Saturday Is A Special Day

Yesterday was Saturday. That is a pretty obvious beginning isn't it. All of these end-of-day reviews are coming the next day. Usually I am too tired to type all of this at midnight before I go to bed. Last night I could have typed, but I could not get connectivity in my room and I did not want to go down to the office. I actually called Diana on my cell phone and talked for 20 minutes. At 99 cents a minute. She had some news (that I am barred from blogging about) so we had things to chat about.

Saturday started out like any other day. I woke up. I actually woke up a little late as I had forgotten to set my alarm clock. I was not late for anything, I just got up later that I usually do. I like to get up at 6:45 AM. I woke up at 7:15AM. The extra half-hour of sleep was nice. I got up and got ready for the day and went down to breakfast around 8:30.

At breakfast I am eating some fried potatoes, bacon, sausage (not the chicken one), and a ham, green peppers, and cheese omlet. I have had that breakfast everyday so far. It is tasty. I also have a couple of glasses of orange juice during breakfast. Not on Saturday though, the drink lady hated our table and never came and re-filled our drinks.

After breakfast it was time to work, and work we did. As the rest of the team worked on logistics I took care of BG presentations and USB drives. I finally got the final missing internal presentation and was able to create all the USB drives on Saturday. That is cool. This task does not usually get completed until Sunday. All during this time various Burtonians are coming in from touring or just arriving from the airport. It is always nice to catch up with people that you do not see very often. Hearing peoples airplane and touring stories never gets old either. One person came in and told us all about a tour he went on and that he was able to drive a Tribant (spelling?). He gave us the URL for this tour company, and it turns out that they specialize in "stag" weekends. Whenever you go to a website that has headings like "Stripper In A Limo" you have to start worrying that Human Resources is going to be contacting you. It was a good time. Of course, most of the good times happened after this unnamed person left and we started checking the website and were able to make jokes. By the way, we have a couple people that will be taking tours from this same person after the conference.

It is now time for lunch and we head over to the Imperial Cafe, which is inside the Imperial Hotel. The Imperial Hotel was built in 1914 and is known for its art deco look. It is very nice and they had a tile design on the ceiling. There was also goose neck faucets in the restrooms. I have pictures of all this to post (whenever I can post them). We then walk back to the Hilton for more work.

One thing about travelling internationally is that you forget what day it is and what day of the week it is. I don't know if this happens to everyone or just me, but it is very disconcerting. All of a sudden you think it is Sunday and that you are behind. Half an hour later you think it is Friday and that you have more time to work on something. Hopefully once the conference starts I can keep it all together.

We work for a couple more hours and finally get the space to start setup. I am still working on presentations so everyone else heads down to setup. By the time I finish my task, the work downstairs is almost complete. I help out with a couple small things and it is time for dinner. Half the group does not come and we also call the CEO of BG to see if he wants to come with us, he does.

We go out to a nice Czech dinner. It is good. I have really liked the Czech food that I have eaten so far. When I was in Barcelona I didn't really eat the food because I am not a seafood guy. In Prague I can manage, they are mostly a meat and potatoes kind of town. We have a good dinner with conversation ranging from Euro-Disney to our Catalyst Conference to [enter Ivan's plane story here]. You really have to talk to Ivan about his plane story. It is getting better and better. Ivan had his best yet retelling during this dinner. Way to go Ivan!

We head back to the hotel and it is late. Not too late though. We head to the lounge and watch "The Mist" in Czech. We really do not know what is going on, but it was fun to watch. We also just sat around and talked. The Mist was about half over when we started, so it's not like we watched the whole thing in Czech. I also had a hot chocolate during the show. A hot chocolate in Prague is like warm chocolate pudding. We had the idea of adding whipped cream and then stirring it in to dilute the chocolate a little. It worked OK, but by the time I was half-way through my drink it was pudding again. These Euros have got to figure out the whole hot chocolate thing, and hopefully soon.

It was finally time to head to the room for some sleep. I got in there and my laptop would not connect to the network to call Diana via Skype, so I called her on the cell phone. I sure do miss the family. You don't know how much you rely on these people for a brightness to your day until they are halfway around the world and you only get to talk with them for 10 or 20 minutes at a time. Good news is that the conference is quickly approaching and then the days burn through like wildfire. Before you know it it is time to go home.

Home...what a wonderful thought.