The flight was uneventful, if a little bit bumpy 15 minutes before landing. First Class was loaded with people coming to the conference; so was coach. So it was easy to fill up a taxi on the way to the hotel.
And now I’m sitting in the second floor lobby of the hotel, taking advantage of the wireless connectivity laid on for us. It beats sitting in my hotel room on a slow phone line.
My first stop, though, was at the Reyn’s store in the lobby, to exchange the aloha shirts I bought back in January — as soon as I took them out of the suitcase, Diane said, “that’s not a good color for either of us”, and so I put them aside to bring back on this trip. I hope I’ve found better colors this time around…because it may be a long time before my next trip to Honolulu.
Time for bed — my computer claims it’s after midnight, and so does my body!
The next morning….
I changed the computer to believe it was on Hawaiian time, but I’m not sure I’ve been as successful with my body.
When I woke up, the weather people on TV were talking about the flooding on the windward (North) side of Oahu, but claiming that the weather would be fairly decent in the Honolulu area. So I went out for a jog…it was very humid and warm, so my time was not very good!
Then I got back to the hotel to shower, only to discover that the handle on the hot water tap in the shower was broken! I called maintenance and they took care of it promptly, but I wonder why the previous tenant hadn’t complained.
After that, I had a pleasant breakfast at Moose McGillicudy’s — yes, it’s a bar, but they don’t require that you have beer with breakfast, and the cost was about half of what I would have paid in the hotel!
Then I registered for the conference and did some e-mail; I confirmed that there were no obvious disasters for my track (I’m sure I’ll find some non-obvious disasters tomorrow) and decided I could safely leave the hotel for a while.
So I took a sightseeing tour out to Pearl Harbor and the USS Arizona Memorial. I had wanted to do this in January, but time didn’t permit it, and I was happy that the conference schedule gave me the chance today.
Of course, I took pictures! If you want to see them, take a look at my photo essay.
Tomorrow, the conference itself begins. I get to chair two sessions, both of which I hope will be interesting!
Aloha for now.