Yesterday

I realized that I did not post about my adventures yesterday. It was a good day. I worked for most of the morning and through the afternoon. I should start at the beginning.

I got up when the alarm went off at 6:45 AM, hopped in the shower and got dressed. I then hung out in my room as we were not meeting for breakfast until 8:00AM. I got a little more work done.

I went down to breakfast at The Atrium and met up with the group. Just so you know, the group consists of Chet, Karl, Kristin, and Ivan. This is the group that almost always sets up Catalyst. We have been doing this for a couple years now. The breakfast was the general Euro hotel buffet breakfast. Their omlets were a little runny. Their scrambled eggs are a lot runny. I just cannot eat runny scrambled eggs. I can eat the omlets because I pretend the runny-ness is melted cheese. It is all good.

From there we went to the office and started stuffing bags. This took a couple hours of work. The conference guides were not included so they still must be stuffed into the bags, but we are going to have registration take care of that. At this point we are stacking boxes and clearing areas of trash so the rooms are clean (the room we are in will become three seperate rooms for the conference days). I look at my watch and it is after one. For lunch I have a cookie (provided by the hotel) and half of my leftover ham and cheese sandwich. The cookie is not very good. The ham and cheese sandwich is fine, the bread was a bit chewy. At this point the rest of the team has a pre-con meeting with the hotel so they go off to that. I do not want to go to the hotel meeting, so I stay in the office and work on some things for my day job.

About 20 minutes in to work, my internet goes down and I cannot get it back. After plating with it for a little while I decide to go to my room as I know that I can get a good signal there - or even plug in (they have a CAT-5 cable in the room). I pack up and take a couple minutes to figure out how to lock all the doors. FYI: Slide the card in twice quickly to lock doors. In my room I continue to work on a mix of Catalyst items (like external and internal presentations) and regular day job stuff. I found out that the company meeting recorded with no audio (still have to break this one to my boss) and took care of a bunch of consutling items (reviewing and posting the open report - I received a couple complete emails since I received the report). Right as I was finishing up I got an IM from KBeard that they were done, wireless was up in the office and they were all down working. Good times. I packed up and went down to the office.

In the office I was now in "finishing up" mode for the day. Shortly, KBeard states that we should get out of the hotel and see some sites. I am up for it, as I am done with work. Ivan has to work on some documents for his boss. As Ivan finishes up, I pack up and take my stuff upstairs. While upstairs I grab a jacket.

When I come back down everyone is ready to go. We head out in to Prague, my first walking tour. Everywhere else I have been I have taken a cab. We walk down some streets. The archiutecture is beautiful, and if I could get my pictures sent to me via my Blackberry I would be posting a ton. Just wait for me to get back to the US, I will be posting photos like crazy. Prague really is beautiful and we see many great spots. We go to old town square and see the astronomical clock. We walked halfway across the Charles Bridge. Typing all this now really wants me to be able show you pictures, but I cannot. Maybe I can get some pictures from someone else. One cool place, I did not go in (maybe next year) is the museum of midevel torture instruments. Sweet!

For dinner we stop at Maze Prague which is a Gordon Ramsey restaurant. Gordon Ramsey started the restaurant in Prague, and then opened one in New York, and finally this Prague one, that is still pretty new. The chef from the London location moved to Prague to start this one. It was pretty cool. I took a picture of my pork trio and I will post it (sometime in the future). It was pretty good. For an after dinner treat the restaurant gave us rose gelatin. Tasted exectly like what I would expect a rose to taste like. The consistency was horrible though and I did not finish mine. Karl ate two.

We walk back to the hotel and head up to the lounge to hang out for a while. We are watching a James Bond movie (in English) and we are making fun of it. One by one we head off to bed. I get to my room and talk to my wife and kids for a while. It is a good time. We got a lot done today. I have to start focusing on presentations and ensuring that all is done and ready for the conference from here on out.