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So, Friday morning, this chump (that’d be me) gets up at 4:20 am to catch his early morning flight to San Diego. So, I'm stuck on a cramped plane next to a family with small squirmy children. It seems to be a common thread to my travelling experience, but I'll get to that.
The girl working customs in Minnesota was kind of cute, but I found the rather large pistol she was equipped with most unattractive. Go figure
SOMEONE STOLE MY GUM IN MINNEAPOLIS!!!!!!!! Seriously. I had one of those bubble packs that are packed with foil, and I didn’t feel like being wanded by a security guard. Yes, I said wanded. Stop laughing.
I said stop it!
Okay, anyways, I put my gum along with my far more valuable metal objects (like my pen) on one of those little trays, and sent it following my backpack through the x-ray box. There was no gum on the tray when it emerged from the other side. Theives.
Then it was time to play "kill 2 and a half hours in the Minneapolis Airport." A phone call to Kaimia (hi Kai!!!) helped in that respect immensely, though I’m afraid I may have bored her to death with my astounding lack of anything interesting to say. Stupid sleep deprived brain.
Cue a three hour plane ride to San Diego with a nearby toddler screaming for a good two hours. Fun is a word I'd use VERY loosely describing that flight.
So, I get to the airport. I die of high humidity repeatedly. Josh’s flight was 1.5 hours late (way to catch a late plane, Josh
) so I spent a while waiting for he and Silverwind to show up, since according to Murphy's law, had I gone looking for them, I’d have missed them.As it was, it was easy to find them. I just had to look for the two people who looked just as confused as I'm pretty sure I did.
Cut to hotel (aka motel, aka craphole) after a fun (yes, I enjoyed my brush with doom) shuttle ride there. So, we're waiting for the lady to believe that Malinda (JustMe) had said we could check into our room.
A lovely lady wearing a LOT of pink comes in, and I recognize her immediately, though her saying "You must be James" and giving me a hug confirmed that it was in fact Appreciate. I don't remember exactly what I said in reply, but I’m pretty sure it was something incredibly witty like "Hi Kathy!"
We get checked in, and Kathy leads(?) us into downtown San Diego for food. We stopped at some Mexican food place, and ate delicious.... something. I sure don’t remember what I had. It tasted good, and Kathy wasn't lying when she said the "hot" salsa was really very hot.
Random Note of Amusement: We went to Horton Plaza in search of batteries for Josh's camera. They have a store called "Hot Topic". I laughed.
So, back to the "hotel," where we arrive just ahead of Rov, Monique, Malinda, Zephyr and Lil. Hugging ensues. Rov already has his notepad out. While they get checked in, Kathy goes and talks to the front desk people about getting us into the breakfast room early.
Hotels without central air conditioning suck. Just thought y'all should know. (I just used the word "y'all".
) I did however, seat myself next to the AC unit in the breakfast room for an hour while we talked and plotted, etc. Oh, and bought beer and filled a cooler with ice. Watching EIers get drunk is hilarious, I must say. Supper arrived at roughly the same time both Jon and KRAD showed up, and (bless them) they started drinking beer. This of course made me think very highly of both of them. (Some people don’t like beer, the weirdos)
Aside from everyone holding forth on What's Wrong with the World (and Drom) Today™ not much really happened that’s entirely worth going into detail about it. Many a jab was traded. A large group of (mostly) drunk people went off to buy more alcohol.
Richie showed off his most impressive High Guard uniform. Lil made fun of Kevin Sorbo's Forcelance techniques with Richie's lance. Later on, he came back wearing only half the costume. [Edited to clarify: He was wearing a t-shirt with the costume pants. So far as I know, he's not actually an exhibitionist. Now minds firmly out of gutter please]
I made some remark about it being casual Friday on the Andromeda, since by this point my brain-to-mouth filter was mostly off.Some time later, Monique and I organized a search party (us) and went looking for them. As we predicted, they came back another way, and we never found them until we got back to the "hotel" too, but it was a nice walk, and San Diego is very cool to walk through at night. And I'd never been to a grocery store with that big a liquor selection, AND a theft detection gate.
So we arrive back to find that we're being booted from the breakfast room. Kathy is off "talking" with the hotel staff for the umpteenth time that night (she has this endearing 'angry smile' for when she's annoyed. She was wearing it most of that time.)
Anyhow, it was up to Lil and Zephyr's room! I get to carry the heavy cooler up the stairs. Again. But that seemed to be my main job while at the hotel, so….
Usmarox had an ingenious straw system set up for drinking beer faster, though I'm not sure anyone needed to drink faster by that point. (A couple people had already passed out I think)
I finally headed to bed, about an hour before most others, when I realized I'd been up for 20 hours straight. And after Monique told me I should go to bed for the 5th time. And stuff.
Edited by Jid, 23 July 2003 - 03:45 AM.
Your tale of the stolen gum was amusing. 
(I pity her for having to remove those later on. Duct Tape + Skin = BADBADBAD)
Wish you could have made it!
