Just because I haven't blogged in almost 12 days does not mean that I'm sick, hurt, and lying in a ditch somewhere. I am perfectly healthy, though very tired and have been on the road for frisbee and work.
Firstly, you've all heard of the impending demise of my poor Canon S400 digicam, and I've been eagerly anticipating the arrival of the new Canon SD700IS that I ordered online. Well, as luck would have it, right before I left on my trip, I received a package in the mail which consisted of: an Amazon box wrapped in saran wrap (immediately suspicious), some air pillows for shipping, and a Canon SD700IS camera box with no camera or phone charger. That's right folks, I am the victim of mail theft. I suspect that the camera and charger were thieved in transit, as the quality of the saran wrap was not of the kitchen variety. One frantic call to Amazon (do you know how difficult it is to call them???) and they were going to ship another camera to me. Apparently, this happens all the time. Anyway, the camera came while I was away, but all is good and the new SD700IS is sitting pretty in my clutches.
October 24-31
I left on the red-eye from SFO to Orlando via LAX on Tuesday after work. I used my United miles to upgrade so I got a little spoiled in first class. I arrived in Orlando at 6:30 am on the Wednesday, hopped in a sweet red Chevy Impala rental car and headed off to meet Will at the hotel where he'd been staying for the conference he was at. It was a 10-mile drive that included two toll stops, Florida is ridiculous with their toll roads. The hotel that Will was at was the J.W. Marriott that was pretty schwank.
I napped while he was at a meeting until we had to check out. After a couple hours, we hit the road to Sarasota, to meet our team on Siesta Key. For the past couple years, our team always stays at a few condos in Siesta Key, which is an approximately 25 minute drive to the fields. We always get the same condos because it's walking distance to the sweet beach. See below for a couple photos that I stole from some other dude's website:
Sarasota was nice and hot, with overnight rain on Friday night. We played 3 pool games on Thursday and 2 on Friday, which went pretty well considering we won all the games and our closest score was 15-11. On Saturday, we faced a quarter-final match against a team from Philly, and we had a pretty good game, so we moved onto the semi-finals game against a team from Boston. Unfortunately, we lost this battle, and it was very remniscent of our first year in 2004, when we lost in semi-finals. We did not play bad, but just not good enough to beat a team that played very well. So, our nationals experience ended with this game. It was very sad and of course, we took it out on a lot of beer and alcohol.
Later that night, the parents of our teammate Sara Fox treated our entire team to a pretty fantastic meal, the perfect answer to a night of commiseration and good times. We had dinner at a great restaurant called Maximo in Siesta Village, and although I can't show you what I ate, I can safely say that the meal was fantastic. Another bonus to the restaurant was that it was walking distance to the Daiquiri Deck, with their ridiculous daiquiris. There is no doubt that our team had a bittersweet time that night, enjoying eachother's company despite the loss earlier in the day.
Will and I stuck around Sarasota until Monday, when we headed back to Orlando to catch our flights. Will was flying back to SF and I was heading to DC for work.
October 30-31
I caught my flight from Orlando to Dulles International airport, and headed to the schwank hotel that I was set up in downtown Washington, DC, the Loews Madison Hotel. Too bad I was only there to eat a late dinner and sleep.
The next day involved meetings at the National Cancer Institute and the Food and Drug Administration. Very cool professionally for me to have this experience. I was super psyched to put a lot of faces to names and to see people in action in person. I can't believe how much I enjoy this job!
I flew back to SF on Tuesday night, just in time to miss the craziness in the Castro for Hallowe'en...phew!
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