The first leg of my flight -- from Spokane to Seattle -- was fine, but the connection to Dulles was delayed for three hours. I didn't end up leaving until nearly 4:00 pm Saturday afternoon. I did one thing from this situation however -- the north satellite terminal at Seatac is not the place to be at noon on a Saturday. It's a mess. People everywhere. 20-minute line for lunch. And worst of all, short tempers.
With three hours to kill, I took refuge in a Laptop Lane cubicle/office. It was my first time using them, but I was very impressed. I had a small private office closed off from the outside world. It was outfitted with a small desk, an HP desktop system, flat-panel monitor, printer/fax, telephone, T1 connection, and a spare ethernet port for your own system. It was great. I was in my own little world.
The flight to Dulles was uneventful. I got a couple hours of sleep and after my reading light konked out, I watched the end of the movie Hidalgo without headphones (It made me curious enough to want to check out the DVD later). We landed at 11:30 pm and Brad and his son Max promptly picked me up at the airport. The huge change in humidity was very evident right away.
With only a few hours of sleep in the past two days, I didn't make it very long after getting settled in at Brad's house. It was a long day, and I was asleep instantly.
Saturday morning saw the arrival of several more colleagues. Just before noon we began the first of our day of meetings. Sure, technically it's considered work, but it was pleasant. To give you an idea of the tone for the day, check out the photo.
Brad's wife prepared a wonderful feast for dinner, capped nicely with brownies and ice cream. We had one more short meeting to wrap up some loose-ends, then ended the day's business.
I'm blogging now after watching a video of 50 First Dates -- a nice, funny movie -- with Brad's family (including the dogs), but this'll about do it for me.
Another day is done. Just two more work days to go before the fun part of the trip begins.