Last week marked my second-ever business trip. It was to the same place as my first business trip, for largely the same reason, but it played out rather differently.
For the second September in a row, my boss sent me to Santa Monica to learn how to create more effective presentations. I was excited about this, because I'm actually helping to build presentations, and I don't feel I'm particularly good at them. So every little tutorial helps.
Last year, I arrived on the weekend, rented a car and stayed with family. I spent my days in the office and my evenings with a motley assortment of friends and relatives from various past lives. It was fun, but I felt rather as if I were shortchanging the office because I was off doing my own thing pretty much every day as soon as my 8 hours were clocked.
So this year, I arrived on a Tuesday and took a cab from the airport to my hotel, which was three blocks from the office. I washed my face and hied myself to the office, where I made a colossal effort to wander around saying hello to people I ordinarily only commune with via email, and then I settled in to get some work done.
I was pretty wiped out that night, so I wandered up to Pico and Main and opted for a gourmet meal from Jack in the Box wherein I sampled all my favorites and after which I was unhappily full. I miss Jack in the Box, y'all.
Next morning, I woke up at 5:30 and wished I could fall back asleep, but then the Young Prince's doctor called my cellphone to tell me his appointment was canceled. Unfortunately, Not Your Average Blogger was already halfway to their office and I think he was probably 3/4 of the way there before he noticed my text. So at that point I gave up, got up, and went into work, where I breakfasted in the office cafeteria and did a little bit of "real work" before going to my training seminar.
The seminar was interesting. It was half new material and half retread. It also netted me another copy of a book I already had. If anyone wants a copy of Slide:ology, I know a guy who knows a guy...
After that, I went out with some colleagues and discovered the following:
- Bar Pintxo in Santa Monica has excellent sangria.
- I do not like tapas.
- I especially do not like tapas involving mussels.
- I do like beer.
We wound up across the street at Kings Head pub, where we met up with my college friend Cynthia. We had a great time catching up, she got on great with my co-workers, and I learned the following:
- The more Boddingtons you drink, the better it tastes.
- Trivia nights are fun.
- I suck at trivia nights and spend half the time going, "Frack! NYAB would know that!"
- I have not entirely forgotten the lesson that when "one more drink" sounds like a good idea, it's probably not.
After coming in second and getting a gift certificate we couldn't use that night, my compatriots decided it would be a good idea to traipse down to the beach. I was not enthused as I had my laptop and 500 lbs of work papers with me, but I went along anyway because I figured the walk would do me good. It certainly didn't hurt me any, although I maintain that the Pacific is too damn cold to go jumping around in, particularly in my work clothes. Eventually we all meandered back up the hill and parted ways for the night.
After about five hours of sleep, I woke up next morning feeling strange — not sick, no headache, just sort of spaced out and slow. I spent a half-hour wondering if this is what hangovers feel like as an old person, and was halfway to the office before I realized that no, I was just really, really tired. I loaded up on caffeine and plowed through the day, going back to my room a wee bit early in hopes of a nap, but instead talking to NYAB and the YP before going out for the night with another college friend, Sharidan, who works in The Industry. She regaled me with awesome swag and tales of drama from the editing rooms of Breaking Bad and Witches of East End, and after an hour and a half in the car, we had made it the 18 miles to Los Feliz, where we went to The Rockwell Theater and saw the Baz Luhrman show, which was very impressive, as was the food.
After another six hours of sleep, it was Friday and my last day on the Left Coast. I made another round of face-to-face meetings with people, including lunch with a project editor I work with on a fairly regular basis, and then I made my way to the airport with 15 minutes before my plane boarded — only to learn my flight was delayed an hour. This put me into Dulles at 1:40 a.m., at which time there were no cabs and 30 people looking for one, with one poor cab-stand guy shrieking into a walkie talkie that HE NEEDED RIDES NOW, and the dispatcher snotting at him that they'd be there when they got there. All in all, this put me home at 3, where for some dumb reason all the menfolk were still awake. I think we all finally crashed around 4, and slept until noon, glorious noon.
To wrap up this week of excitement, we had tickets to Saturday night's Nats game. As it turned out, the kid got sick, so we left him with NeighborGirl (who isn't really our neighbor anymore, but that's OK), and then the game was rained out anyway, so we came home and watched Almost Famous.
It is now almost Tuesday and I feel mostly recovered, although I now need a week to catch up on all the things I skipped doing over the weekend in favor of sleep. Here's hoping for a week of humdrum.
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