Sunday, April 10, 2005
Today was the day I headed down to Annapolis, Maryland for the Content Management Strategies conference starting up tomorrow.
Left the house at around 9:30 in the morning, thankfully to relatively little fanfare. Kissed Erika and the kids goodbye and left in an airport limo for terminal two. Met my manager Kevin B. there, arriving at the airport at roughly the same time. Got through customs without incident on what was clearly not a major travel day. We both talked shop for a while, but deep down we were both jazzed to be going, getting away from both work and family for a little while. At the appointed time we boarded our flight, a small Dash 8 heading to Baltimore. We flew west over Burlington before heading south over Lake Ontario and then to the States. We left about a half hour after schedule, due to some lighting problem, but the flight itself was relatively short, lasting about an hour and a half. Coming down we could clearly see ever greener fields below, and in the distance Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic.
Took a lengthy shuttle bus ride from the airport to the car rental place, which was definitely "not within walking distance" as the signs at the airport indicated. Got our rental car from Avis, and thanks to the instructions they provided we made our way to Annapolis and to the O'Callahan Hotel there without incident.
The hotel room was nice enough, though pretty much like any other hotel room. No view to speak of from my window, as it looked onto the car park below. Despite being a non-smoker's room somebody in the past has not followed the rules, though it wasn't bad enough for me to want to change rooms.
Neither of us had had any lunch, so we wondered down the main street looking for a bite to eat. Found a friendly brew pub within easy walking distance called the Ram's Head, where I had their calamari and Kevin B. had a Philly stake sandwich. Also had one of their brews (Fordham brewery) which was very tasty – easily one of the better U.S. beers I've run across.
Afterwards we headed over to the nearby Loews Hotel where the conference was taking place to register and to join in the opening reception. We got our passes and what Kevin jokingly called a "man purse" containing a thick book of all of the PowerPoint presentations and White Papers being delivered at the conference. There were also a few goodies in the bag as well, including a little portable mouse, conference mouse pad, stress ball and a couple of funky pens. Afterwards headed over to the reception where we met with a few people and compared notes.
Having the late lunch was a bit of mistake since it wasn't too long afterwards that we met with one of the vendors we do business with who had invited us out to dinner previously – and we weren't hungry anymore. So I concentrated on the wine instead, making what turned out to be an excellent choice by selecting a 2001 Australian Black Opal Shiraz. Yum! The talk was all work-related and so not something I am going to talk about here – it was worthwhile though and I got a much better idea of our relationship with them and how they work. It was what I have come to think of as a classic "French meal", in that the whole affair lasted more than a couple of hours, and consequently I was past the point of restlessness when we left.
Collapsed and went to sleep soon after.
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