Consulting can take you anywhere - the Loop, New York, London and even Evanston. As per my normal routine, I took the morning copy of the Red Eye from the guy at the Armitage Station and proceeded into the station. My routine changed when I went up the northbound stairs instead of the loop-bound side.

The Purple Express came after two northbound Brown lines. I got into the front car, caught up on recent news, checked the weather on my BlackBerry and turned up the tunes on the iPod a little louder than normal. The screeching of the train was louder than what I am used, especially as we were flying through Uptown and Rogers Park.

After what seemed like an eternity, we arrived at Davis. I shuffled out of the car and onto street level. At the corner of Davis and Sherman, I picked up a hot drink from Argo Tea and proceed into the Rotary Center building.

Security stopped me and gave me the second degree, stating that I had to sign in if I was doing “labor”. I told them that computers are not that dangerous and that there was little to no chance that I would be doing any manual labor. I signed my name and company in the contractor’s book, got a lame stick-on security “badge” that was printed with an Avery label and proceeded up the elevator.

People in Evanston do not know basic elevator rules. I entered the elevator along with two women of shall we say large frame, an elderly man with a cane and two other random people. When the two women pressed the “2″ button, I began to scowl. They couldn’t have taken the stairs up one flight? After they got off at the second floor and people proceeded to reshuffle, the elderly man hobbled, almost fell over but remained upright because he invaded my personal space to stabilize himself with the rail in the elevator. He pressed the number “6″. Why didn’t he kindly ask to have someone press the button for him? These are the questions that keep me up at night.

After some consulting and telling my client not to go with a software add-on suite that would cost $1,000+ and reduce PDF sizes on their multifunction printer by, oh, 10%, I decided that I needed some lunch.

After lunch at the local Potbelly, I went back to work. I spent the reminder of the day on the phone and helped some clients out. Oh wow, 5PM. Time to bill some hours to people and head home. At 5:33PM I was on the Davis platform waiting for a loop-bound Purple Line. The CTA conductor was amazing. He drove the train at record speed; I only got 16 items finished on today’s crossword puzzle.

Anyone get 25 across? Early clothing source, 7 letters?

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