the administrative systems behind the residential fire response programs before grabbing lunch with some Americorps people (something else we should do in Australia) and heading out to see their warehouse. When we got back I got to go out on a fire response where the house had been destroyed and see the team in full swing. The level of financial assistance is lower than back home but delivered in a really timely way and it allows a good bit of personal support to happen early in the piece. I'm absolutely convinced, having seen the impact on the client, that this is the way for us to go. I can already start to picture how we can tailor the program to start out with the resource levels we have and I can certainly see the potential for doing things on a much grander scale.

So for Mairead, I can see applications for us of best practice, national guidelines and minimum standards. I also think that across Victoria, we would probably operate at different levels. There are elements of the New York way that I think we would be best to use and elements of the Chicago way. I can't wait to tease some of that out with Jen and talk over the differences between NY and Chicago.

I had dinner tonight with the Disaster Action Team leadership group of staff and volunteers at Goose Island Brewery. It's a nice little spot not too far away with nice and pretty unique beers.

Tomorrow is a pretty full day again, meetings, presentations and hopefully one or two more fire responses for me. Not sure of the dinner plans tomorrow night, but I'm pretty sure it will involve a couple of drinks and a good laugh with David and Jeff and whoever else we manage to drag along with us!

It's probably worth me mentioning some of the things you want to hear about Chicago, since I imagine you're not too concerned about how much of a good time I am having doing work stuff. Chicago really is a beautiful city, certainly much cleaner and friendlier than New York, but not as busy, bright and exciting. The area I am staying in is down town, just opposite the lake that looks like an ocean, and is bordered by really nice parks and gardens. The architecture here is pretty amazing, as is my hotel room! I could certainly live in a city like Chicago.

I hope all is well back home, and although I am not looking forward to another 34 hour journey, I am looking forward to being home.

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