March 22, 2006: Traveling to Anderson

Now today is a really busy day for me. I had to get up at 6:30 this morning so that I could get ready to tackle the day. I didn’t manage to get to bed last night until a bit after midnight. I really need to get more sleep. I am not so young anymore.

Dad picked me up at 7:45. He had stopped by McDonalds in Geneseo on his way to the house and got us breakfast to take with us in the car. I had the car mostly loaded both with what I needed for the lecture this morning as well as everything that I need for Andy and my trip to South Carolina this afternoon.

I drove dad and myself out to FLCC in Canandaigua. We ate our breakfast in the car. We arrived in plenty of time and got to just relax for a little bit before the class started. They had a projector for me and someone to opperate two video cameras so we got some pretty serious coverage of the class. They are going to try to get me a copy of the video once it is edited. I brought my new Canon camcorder as well and dad recorded the class too so we have our own copy although they were using some pretty serious equipment like a wireless microphone that we didn’t get to use. I really want to get a nice mic and some related equipment for recording this type of thing.

I think that the lecture went okay. It is always really hard to tell with these things. Dad said that it went well but I feel like I did a better job last time. At least this time I had a PowerPoint presentation to work off of so that I can go back and add to it and make it better as opposed to starting from scratch again and trying to figure out what I had talked about last time six months later.

After the lecture we came back to Geneseo and got some lunch at the Omega. Sure, we COULD have eaten in Canandaigua but it just isn’t the same. Besides I will be out of town for the next few days and everyone at the Omega is going to miss me enough as it is.

I had about two hours at home to get the last few items together for the trip (most everything was packed by Dominica last night before we went to bed) and to wrap up any loose ends that I had. I managed to get Dominica and I scheduled to take our tests on Monday. She is taking her A+ Hardware exam and I am taking the Security+ exam. We are taking them at 1:00 in Canandaigua at FLCC. We will have to drive out there separately because I will leave straight from there to go to New Jersey. I don’t have any hotel or plans yet for Monday night so I need to deal with that over the weekend.

I had to panic at the last minute and get paperwork sent out for my job in New Jersey and take care of some tax stuff. There is so much to be done when you are going to be away for so long. I finally managed to get out of the house at 3:00 and had to rush to the post office and then up to Rochester to pick up Andy. Boy am I glad that he lives so near to the airport.

We got to the airport and FINALLY found some parking after driving around forever. There was just no available parking anywhere. We rushed into the airport and they rushed us through the check-in line because we were a little short on time. We got through security without any hassle and were to the terminal with about ten minutes or so to just stand around waiting for them to start boarding calls. So that worked out just about perfectly.

Our flight went well. Rochester to Atlanta really isn’t that far and it is pretty comfortable to fly for that distance. We left Rochester at 5:00 and were in Atlanta around 7:15. It was so awesome to leave the freezing cold to a nice comfortable cool evening. We walked the long way from Concourse C to the main airport area and picked up our rental car from Hertz. We were lucky enough to get a Kia Spectra EX which is a pretty nice car for a rental.

The drive from Atlanta to Anderson is over two hours so that took us a little while but we had been flying all day and driving some really wasn’t too big of a deal. Besides the Kia gets pretty good gas mileage and we have unlimited mileage from Hertz so we can afford to put on a few miles. We arrived in Anderson just before 10:00 and got checked into the Comfort Suites that John and I used to use out on exit 19B of US85. It must have been at least two years since the last time that I was down here. It is weird and comforting to be back. I think that the last time that I was here might have been the time that Dominica and I drove down to South Carolina to meet Francesca and the girls as they were driving to New York.

We were just late enough that everything was beginning to close. The only place open where we could still get some food and tasty beverages and that we could walk to easily was Hooters right in the parking lot of the hotel so we walked over there and got some dinner. It wasn’t too late but we have work to do tomorrow so we walked back to the hotel after dinner and pretty much went straight to bed. It was close to midnight by the time we actually were going to bed.

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