Back in town from DC, and finally getting back into a little bit of a groove. The trip had the usual ups and downs. Seeing friends and being in DC again is always nice. This time, work ranged from really enthralling and fun (discussing architecture for the new system with Jol and Steffen, even though Jol and I were not on the same page and I didn’t understand half of what he said) to just plain terrible — Thursday had three meetings, the shortest of which lasted 90 minutes (thank you, Trent) and the longest of which was just under three hours (Janette can talk, even though I like her enthusiasm). At the end of Thursday, I went to the hotel and worked on getting the damn Cisco VPN client working (I’ll save that for another journal entry entirely, titled something like “I hate computers”) and decided I needed a nap. Laid down at 7:30 and woke up at 5:30 the next morning. Nice.
Best part of the trip back was my reception at Marta. The flight was better than most from DC – I was the window (no great views this time, though) and the woman in the middle was small, so everybody was nice and comfortable. I read from take-off to landing (Ball Four is still awesome) and even remembered the ear plugs this time. After waiting to get my bags for what seemed to be as long as the flight itself, I hopped on Marta. (Another side note… I have a new entry for the hater blog, people who know each other yet sit on opposite isles of a transit system and yell to each other. Fuckers.) When I got to Arts Center station and to the top level platform, Katy’s car was at the curb. She saw me and jumped out and ran over and hugged and kissed me. Awesome stuff.
The weekend was pretty fun. The weather has been amazing here (60s/70s) so I washed my ride and spent some time outside. Had dinner and played games with Josh and Christy, which was a great time. Also, sold the old hooptie! Woot! Got $2100 for it, which was probably a better deal for the buyer than for us, but we were glad to get it. The guy who bought it was 18 years old and a waiter and must have kept a pillow full of cash in his room. $2100 in cash, $300 of which was ones, fives and tens. At least 100 one dollar bills. The stack was about four inches tall when stacked up and held together with rubber bands. We gave the money to Katy’s parents, since they gave us the car and paid for our wedding and are just awesome. Felt good to give them the money, especially considering they are trying to get their kitchen floor redone.
Back to the grind… for a few days at least. We leave for Colorado Thursday to ski with Troy and Elaine, and it’s all I can think of right now.