No one ended up taking me up on my offer to come stay in the hotel except this little guy. I made him sleep outside, but he was there most of my stay. I also ran into a relative of his while I was changing at the spa--he scared me.
When I checked in the concierage gave me a schedule of events that I could do while staying in the hotel. Due to the conference, I basically only had one day that I could get away with blowing off work until later to enjoy my surroundings. After looking at the schedule on the elevator ride to my room, I decided that I was going to check out beach side yoga and the ukelele lessons the next day. After getting settled and taking a couple of pictures, I turned on my computer and got some work done.
I opened up my calendar for the following day to make sure I could get my yoga and ukelele lessons in. Unfortunately, I had a conference call that started right in the middle of the yoga class. I was very disappointed. However, if I had to choose between ukelele and yoga, I would pick ukelele so I was able to cope with the loss. The next morning I woke up early, got some work done (being 3 hours ahead of CA working for a company that tends to favor the east coast was a little rough--i woke up for 5 AM conference calls a couple of times on the trip). I dialed into my conference call and the automated computer voice said that my meeting number didn't exist. What she meant to say was this meeting doesn't start for another hour, idiot. Remember how daylight savings time was 3 weeks earlier than everything was programed to be? Well, it has completely ruined my life, or at least caused me serious grief over the past three weeks--I'm so excited for it to all end this weekend. So, my conference call was actually not for another hour, right during my ukelele class. By this time it was too late to join beach side yoga. The day is basically over for me now because I'm absolutely depressed. Why do bad things have to happen to good people? I was so looking forward to returning from Hawaii and actually being able to play a tune on my ukelele--I would have been so impressive that no one would be able to resist me. I'm still sad about it.
I managed to get some work done the next day and the rest of the week. In fact, I managed to wake up, get dressed and actually attend my conference. Basically, I was supposed to meet people and learn about all of the western states bars--their needs and potential opportunities for us, etc. Ordinarily, I'm easy going and enjoy meeting people. When I say ordinarily, I really mean in social, non-work settings. Business is different and I really don't find much pleasure in schmoozing work people and coming up with chit chat. I can do it, I just don't necessarily enjoy it. Plus, I'm always the youngest kid there, and I don't have a deflector spouse like everyone else. I had signed up to go to all of the extra events (sunset cruise and closing dinner) because they were great opportunities to meet and chat with people, but I didn't want to go for those exact same reasons.
This being said to help you understand my mood and attitude in going to the sunset cruise/whale watching excursion (plus considering my first whale watching experience when Courtney's boys were in town), I actually had fun and am super glad I went. I ended up going on the mormon boat. Not that everyone on the boat was mormon, because they weren't. However, there was a couple from Wyoming and a couple from Salt Lake that were not drinking with me. The Wyoming couple was stereotypical small town mormon. They were shocked that I was able to actually enjoy living in Sodom and Gomorrah (aka San Francisco), and they asked if I was a Latter-Day Saint instead of using the term "mormon." The Salt Lake couple was stereotypical Milcreek mormon family. Both were really nice and excited to meet me. The best part of the night. We saw whales! Yes, I'd seen things that the captain of the boat had said was a whale back at Half Moon Bay, but I know these were whales. I'm not the best picture taker and it took awhile for my camera to be ready to snap another photo but check this out:
That's right three whales. It was awesome. Plus the water was super calm and beautiful so no one threw up. So, I pretty much planning on moving to Hawaii and living with the whales. I wish I had better pictures to show you how amazing it was.
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