Close Meditations of a Visual Kind

I'm eating leftovers. Specifically, Italian lemon chicken and garlic bread. It's leftovers from the Florida Council OR Nurses meeting last night. I could keep them because I've got a refrigerator in my room. It means I don't have to find a restaurant tonight, which is good because I've got a wee bit of work to do. This is why I'm reading LJ instead.

It's been ... different. Interesting. Different. Like previous years and yet, different. I'm thinking I'm not ready to say much quite yet, need to meditate.

Arrived in Tampa, found hotel without problems. Didn't expect any, have stayed here before. Fed the rental car, won't need to do that in the morning. Fed me as well. Have some leftovers which will cope with no refrigeration, so a quick breakfast in the morning. Possibly more tomorrow during the trip, definitely after arrival.

Good night all. Good night, Johnboy.

At work, not leaving until end of work day. Bags are in car, Herself will come back into town (having dropped me off) to take me to the rental car place. From there, on the road again for the annual hadj to AORN.

And, since I am sometimes a devious sneaky individual (yes, I know, you don't believe this), I must ask...

Is Someone Hiding Something?

Hippie Birdbaths, lolleeroberts!

As in Baja Jorja, not Italia. Right around noon, after leaving teh Ranch at just shy of 07:00, so good time driving. My directions to the resort, on the other hand, not so much. That, I'll take on the chin. I'd saved them to a PDF, then looked at them again just a bit north of Ft. Myers and shut the laptop back down. So I drove about a bit before finding the location.

Not terribly impressed so far. First part, not impressed with myself as mentioned. Not impressed with the resort; room not ready when I checked in (in the flyer, says 14:00); they took my mobile # to call when room ready. Went to the Transitional Board Meeting (even though late, but only by a half hour so off I went). Finished that, checked in with the FCORN desk, and got my packet, but there’s no schedule in the packet. When are things happening? Also never got a phone call telling me the room is ready; went to sit in the lobby for a bit and see if I could get on the Internet.

Accessing the Internet requires a room number. So I went up to the desk to see if something could be done to get my access. C’est voila, the room he is ready! No call; but then again, my packet with key-cards is in a stack on the desk there, and I expect I’d be receiving that call within, oh, a half hour of when I asked? So off to my room to drop off the bag with laptop, then down to pick up luggage from the hot, hot car. P.V. from D. is my across-the-hall neighbor. Cool. But I’m not going to the Industry-Advisory Round Table (probably going on now, based on P heading downstairs with jacket over arm and saying See You Soon).

Try to connect, now with my brand-new shiny room number.

Your account is not found.

Call the front desk. You’ll need to talk to the service provider, I’ll forward you... terminal hold music, all of it belonging to the resort. The service provider is an 888 number, not within the resort. Get tired of that, eh? Hang up, and say, hey, I’ll try clearing cookies and temp files, time to do that anyway.

Still no joy.

Restart the computer.

Still no joy.

Call the front desk again; this time I get a different person. This person is much more helpful in that she checks to make sure I’m checked in. After all, I’m calling from a room, I must be checked in. Wait, the resort’s computer shows my room as Vacant. Say what? I’m calling from that room. Did you check in at the desk, sir?

Um, yeah, that’s where I got the key-cards to get into the room. Oh, well, yes. Give me 15 minutes and try again. Your username is your last name, and your password is your room number.

That was...

yeah, probably about 15 minutes ago now. I lay down on the floor to stretch my back a bit. Looked at all the wall art in the room; it’s good art. Clyde Butcher. Two 10x14's matted to 18x22 and framed, and a 19x32 matted the same way, 4" of mat on each edge. So at least the place gets points for taste in wall art, and a 50% sampling of phone calls to the main desk produced results.

Well, should get cleaned up and head down soon, figure out what time things are.

That describes my morning. I've got a primary objective, pack my bags and hopefully to make it efficient for the next four days. Then something to eat. Then check out of the hotel and stash the bags until rendevouz time with canuckdesz and capntypo. Some of that depends on how long the hotel will hold my bags. I'll figure that out when I go get lunch.

mini_fred is still snoozing. He's got a serious case of chapped nose, I can tell you.

