So to start this whole thing off, I switched my flight to an earlier departure so that I could make the Speaker Dinner. It's about 0-dark-30, and my flight leaves in a couple of hours. Last night, I had everything packed in my soft hanging bag, but I apparently decided to use my hard roller bag instead.
I's not a good time to re-pack.
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Wife is driving me to the airport.
I hate being late.
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Made it to the airport, and I have a few minutes before we button up and depart. There's nobody on this plane. Just about everyone gets their own row. My flight departs at 8:25 am; it started boarding at 7:55 am; I made it to the Southwest counter at 7:45. The agent said, "You're cutting it close. Do you want to just carry your bag with you?" But I have liquids in it, and I didn't want to chance getting hung up in security. So I checked my bag. Agent told me it may not make it. Fun. At least I have the rest of the day if it didn't make the plane. Shoulda just brought it as a carry-on.
Got held up in screening after all. I'm carrying two laptops, a Kindle Fire, a couple of USB portable drives, cables, and other tech crap. This is my first time to speak in-person at a conference; I don't know what I need. Regardless, apparently the x-ray machines don't like all that junk in your backpack. I guess because of COVID, they're being very cautious about opening bags and looking at people's stuff, so they ran my bag through three different times.
When I got to my gate, the plane was already boarding. I was in the A Group (thank god I paid for Early Bird Check-in), and the agent boarded me right away.
I'm sitting in my seat and looking at a baggage cart driving up to the plane. I don't see my bag. :-|
One note: I thought I brought my USB-C cable so I could charge my phone. It's not in my backpack. I hope it's in my suitcase, and I hope my suitcase isn't still sitting in Nashville.
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In the air and on my way to Houston. Should be slightly less than two hours. Time to go through my preso again.
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Ugh. Audio is way low. I'll want to record this again.
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I made it to Houston, and my bag actually came along for the ride! Happy Day! The benefit of being one of the last bags loaded onto the plane is that it's one of the first to come down the line in Baggage Claim. However.....
... didn't know my poor bag was gonna get tagged with a bright yellow LATE tag so that everyone knows I'm a slacker. :-|
Anyway... the conference is at the Hyatt Place in The Woodlands, which is about half an hour away from the airport. It's still early, so I've got plenty of time to find an Uber.
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And that didn't take long. One was available in about 7 minutes.
Sitting in the car and realizing my return flight is REALLY EARLY. And apparently you can schedule an Uber in advance, so I've now got one scheduled to meet me at my hotel at 5AM on Saturday morning. Glad I was able to find someone to take the ride. I really hope they show up. That's early.
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I made it to the hotel at about 11:30 am. Check-in wasn't supposed to be for a couple more hours, but they let me go ahead and check in anyway. Thank goodness, again. The Speaker Dinner isn't until 6:30, meeting in lobby at 6:15 to walk down to the restaurant. I'm exhausted. As soon as I finish this note, I'm gonna unpack my stuff and take a nap.
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So I didn't exactly nap like I intended. After I unpacked, I turned the TV on and kinda dozed. The Cowboys were playing on the TV, and I remember thinking (in that strange not-quite-awake-but-not-quite-asleep-either way) that it was odd because I didn't think they were playing an early game this week. Besides, it isn't Thursday. It's just Wednesday. Has to be. The conference is Thursday and Friday. Surely I didn't sleep straight through the first day of the conference. I'm glad I'm speaking on Day 2.
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That thought woke me up pretty well. It's about 5 pm, so I apparently dozed for a while. I've got enough time to write up some notes and get ready for dinner.
Oh, and apparently I had the TV on the NFL Network and was watching a rerun of last week's game. That makes A LOT more sense.
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Dinner was at Goode Company Kitchen and Cantina (a Tex-Mex restaurant a couple of blocks from the hotel). Ortus blocked us a room, and a good thing, too. The place was pretty busy. I sat with Daniel Garcia, Seth Stone, Grant Copley (from Nashville, too) and John Farrar. These are all some pretty smart guys. I've met John and Daniel (briefly at previous conferences) and I knew Grant from the Nashville CF User Group. He came out a couple of times. We need to meet up for lunch when we all get back home. I have a few questions I'd like to bounce off him. This was the first time I met Seth. I think. I may have crossed paths with him at conferences before. Each of these guys are giving some pretty cool talks tomorrow and/or Friday.
Ortus gave us a nifty little fanny pack swag bag with a bunch of stickers, a bottle of hand sanitizer, a hand-made ornament (I'm guessing from El Salvador), a Salvadoran chocolate bar, and an At-Home COVID Test (gotta be safe). Plus, we each got an ITB 2021 T-Shirt! It feels kinda nice to actually restock my wardrobe; last year was killing me. :-)
All in all, the conversation was pretty awesome, and the food was extremely good. Despite the self-inflicted headaches and rush this morning, I'm glad I switched flights so I could make it to the dinner.
After dinner broke up, we headed back to the hotel. Fortunately, there was a gas station right across the street, so I got myself a couple of bottles of water.
I wanted to record my preso again, but I'm kinda tired. I think I'll go take a hot shower and go to bed. Tomorrow starts Day 1 of the conference!
Oh, and I found my USB-C cable. It was inside a bag that was inside my laptop bag. Ugh.
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