2003-07-22 - 3:27 p.m.

Okay, so I promised the exciting travelogue from the weekend....

Wednesday and Thursday involved long client meetings and presentations at my new client in Chantilly. Ugh, Chantilly. Add on one-two hours commuting time from place to place, plus working late Wednesday to prep some new stuff for Thursday - ugh.

Thursday I had a lovely lunch with the client and then headed off to meet PS at BWI for our flight to the Board meeting. Well, sort of. At 2:30pm the beltway was stopped cold (or hot, as the case may be). Phooey. I have many harried phone calls to PS, and he has adventures in unpacking the suitcase at the airport ('cause it's too heavy), but he ends up rebooking me onto a different flight and then heading off to the meeting on his own.

I manage (after one beltway-side potty break - aieee!) to get back to the office, then go tearing up to BWI for my new flight. The new flight was a non-stop to LAX, which was kinda cool - I read a book and made a huge hoard of notes for work, and arrived in LA before Steve arrived in Orange County.

I had a connector to OC (John Wayne Airport!) but it was going to be an hour and a half wait, when I was half an hour by Super Shuttle from my destination. No brainer, take the shuttle, call Steve and have him shuttle to the hotel too. Well, his cell battery was dying and his memory isn't what it might be, so he ends up at the wrong Radisson. Much chaos ensues and I briefly lose my rag before we manage to get him to the correct hotel around midnight. Sigh.

In the midst of all this, the hotel is pretty crap. What kind of hotel lobby bar closes at 10pm??

Friday I spent the whole day in meetings, until about 4-ish when we had to stop as everything else we needed to do involved waiting for Fernando. The guys went to the tar pits, and the Genghis Khan exhibit at a museum. We met up with Dayle & Ken for dinner (relatively inexpensive and tasty sushi), and then went back into meeting-land until quite late. Apparently the party was in our room - it was full of beer bottles and stuff when I got back upstairs. Hmph.

Saturday's meeting was, well, meeting-like. I was ready to kill Andrew, but that often happens. I was frustrated by various things, but that's why I'm off the Board now!! We voted Northshield to kingdom status (hooray) and passed the Finland corporation affiliation agreement, so that was all very cool, and I received a lovely sake set (and sake!) as a fine parting gift. There was much schtick for Andrew's departure (it was his last meeting too) and then we broke up for dinner. Hooray! I'm free!

Dinner (and party) was at Giles' & Guiseppe's - very cool old house, very cool decor & stuff, hung out til fairly late talking to people I hadn't seen in a while. I got pretty sleepy at several points - I'm not as young as I used to be, and I'm trying to stay off the caffeine as much as I can. Bleah.

Eventually Korwyn & Krista gave us a lift back to the hotel, with five of us (Steve & I, TRM Trimaris and Korwyn) rolling around loose in the back of the van. Korwyn & I were trying to have a serious conversation while the somewhat-tipsy Queen was "helping".... TRM and Steve & I hung out in our room for a while drinking beer (okay, three of us were drinking, the Queen was sleeping) and then we finally hit the sack.

Sunday we had brunch with assorted folks (it started out just Dayle and Ken, but it expanded when Hun-E-Be joined us, and then Korwyn & Krista came by to return my wallet, which had fallen out of Steve's pocket in the van....) It was nice enough and then we headed up, grabbed our stuff, visited with Elena some more and headed off to the exciting airport for our return flights.

On the flight we watched Bringing Down the House, which was very funny, and I finished re-reading Mark Fabi's Wyrm, and our luggage got damaged by the airline so at 12:30 am we're having a lovely discussion with the baggage idiots at BWI. Sigh....

But we made it home, and I'm mostly caught up on sleep, and now I'm busily working-working-working....

Sometime soon it will hit me that I'm not on the Board anymore....

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