On the road again!

But only to DC this time. Someone should have slapped me when I suggested we'd save money by doing IMPI's symposium locally. I hate DC. Sure, it's nice for a great night of theater, or perhaps a day on the Mall, but overall, dislike it. Mean people. Crappy drivers. Nonstop traffic in every direction.

So I check into the hotel after 7 hours on the road today (from RVA to MD back to DC - should have been more like 4 tops). I'm handed a nifty slip of paper that informs me that a "routine maintenance" will occur between 3 and 5 am tomorrow morning. It's now 9. Crap. The maintenance of course involves fire alarms, power outage and flashing lights. Oddly enough, I've been to this hotel ONCE before, and it resulted in a 5:30 am fire-alarm wake up call. I'm not a fan of this hotel now. It's official.

I retire to my room and wait an hour for the usual bottle of wine to appear (when you give the hotel 60 or so thousand dollars of business they usually give you a bottle of wine and perhaps a cheese tray) and finally give up at 10:15, get in the PJs and start working. Of course then the knock comes... 10:17.

A 2006 Cab... not bad, but not to die for. It can wait for another night. But this tray of, um, stuff. Now this I must investigate. A brown squishy object, lumpy greyish glob, soggy biscotti and some squishy pecans. Now this is a new one.

Of course I have to try it all anyway. Squishy brown object is perhaps a spiced pear, aged 1 month. Greyish glob is applesauce, and not the good kind. Soggy biscotti... well, it's soggy. Pecans - one bite and I spit it out. And I do NOT spit out food. Gagging and looking for comfort, my eyes settle on the bottle of wine.

Wine in hand, I return to my beloved PJ's, log onto the computer (no free WiFi? What is this, 2002?!). But I figure, eh, what the heck. I'll be up at 3 am anyway... might as well call it a night, screw around on FaceBook and write a blog entry. I'm so far behind on work that another three to four hours will make no difference.

With that I'm off... another fabulous week of international meeting intrigue officially under way. At least there's no opportunity for lost luggage this go round.