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5th and final day of the Conference. After a talk from Dennis Miller (yes, that Dennis Miller) and a few final presentations, everything is more or less over by 12 noon. And the cleanup begins...
| Thursday,
18 September 2003 |
|
| 6:57am | The phone rang 3 minutes before the alarm, but that was quite okay. It was from the boy's friend, who had a delightful story of her nephew that involved me. (He's in kindergarten, and needed a family photo; the only one they could find was his entire family at Disneyland, along with the friend, Tubby, and I. When nephew's older brother, also a nephew -- but not the same nephew -- pointed out that Tubby isn't family, their mom said "Yes, he is," and nephew added, "And so is the duck." That's love, I tells ya. |
| 7:38am | The alarm went off for the second time, and at long last, Tubby and I rolled out of our beds and off to the conference center. (By the by, the place is pretty from the outside.) |
| 8:02am | We arrive in our work area and setup, and will be sitting here until 1:30pm. Tubby waddles off to clean up after employees who clearly don't think cleaning up after themselves is too terribly important... I can only assume they either live in messy nests, or have chicks at home who clean up after them...? Either way, it's a sorry state of affairs. But, it does get the Bald Wonder out of my feathers for a few minutes. |
| 9:23am | Tubby is called into action (which is like saying a granite stone just leapt over a tall building) to address a printer problem. I saw him lift the lid, close it, and all was well. Yup, he's pretty darn technical. |
| 9:51am | I compel Tubby to go find me food. Diet Pepsi is nice, but you can't live on Diet Pepsi alone. (No, he'd likely argue, you also need Cheese-Its.) He's not happy, but he's departed on the quest imposed upon him. |
| 9:58am | Tubby apparently rode on the elevator with Ana, a convention center security person. She's off work, but told him she now has to go home and make fried chicken. He sort of grunted, and she went on to inform him that she makes very good fried chicken. He again grunted, this time mumbling, "outstanding." Ana apparently was satisfied with that response, and didn't speak with him further. |
| 10:39am | Dennis Miller began speaking at 10:30am, and our area cleared out like lemmings into the sea (even though that whole lemmings to the sea thing is a myth). Tubby got proactive and began disbanding the work room to reduce the amount of time it will take to collapse once the 1:30pm closing time hits. |
| 11:01am | Tubby disassembled the half row of tables (24 network connections) in preparation of closing (And, there's only four people in the room.) I looked on with marginal interest. |
| 12:00nn | Another six sections taken down and put away, only eight left to go. |
| 12:21pm | Tubby and I were ordered to go to lunch by the boss. And no one (who is wise) argues with Alan. |
| 1:04pm | We're back in the room and taking more stuff down. |
| 1:29pm | The room officially closes in 1 minute, but you wouldn't know it looking around. We've all but booted everyone out, and everything has been ripped apart. Whee! |
| 2:06pm | The team walked out of the convention center, for good. In the half hour from closing, we were able to pull down the entire network infrastructure the IT team put in, got it all on pallets for the shipping guys, and labeled and wrapped everything together. Tubby and I walk over to the hotel. |
| 2:53pm | Rachel, Tubby and I venture outdoors and to Target. Tubby seems to want road trip snack foods, and they're a good place for it. |
| 3:41pm | We wrap up the Target trip, and head over to Disneyland; Rachel wants to ride the Pirates ride once, and I'm hoping to meet a few new characters. |
| 3:56pm | On the tram over, we meet our first cast member, Nick. (Nick rides the back of trams and does the talking of stuff for things that aren't pre-recorded. |
| 4:08pm | Once inside the park, I have to admit being impressed at how not crowded the park is at this hour on a school day. |
| 4:11pm | I had the opportunity to meet Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, and cast member Daniel. |
| 4:15pm | I get to meet Gepetto and Pinocchio... the day is going well, indeed. |
| 4:29pm | The three of us head over and into Pirates and ride the ride. The line is short, although while we were assigned to row 5 in the boat, and only us, the row 6 people sat next to Tubby's left, causing both row 6 to be left empty, and to be quite smooshd into the boat. |
| 5:08pm | Talk of a dinner thing with the IT network folks (19 of us, plus me and Rachel) was discussed and planned for a place in Newport Beach, so yes, we're driving another 20 miles to dinner. We manage to meet Goofy, and cast member Naomi. Waiting for Pluto to be free for our picture together, I opted to perch on Goofy's enormous snout in the meantime. |
| 5:14pm | We leave the park, and Rachel does some shopping. Tubby and I loiter around the fountain. |
| 5:51pm | The three of us get back to the hotel, and lounge for 10 minutes before heading down to the lobby for the dinner thing. |
| 6:32pm | There's two car loads of folks going to the restaurant; Tubby, Rachel and I are in the second load (Tubby's driving). We get the car with eight adults in it (it seats eight), and were about three blocks away when #9 called for a ride. We looped back, and they all had to quadruple up in the back seat, which was none too comfortable. |
| 7:20pm | After a combination of doubling back for #9, traffic, and just plain ol' drive time in the Orange County area during the evening, it took us a while to get there... but the reservation of our party of 17 wasn't until 7:30pm. |
| 7:39pm | We were seated in the back in two sections, which worked out fine. |
| 9:55pm | We flew back from the restaurant to the hotel, dropping Peter, Simon, Jennifer off here as well as unloading me, Rachel and Tubby. We didn't get here until nearly 10:30pm, but at least sleep came quickly after for some of us. |