It's been a long week packed into a short time. Or, you could call it AORN Congress. I'm at the point of needing to look at the PDA or a newspaper to remember the date. I trust the PDA a bit more, because the paper could be laying there a while.

Tomorrow will be another long day. I must be on site by 06:30 to get ready for the election voting. Tomorrow is also the culmination of my term in office on the Nominating Committee. This is what I was saying I'm looking forward to last week about this time. Tomorrow by this time I'll be done. It's been a good year overall, at least as far as this is concerned. Busy, sometimes aggravating, often demanding, and satisfying. I've had a part in shaping the next few years of my professional association.

My thank-you presents are almost ready. I've a bit of writing to do, and then pack them up in a carry bag to take over.

In the afternoon will be the final House of Delegates. One of the last bits of business will be the Teller's Report, my last official duty for the 2005 - 2006 AORN Nominating Committee.

Then tomorrow evening it's off to the Closing Festivities. Last party of the week.

Then, I go play.

Well, day two of conference is over, and with it some more of my obligations. THe next two days are relatively light; I'll actually get to some continuing ed sessions and don't have any specific obligations, unless something comes up. Nice time schmoozing with several friends today in the afternoon. mini_fred finally showed up around noon, dragging his tail. He perked up a little bit but believe it or not, he's passed out right now, snoring softly.

It's a damn shame he's actually sorta cute when he's asleep.

Tomorrow night will be a big party night.

Tonight was a quiet night; I had some work to do (stuff that needed to be finalized here, and will need to be printed tomorrow), and ate dinner here at the hotel. Good meal, New York strip which was quite frankly red, and quite a tasty shitake sauce over it preceeded a Maryland Crab Soup. Really, it was more a chowder, and wonderfully spicy. Saute' zuccini, carrots, and something, and macaroni and cheese as a side. T'weren't no Kraft mac and cheese, either.

Now it's off to sleep. Another early day tomorrow. Oh, and it's right chilly out there. Snow is forcast tonight, with more tomorrow or possibly ice pellets. Glad I only got to walk a block to the convention center. Glad I got a good coat, too.

I am up, in one sense, way too early for today. No obligations until near noon, and I intend a liesurely start. My body apparently planned otherwise, though I did sleep at least a half hour longer than usual. Now I am sipping coffee in the room with The Weather Channel on, turned way way down because of the (frequent) obnoxious ads, in oder to determine local weather; cool, and windy.

Dinner last evening with my colleagues on the Nominating Committee at a place called DC Coast. Very good seafood. I had Ginger BBQ Seared Ahi Tuna over rice and sauteed greens, and there is a salmon dish that looked yummy. Finished it off with a chocolate souffle with Jameson's Irish poured over. Happy St. Paddy's Day!

I made Mini-Fred sleep in the other bed. I think he found a cat somewhere. For being such a small otter, that bed is pretty ... dishevled.

( Mini-Fred's Bed )

Well, I've been absent for a while.  Not without leave, but then again.  Flew out to Colorado on Tuesday past, met up with sister and bro-in-law near Colorado Springs.  Also met up with a model there, and S took us (sister and I) to an abandoned homestead where we worked for three hours doing 8 months preggers bare momma photos.  I still need to get film developed, but have been very slowly perusing some digital shots.

Following the morning shoot, sister, bro-in-law and I drove up Pike's Peak all the way to the summit.  Yes, Toto, we're not at sea level anymore.  Up there at 14,110 feet, I moved very slowly and deliberately doing deep breathing the whole time.  Got Oxygen?  Digital images of this trip.

Thursday we drove over to Canon and went to see Royal Gorge.  Neat place, but not recommended if one is afraid of heights.  Again, film to be developed and some digital images.

Friday I drove back up to Denver for a nursing association meeting; some digital shots in this area as well.  Saturday evening went to some friends house southwest of town; they've done a lot of work on the house and the grounds since I was there last.  Oh, yeah, baby.

So that pretty much wraps things up.  Still in Denver, but finish up tomorrow morning and fly back home tomorrow early evening.  Won't get back to Orlando International until nearly midnight.  Gonna be tired on Wednesday!