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Well, perhaps I was a bit ambitious when I said I’d blog the next day. Next day, next week/month… whatever. It’s all pretty much the same.

So here’s my promised Seattle writeup, but it’s almost time to go home for the day, so it’s going to be pretty short and generally not funny (much like Eric).

Wednesday (trip-out-day): I got to the airport around 10:30am. I was through security and at my gate by 10:45. Gotta love a sparsely populated airport (Des Moines International (they fly to Canada, and Canada is another nation (for very small values of ‘another nation’))). Then I sat there for a couple of hours, caught a quick flight to Minneapolis, and sat ~there~ for four hours. But I bought a book and a beer, so I was okay. Then I sat on the plane for ~another~ hour and a half while they figured out how to make the plane flap its wings or whatever the hell they do up front, then flew to Seattle, landing around 8:15pm Seattle time. Justin and his new girlie Danielle picked me up, and we went to dinner somewhere along a waterfront.

Thursday: Woke up around 6:30am, got ready, and headed for the conference. The conference ROCKED. I had a really, really good time, and I hope to get out to it again next year. If you’re a web-type guy and ever have the chance to attend An Event Apart: Do so. You will not regret it. That night I went to the afterparty (hosted by (mt) Media Temple) and drank way too much. Way. Too much. Stumbled back to Justin’s place. I may have bought some sushi on the way home.

Friday: More conference goodness, though it felt less good what with my swimming head and all. I felt a little better once I got some yogurt in me, which is pretty much exactly what you wouldn’t expect to happen, but whatever works. I had lunch with more cool people (even exchanged brief hellos with Mike Davidson), attended more conference, and then went home. There was an afterparty that night as well, but I decided I’d had enough alcohol for the time being. I fell asleep on the couch around 9:30pm, woke up at 11pm, and helped Justin work on his computer until 2 in the morning.

Saturday: Toured the city with Justin and Danielle. We had lunch at the Pike Place market, visited tons of cool shops, and then headed to the Mariners game and met a couple of Danielle’s friends there. The Mariners kicked arse, winning 9-1. I got my photo taken with a digital moose. Afterwards, we all headed to Justin’s place to drink some more. I got to bed a little after 1am.

Sunday (trip-back day): Alarm went off at 4:30am. Ugh. I kicked Danielle out of the bathroom, showered as quickly as I could at that hour (read: not quickly), and Justin drove me to the airport. I flew from Seattle to Memphis (it was ~humid~ there~), ran across the ENTIRE length of the terminal, and caught a plane halfway back across the country to Des Moines. I landed around 3pm. Amanda picked me up, took me home, and we headed out to dinner.

So! It was a really good trip all around. If you’re interested in more details about the conference itself, email me. I’ll spare you the gritty details here. The same goes for any alcohol-related stories you might be interested in (brief teaser: when the open bar finally closed, I had eight mixed drinks and two shots in front of me). Life has been pretty event-filled lately, so I’ll try to update more often to keep you all in tha loop!

I feel like I’ve had a fairly productive week so far, life-wise. To celebrate, I made you this list.

One: I started a new diet this week in an attempt to lose a bit of nonessential body fat. To make the diet more fun and exciting, I created a spreadsheet. Perhaps I’m the only one (on earth) that thinks spreadsheets are cool, but whatever. I could use the additional motivation. My spreadsheet automatically estimates my resting metabolic rate (RMR) based on my age (to the day), height, and weight (to the day), and then estimates my caloric deficits or surpluses (jebus forbid!) based on what I eat and how I exercise. In short, it rocks. I’m shooting for a 1000 - 1200 calorie deficit per day, which would mean I’d lose 2 - 2 ½ pounds a week. It’s only day four, but so far I’m doing pretty good, and I’m feeling optimistic.

B: I’ve booked my flight to Seattle. :) I’ll fly out of Des Moines around noon on Wednesday, June 20 and land in Seattle around 7pm (following a 4-hour layover in Minneapolis). I’ll spend Thursday and Friday attending the ever-so-awesome An Event Apart conference, and Saturday seeing the sights and hanging out with Justin. I fly out of Seattle at 7-o-freaking-clock the morning of Sunday (June 24), change plans in Memphis for reasons beyond my understanding, and land in Des Moines around 3:30pm. Sucky flights aside, the trip itself should be a blast.

Tres: I’ve signed up for an 8-week Spanish class starting next Wednesday evening through the Des Moines Public Schools Community Education program. I’ll be taking the class with friend AnneJanotta, so it should be fun. This class will be useful for many reasons, including 1) Friend Hannah and Girlfriend Zinger already speak Spanish, 2) Amanda and I said we’d join a club each this summer and I’m counting this as mine, and 3) Hannah is importing her boyfriend from Costa Rica some time yet this summer, and since I hear his English is pretty bad, I figure to be fair my Spanish should be equally bad.

4: I planted four pepper plants of various toxicity today. This probably isn’t as big a deal as the other three, but it still made me happy. :) They’re a little droopy, so I’m hoping they’ll rejuvenate in the next few days. Even if they don’t, our tomatoes are looking great, the green peppers are doing well, and all of the herbs have pulled through a shaky start. Go team Robanda!

Infinity plus one: Oh, and Miles had his first obedience class Tuesday. They loaned us a gentle leader collar to try out, and let me tell you, it makes a ~huge~ difference. My initial reservations have faded.

