This is one of those days that feels more like a week. I left home at about 8:30 this morning with my coworkers Lari and Tamara and we headed off for BWI airport. A few patches of rough traffic, two railroad crossings (actually the same one TWICE), and a long, cold wait for a shuttle bus later, we made it to the airport.
The first thing that made me laugh out loud today (but definitely not the last) was when seated at our gate, Tamara pulls out her reading material for the plane. The photo above says it all: that's right, it's a book about....composting!
The flight was easy and fast - just the way I like them. We touched down a bit early, about 1:15 and quickly got a cab downtown, arriving at the down
town Marriott. Immediately upon arrival, I had three separate people tell me that Ron Yuill and Mike Fitzgerald were already starting work to set up my Resource Booth, so I felt obligated to haul it over to the Convention Center asap. I literally threw my luggage into my room and headed over immediately. Sure enough, Ron had already opened every box and done his best to somewhat organize them. We basically reorganized the entire thing, but it was great to have the boxes open and at least in the correct general vicinity. I'd say we started unpacking at about 2 and didn't finish until 5:30. Above is a photo of Ron and Steve, my primary booth volunteers, taking a break in front of the enormous Convention Center sign which is, of course RIGHT in the MIDDLE of our booth! After 5:30, we realized Tamara still needed help setting up Registration, so we all migrated all of 20 feet to the Reg area (we will be staring across at each other all week) and set up an assembly line to stuff attendee bags and preregistration envelopes. PLUS moving more boxes - all the programs and other detritus - to a storage area. My back is aching. We saw a lot of interesting people tooling around the Convention Center (CC) including one guy who happened by carrying a live ferret (SO cute). The ferret's name was Sly, and he was very friendly. Brian insisted on taking this photo of me petting Sly. Maureen was horrified, but I could have taken him (the ferret) home.
At about 6:30 we finally left the Convention Center and tried to make dinner plans on the fly. Never a good idea. Tamara stayed behind with a few helpers to finish up a few last-minute things and agreed to meet up with us. We discovered that the 4th Street Live area was only a block away so we headed over to a place called, I think, Gumbo's, with GREAT New Orleans-style food. Lots of etouffe and gumbo and I had some sort of Bourbon Chicken concoction. We tried to call Tamara, but her phone was turned off, so imagine our surprise to see her come strolling past the window of our restaurant with none other than Fred and David! I literally stood up at our table and yelled to then (fortunately it was not a high-class
dining establishment.) Purely coincidental that she found us. Great dinner - but we were all really beat. By 8 I was already headed back to the hotel.
Wrapping up for today because tomorrow is bound to be another long one. Need to go over the Resource Booth and do all my last-minute "tweaking" (read that: completely rearrange) before we open at 11. Below is a photo of my hotel bed (which is calling to me). I took it for Claire and Sydney - to show them that Bucky Beaver is sitting in my bed (and wearing my glasses!) And believe it or not, I've already managed to lose one pair of reading glasses. Sigh.
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