Well, hopefully everyone had a good holiday.  I’m still relatively beat down from the whole Washington DC thing.  It was a good class, and I suppose I learned a lot, but I definitely have a very finite amount of storage in my old age.  By Thursday or so, I was having to dump everything I learned earlier in the week in order to make room for the new stuff.  Bad news man.  There were also several quirky things about the “attendees” that kept bothering me.  For one thing, 1800 nerds in one building is just a somewhat unnerving experience.  I’m talking hard-core nerds too, not just your garden variety low-level geeks.  And then you realize “hey… wait a minute… I don’t exactly stand out in this crowd.”  It’s a little hard on the self esteem.  And then there was the whole “chick factor”.  There were probably 100 good-looking females running around the building at any given time during the week.  Now, granted, out of 1800 people that is a pretty low percentile.  At a technical conference, however, it is totally unheard of.  Nothing short of groundbreaking, actually.  I never really got an adequate explanation on that one.  Near as I can figure, the conference sponsors rented them all out for the week to make themselves look better.  Only possible explanation, really.

As far as the weekend goes, my enjoyment was severely curtailed by being oncall.  What a drag man.  We did get to go spend all day Saturday up on Smithville lake, riding around on the Martin boat.  Good stuff… quite relaxing actually.  Then we went back to the Martin residence and tossed some cards.  (While we’re on that subject, I might throw out that the “MEN” were the victors… the “WOMEN” actually called no joy during the second game.  Up and quit, right in the middle of a hand.  Sad, really.)

Training continues for the Katy Trail ride… two weeks and counting.  We’ve also got a long weekend planned in Chicago this coming weekend.  Busy busy.  I’ve also got a few pictures from DC that I’m working on getting posted… not very interesting pictures, mind you, but “content” all the same.  If this has been rambling a bit, it’s because I’m distracted.  I don’t like being oncall.  Can’t “focus”.