Adios!

The conference still goes. I’m having a pretty darn good time, although it is punctuated with moments of homesickness. I’m missing the girlfriend, mostly. I spend a lot of time reflecting on the excitement I’m feeling at any given moment and wishing she were here to share in that excitement with me. Never mind the fact that were she here, she’d probably be bored to tears by the stuff I’m excited about. ;) It’d still be nice were she around. If anything, this is too big a hotel room for one person.

I’ve accidentally met some pretty cool people doing some pretty cool things. I just got done having lunch with the CTO of Gawker Media, which is one of the world’s biggest blogging media companies. Yesterday, I had lunch with a guy that works for Boeing whose job is to come up with new ideas. I’m pretty jealous of that job. I also met the guy in charge of “media” for Myspace. As you can imagine, there’s a lot of media on Myspace. We discussed various ways of implementing a service they’re planning to roll out in the future that I don’t think I’m really supposed to talk about.

I’m also enjoying myself outside of the conference, hanging out with my old friend Lorenzo. Last night we had a drink at the Top of the Hyatt (photo upwards), which gives a great view of the San Diego bay area (I’m told you can see all the way to Mexico when it isn’t so cloudy). Afterwards, we wandered around the Gas Lamp district and stopped in a Mexican restaurant called Los Pancheros for dinner. Tonight, he and I are thinking about hitting up a hooka bar, since neither of us has ever been to one. Tomorrow, we’re planning on doing lunch on a beach somewhere north of the city. And Thursday night, we’ll be partying it up in Tijuana. He’s already planning on taking Friday off of work. I’m just hoping I’m in decent enough condition to fly out that afternoon. :)

Well, break time is over. Time to get back to the learnin’. My brain is already fairly near its saturation point, so I’m hoping the afternoon presenters take it a little easier on me.

I made it to San Diego, for those of you who care (and I’m hoping that this group contains, well… someone, at the least). :)

Photo featured yonder is a snapshot of part of my room, taken from the entrance to my kitchen. Not visible: my kitchen (obviously), my giant-ass bathroom and my office. In other words, my room fairly well rocks. They were nearly full up when I got here (which is a long and adventuresome story in itself, which I hope to share some-other-day), so they stuck me in a half of a suite. Meaning, my bed isn’t much to look at (it folds down out of a faux-wardrobe), but my room is pretty rockin’. Its square footage is pretty close to my house, anyways.

Most notable moment thus far: I was walking out of the airport, towards the taxi area, and I caught myself thinking that really, San Diego wasn’t much different from Des Moines. In fact, it was about 10 degrees warmer in Des Moines when I left. So what was the big deal about California? And then I saw it: a palm tree. I’ve never seen a palm tree in real life before. :) That is how I recognized that I was no longer, in fact, in Iowa.

And now it’s time for bed. I’ve need to be up by around 7am, methinks. I’ll write towards you again when I get a chance.

Well, AmandaMarie is still in California, and was having a good time, last I heard. I got a drunken text sometime Saturday evening to let me know that “OMG I just saw Bruce Willis!”, and I got another text just before 6am my time (4am their time) this morning to let me know they were waiting in line for tickets. We’ve yet to have a real conversation just yet, but hey. That’s Cali for ya.

Speaking of transitions, now would be a good time to announce my own little trip to California. August Home is sending me to the 2007 O’Reilly Emerging Technology conference! I’ll fly out of Des Moines on Sunday, March 25th, and get back in to town late evening on Friday, March 30th. I’ll spend the time between those dates in lovely San Diego, California. :)

I’m excited about this trip for many, many reasons. First, I’ve never been to a real business-type conference before, and this is a pretty good one to cut my teeth on. There will be interesting speakers, and interesting people, and interesting… I dunno, drinking? Beats me. But it’ll be interesting regardless.

Second, I’ve never been to the southwest United States before and, let’s face it, if you’re going to find yourself anywhere in the southwest, the California coast ain’t a bad way to go. Plus I’ve never seen a legitimate ocean (though I’ve seen two harbors (Boston, New York) and a sound (Seattle) now), and this trip will definitely fix that for me.

Third, this will be only my 3rd and 4th commercial flights (numbers 1 and 2 being to and from Seattle last March). Although, if you count swapping planes as separate flights, I’ll technically be making ~four~ flights this trip, effectively tripling my commercial flight exposure. I’m on my way to becoming a veteran, ladies and genties.

Fourth and by no means the least, I’ll be spending all five of my nights in San Diego at the extraordinarily fantabulous Manchester Grand Hyatt, which is literally a hundred feet or so from the beaches (putting the ocean within theoretical spitting distance from the top floor of the taller tower). Also, this is where the conference is being held, so go me on that one. Also also, it’s only 3 miles or so from the airport, meaning the probability of a cabbie being able to screw up the drive is pretty minimal. Also also also, it’s within close walking distance of the Gaslamp Quarter, which is where I plan to spend my evenings.

The only real downsides? Good question. Well, I’m going this trip alone. I’ve never taken a big trip like this on my lonesome before, so that has me a touch nervous. I’m sure I’ll meet people and be charismatic and social and all of those lovely words, but still. A touch of anxiety at the outset. And… okay, so that’s really the worst of it. I’ll miss Amanda, if this week is any indication, but turnabout is fair play.

In other words, this is shaping up to be a rockin’ trip. ETech, I hope you’re ready for me. :)