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Thursday May 17, 2001
"Speeches are like the horns on a steer: a point here, a point there, with a lot of bull in between."
florida, without Mickey or grass fires
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headaches, smoke, but it's over I feel awful when I get up. But I make it to the first session. I skip the next to get my stuff together for my own. Then I go to a speaker's 'feedback' lunch. Only I haven't yet spoken. I'm in the last regular session slot of the conference. I'm lucky, I suppose, that sixty people show up. I devise a way to shame them into not running out in the middle. Several people say it is good. But I don't get into the top ten rated sessions of the conference. But I was pleased with it. My head pounds, however. I go to a couple of other sessions and duly take notes. One of my colleagues is staying over for the evening. I make arrangements at the concierge desk for a reservation to eat some decent food. Then I go do an hour's more work. When we go out to dinner, the bellman seems to understand where we are going. He communicates with the cab driver who dumps us at what looks like (and is) a Disney version of the mall. Our restaurant isn't there. We find another cab who rips us off on price but, since we called the restaurant on the cell, does find the place. He wants us to call him back but we decide to take our chances with another random cab. We have a pleasant, slow meal with wine and after dinner drinks and coffee and the restaurant calls a cab for us. We see it wandering around looking for us and go across a parking lot until we meet up. The return trip is more reasonable. Except. The smoke. As we drive toward the hotel we enter a bank of smoke that creeps inside the cab. It's in the hotel lobby. It's in my room. I turn off the A.C. I put a wet towel along the bottom of the door. I imagine it helps. Gasp! I want a non-smoking room. A non-smoky room. Gag. It's been a long day. I hope I can sleep. I have to pack. Sigh.
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