Seattle

I'm back!

Of course, I missed the girls and Evan tremendously, but I would be completely lying if I said I didn't have a great time. It was a fabulous trip! Swank hotel, top restaurant meals, amazing sponsored parties, lots of visits with old colleagues and friends from two of my past jobs, and much too much to drink - what's not to enjoy? Oh yeah, the conference itself was pretty good, too ;)

First of all, the food was phenomenal. We ate at a really great restuarant our first night there, and that set the tone for the rest of the trip. Everything in Seattle is about seafood and Asian food, so I was in heaven. Night number two was spent chowing down on sushi at the HP party, followed by D2L's party at the top of the Space Needle, where we enjoyed endless champagne, an amazing raw bar and, interestingly enough, an oxygen bar (I had never done that before - definitely fun). They also had wii stations set up all over the party, so I got quite the workout bowling and playing tennis. Thursday night, my one coworker and I capped off the trip by hitting a tiki bar immediately after the last session, then proceeding to the Educause event at the museum of flight, and then meeting up with a bunch of people we knew at one of the hotel bars. Definitely a good time, but I will say that drinking until 2am when you have to leave for the airport at 6am was not one of my smartest moves. I did it, though, and in the process, earned the respect of my younger, heartier and lushier coworker, who pronounced me a rock star at some point in the night. Yay for me. I may have really wanted to curl up and die at some point during the flight, but I never let on.

I really had a good time traveling with my two coworkers. The last trip we took together in the summer of 2006 was such a miserable experience for a number of reasons, and so I had very low expectations about how it would be to travel with them. However, we really had a great time. They were up for just about anything, from sightseeing to early morning latte runs and walks on the waterfront to closing the bars down on Thursday night.

One of the highlights of the trip also was meeting up with my boss from three jobs ago - at Cognitive Arts. He's now in a very prominent position at a well-known foundation. I hadn't seen in him since 2000. We planned to meet for lunch, and I'll admit I was a little nervous about how it would go, but it was great. He's still the same Michael, and we fell back in step as if we had just seen eachother a few months ago. Since we last saw eachother, we've each had two kids, so it was kind of a trip to spend our time together talking about things like potty training and carseats and private vs. public kindergarten. Anyway, it was great to see him, and I look forward to catching up with him again next year at Educause again.

So, that was the trip. I have more to write about other stuff, but I'll save it for another post. I'm beat and ready for bed!