Friday morning in Atlanta started early. It wasn't really early for me, rather right on time. Fortunately the DoubleTree Inn had Wolfgang Puck coffee makers in every room. When I think of Mr. Puck, my first thought is pizza, not coffee, but coffee it was, Sumatra to be exact. Being an avid coffee drinker, with cream - I had myself set up early. Lots of the little one cup packets from the front desk, and a bar tender gave me 8oz of REAL coffee cream, the kind that needs to be refrigerated.
Andy Rooney once did a bit on Half and Half. He likes his Shredded Wheat in the morning with Half and Half...I just needed for my coffee, but he marveled at all the chemical sounding items that can be put in a carton that's suppose to be half milk and half cream. It's those fancy chemicals that take away the need to be refrigerated. I'm digressing.
Thursday night I had checked in and printed boarding passes for all my traveling companions. I didn't upgrade seats for $5 each, just printed the boarding passes. I placed each boarding pass in an envelope to facilitate it's usage. Little did I know all my work was actually worthless, useless and a regular waste of ink and time.
Off to breakfast I go, thinking someone would join me. I started with enough tables to seat 8. As time went on, people sat in my saved tables, but they weren't the people I was saving them for. I finally gave up and left. When you're around long enough, the waiter learns your name. Excuse me Cindi, do you mind if I set the jellies on the tables. Excuse me...water glasses, silver ware...and No, I wasn't here early enough to help the kitchen cook, just early enough to disrupt the table prep.
Up stairs I went, finished packing my bags, gathering my items and returning downstairs to check out. As I rounded the corner, guess who I saw? Everyone who was suppose to "meet me" early in the morning. Unfortunately I didn't remember to ask what time zone they'll be operating out of. When they sat for breakfast at 8am, it was really 4am in Hawaii, so technically they were extremely early.
Whatever, not arguing - after all, it was getting close to nap time for me. They ate breakfast, we all mumbled about last nights dinner, contemplated what was going to be happening today and what cars were we going to be in. Pack the cars and off to Roundbox we go. But wait...Derek is getting a text message.
Holy ISP providers Batman, they pulled the plug. Seems party B didn't pay party A so party A pulled the plug on innocent bystander C. No access, no application, no nothing. Zilch, nada, nothing. Oh, but wait...what am I seeing? The Verizon network of course. You may laugh at the commercial, but when I whip out the broadband card and I'm the only one connected to the virtual world, well - I'm special...half bus special.
No network, no big food decisions, actually no connectivity except for me. All of a sudden it was good to be me. For exactly two minutes before my computer was taken over in a bit of Eminent Domain muscle flexing. So the day crawls along, the clock ticks by - lunch was a big decision now, as there really wasn't a lot to do except troll the Internet for restaurants nearby. Spoon it was. Ironically all of the Roundbox folks chose this time to go out for a long and arduous Friday lunch. The big question now was would they return prior to our departure?
Stay tuned, that was just the beginning of the day...the end of the day is much much longer and well, probably just as minimally exciting.
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