a night at the turtle races

The hardest part about my job is simply trying to explain what it is I do as a consultant. Basically, if you want to work insanely long hours, have no life outside of work, and party like a rock star, consulting is the industry for you.

Today is day 13 out of a 20 day work stretch - crack the whip and forget what a weekend is! The only thing that makes this experience remotely tolerable is the amount of excessive drinking we do as a firm, and last night was no different.

After a full work day and a mandatory firm happy hour, a group of us from work ventured to the north side of Chicago for a little known recreational activity - turtle racing at Big Joe's. It looks like your typical dive bar in an obscure neighborhood... that is until they busted out the turtles!

Here's how it works... for every drink you buy, you receive a few raffle tickets. With each round of turtle racing they pull 6 tickets out of a hat. If your number gets called, you get assigned a turtle. If your turtle wins the race, you get free stuff. Simple enough.

Perhaps it was the fact that I had started drinking at 5 that day or maybe it was round after round of refreshing pitchers of Miller Lite, but I found this activity particularly entertaining.

In the end we drank, watched some turtles, and I beat out my co-workers with a winning bet on lucky turtle number 5.