Day One: Cautionary

Okay, so I have just literally fled, I do mean literally, the hospitality suite at the hotel where many of my coworkers and industry contacts are boozing it up. I'm one of the planners, a representative of "authority" - it's my job to order everyone to show up for mandatory breakfast at 7:00 a.m. - and I want to party it up just as bad as anybody else... I think the worst part is that everyone can clearly tell that I was made for partying, not for ordering perfectly innocent coworkers out of their beds at an ungodly hour!

And yet - and this is where, I'm not trying to be too immodest, but this is where my actual superpower comes in - I genuinely understand why we have all the fugly stickly regulations, and am prepared to defend them, sympathetically, until everyone else understands them just as well and follows them voluntarily, no matter how much rum they had tonight.

But first I have to perform a James-Bond-esque escape from the hospitality room, trying desperately not to spill my Sprite, zig-zagging down the corridor, reaching the elevator scarcely ahead of my laughing pursuers, and punching the button for my floor repeatedly until the doors close, I heave a sigh of relief, and find my way back safely to my room. Don't answer the phone!!!

Highlight of the day, earlier: dinner at a lake house and boating on the lake, courtesy of the host CVB, went to hell when the boat ran out of gas in the middle of the lake, stranding a dozen of our attendees. I feel bad for the CVB, who did indeed double-and-triple-check with the boat rental company that they had a full tank. Certainly not the CVB's fault. Nothing trumps rampant incompetence. Nothing. Do you hear me? Write it down! You really might need to remember it later.

Tomorrow I have an exceptionally early morning, and no business being awake this late. So good night, sweet, reader(s) - and tomorrow is another day! I brought running shoes for the hospitality room.