Made it to San Diego

After a bit of stress this morning with getting to the shuttle on time and getting my prescriptions refilled at the last minute, I have finally made it to San Diego.

I won’t even cover the security process, it’s not worth it. Let’s just say that I don’t fly often enough to remember the rules and procedures. The TSA folks are so kind to let you when you screw up, though. Trust me.

The shuttle driver gave me a gate, the self-check in kiosk confirmed the same gate, but then i got a flight status notification from American Airlines (set them up last night) saying the gate was different. So, thinking that must be the most up-to-date information, I headed down there and watched the plane above load and take off for Ontario, CA. I was early, so I figured my flight was just the next one at the gate. Then the gate agents closed up shop and left. The waiting area emptied and the monitors at the gate desk went blank. Curious, I got up and went to the bank of monitors that listed all of the flights and the gates. Wow, I was at the wrong gate.

So, I get down to the correct gate and it hasn’t started boarding yet. Finally we get on board and leave the gate about 15 minutes later than the scheduled departure. Other than that, it was really an uneventful flight. We hit a little bit of turbulence, but it wasn’t too bad.

If the Palm trees don’t give it away, this is from inside the airport terminal looking out in San Diego. I had a little trouble finding where to catch a taxi, but the ride to the hotel was uneventful. I don’t usually do things like valet parking and use the bellhops at hotels that have them, but for some reason I was ready for someone else to carry my luggage today.

My room is on the 15th floor of the hotel. Look to the left and see downtown San Diego and to the right is the harbor (not sure of the name of it yet). Nice view, huh? I’ll try to get some night pictures and post them as well. Once I got up into the room I discovered that I lost the stylus to my Treo somewhere along the way, probably when i was carrying my bags on my shoulder and they kept trying to knock the phone out of the belt clip. However, the clock radio by the bed has an iPod dock built-in. How cool is that?

Around 8:00pm, I headed down to the registration to get my packet with my badge, swag (they call them collectibles), meal tickets, final agenda, and book for the Sunday workshops. I scoped out the restaurants in the hotel itself and determined that they were either too formal (I was wearing jeans and a t-shirt) or too expensive or both. I got a list of restaurants within walking distance and found a sign to Seaport Village. There was a restaurant called Harbor House. A little expensive, but I had the fried shrimp, fried sea scallops, and fried fish platter with lobster bisque soup. Delicious.

Now it’s time to get to bed early so I can get up in plenty of time to get breakfast and find my way around. Just a bit more reading to do for my class assignments since I have a few things due tomorrow. Oh, and I can’t forget that monster of a paper that’s due next weekend. I MUST find time to make significant progress on it this week.. like even finish it.

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