Seatte - Part 1

Day 1

The flight to Seattle was fairly uneventful, especially considering half of my office was on the flight. The only thing worth noting was how weird my boss acted around everyone at the airport. and that he and other director practically sprinted away from the group at the baggage claim (presumable to avoid sharing a cab with anyone). Fine by me – but the whole thing was made especially funny (and awkward for them) when I rolled into the same hotel like 4 minutes after them (everyone else was in another hotel).

Setup at the convention center was going surprisingly ahead of schedule. And, Sam had made friends with one of the union guys so he kept giving us the scoop on Vancouver and how to get there. He actually seemed kind of shocked that we were going to Vancouver for so long, and this attitude seemed to carry over for the rest of the trip. Nevertheless, he gave some good tips – only regret is that I didn’t ask him for details about their cafes because I’m sure he would’ve known.

As the day winded down another coworker, whom we never hang out with, rolls over and asks if he can hang out with us because he was trying to ditch his crew. Obviously we couldn’t say no, plus I figured this would be an excellent opportunity for gossip. How right I was – guy hung out with us the rest of the trip and provided plenty of new gossip and contributed to several new fun stories.

For dinner the three of us made our way to a little Mexican restaurant where we had fish tacos and plenty of Margaritas. Halfway through dinner Sam noticed our AV guy sitting at the bar. Naturally, I ordered a shot for him, and it was highly entertaining when he got it. So, Asa came and sat with us and told us story after story of fellow coworkers. It’s amazing how much dirt someone who works peripherally for a company for so many years can gather. And, Asa is a master impersonator and even used to stand-up, so the stories were that much better.


Day 2

Set-up continued to go really smoothly and we finished in record time. With several hours left in the afternoon, we went to Pike’s Went to Pike’s Market for the second time in an attempted to catch a picture of them throwing fish this time. No such luck.

Then when Sam decided to be lame and head back to the Convention Center (yes I said that) I sat in the park for a bit by myself and enjoyed some people watching. After a bit I began getting chilly so I decided to go somewhere and read for a bit. Although we had passed the first ever Starbucks, I opted for a more appropriate 4pm venue and headed to a local pub, Vons. On my second beer, I pondered whether it was sad that on day 2 I was sitting at a bar by myself – I decided that it wasn’t since I was doing something a little productive like reading.

That night we decided to have dinner at the famous Seattle Space Needle. It was really a full proof plan to gain a great dinner and a sightseeing activity out of ASPS in one fell swoop. Overall it was a fairly good experience but truly not worth the money (but thankfully it wasn’t my money) – LaSandra’s pork was undercooked and then the waiter spilled an entire glass of water on Sam. But at least we had an opportunity to get a bunch of great pictures for Flat Max (a cardboard cutout of Rhonda’s nephew that she has been carrying around for the last 2 weeks).


Day 3

Fairly uneventful day. We went to the PS2009 Welcome Reception that evening and took tons of random pictures throughout.



Day 4

After 3 long days and 2 full days of work, Lindsey and I were planning on having a low key dinner and movie night…

Or at least until one of our meeting planners, AWs, called Sam to see if she wanted four free tickets to a soccer game that night. Obviously I was game, and with little effort, I managed to talk Lindsey and Jerime into accompanying me.

After 10 minutes of the game, they both knew they'd made the right decision. And after 20 minutes we were all official Sounder fans - we even have a scarf (thank you ASPS for the souvenir).

The Sounders won in the last 6 minutes or so, so it was quite an exciting victory. Naturally, we had to go out and celebrate. This several fun stories, but none should really be shared here (sorry).


Possibly more to come but this is it for now because I wrote this weeks ago...


Day 5

Rhonda tried to set Sam up with the GES man who has been married for a year. When Sam informed her that the dude was married, RoRo replied with “so, what does that matter.”

I love how concerned Rhonda is over our love lives.



Day 6

At about 7 am I got a text from Hill saying that her flight was actually scheduled for 9pm and not 9 am. Not a pleasant wake-up call.

I found out that amongst the 300 other things I am allergic too, I am officially allergic to cardboard. Yes, cardboard. At the beginning of the trip I broke out so bad Judy had to give me like 6 Benedryl. I thought it was a fluke but it happened again today after only a half hour.