Sheep Guarding Llama

Medifast Status: Day 174, Down ~64lbs

By some miracle I actually managed to lose a pound while I was at SpiceWorld!  I thought that for sure I would put on a pound or two or at the very least not lose anything.  I did try hard to remain true to my diet but I did end up having two slices of pizza over the last four days and I took a break from my alcohol prohibition as there is no way to enjoy SpiceWorld without having a few drinks, no matter what Darren claims.

Everyone slept in this morning as much as we could.  We are all exhausted.  It has been a long week.  It is great to be back at home with my kids though.  Boy do I miss them when I am gone or when they are in Houston.

The Ralstons got stuck in a pretty big storm last night and so decided to stop driving and spend the night in Arkansas rather than pushing on during the storm when they were so tired.  So instead of arriving early this morning they ended up arriving early in the afternoon.

We only had a tiny bit of time to visit and for them to relax before we had to unload the minivan.  Now our house is full of “stuff in bins” once again.  What a pain that is.  But slowly dad’s place is getting emptied out.  I’m sure that he is very happy to have this large load out of there.  That must have made a dent, at the very least.

The minivan unloaded quickly and Danielle and Katie got a little time to visit as they talk to each other all of the time but have never met in person before.  Then it was time to get Katie to the airport so that she can fly back to New York.  We decided to coordinate dropping off the rental minivan with Katie departing so that it would all be done in a single trip, hence the rapid unloading procedure.

I dropped off Katie and then picked up Dominica and Danielle who had driving the minivan and then it was back to the house.  We spent the evening mostly just relaxing and visiting.  We haven’t seen the Ralstons in several months.

For dinner we decided to venture into the world of fast food and get take out from Panda Express.  Not exactly on our Medifast plan but when done correctly it really is not too bad.  We can, instead of rice or chow mein, get steamed vegetables as the primary dish and get shrimp for the “meat” which is decently healthy.  It’s cheating, but not bad cheating.

Medifast Status: Day 173, Down ~63lbs

SpiceWorld 2011 is all over. Today is the straggler’s day after stuff.  Most everyone slept in a bit.  Katie and I got packed up and out of the hotel on the late side.  I had been hoping to be on my way to Dallas long before we were actually able to leave but this is the only really good time to hang out with everyone at SpiceWorld so it is what it is.

We ran down to the south side of the city, grabbed Paul and came back up to Denny’s.  Everyone was already there waiting for us.  We had nine of us for breakfast at Denny’s.  A good turnout for the day after.  We are getting a few more each year.  Next year I expect that we will have a dozen or more.  We have a core group of people who, as they get used to the conference, figure out that coming early, doing the extra events and staying an extra day at the end make all of the difference.

It was a nice “breakfast”, just coffee for me, of course.  We hung out until mid-afternoon when many people needed to get to the airport.  Katie and I drove Paul and Grey to Austin’s airport.  When we got there Rob and Steve came out to say “goodbye” to us before everyone departed.  You know that you know a lot of people in Austin when you run into people you know just by pulling up at the airport!

Once we dropped everyone off we got gas across the street, picked up some bottled water and drove north to Dallas.

It was pretty late, probably around seven when we finally got in to the DFW.  At some point PSX actually passed us on the highway or saw us somewhere.

It was great to get home.  I had to run into the office and work for an hour or two on that work that was pushed off from yesterday.  That wasn’t bad.  I got to see the girls before they went to bed.  I’ve really missed them.  I hate being away from the kids.  It really sucks that Dominica was not able to go to the conference with us this year.  But it would have been really tough her being in the hotel room with the girls and really not able to go anywhere or do anything.  Yes I would have been in the hotel a bit, as it turned out, but still the kids would have been itching to be home.  It would likely have been really frustrating.

We just stayed in tonight.  Got the kids off to bed, caught up with work and hung out.  Katie leaves to return to New York tomorrow afternoon so this is the only time for she and Dominica to see each other before she returns.  The Ralstons are scheduled to arrive tomorrow morning as well.  They have been on the road all day today in a minivan loaded with our stuff coming from New York.

Medifast Status: Day 172, Down ~63lbs

SpiceWorld flies by in such a blur.  Being a dawn till dusk event really causes you to lose sight of how quickly the time is passing.  Any more than two days, though, and we would all be really, really burned out.

Dominica was disappointed that I had no good stories from last night and had such a quiet evening.  She has been following along closely in the SpiceWorks community this year to see what was going on and to keep in contact with everyone here.  She really wanted to come join us this year but we did not have anyone to watch Oreo lined up and we just couldn’t make it happen.  But she is determined to go next year.

My day ended up being crazy busy for the office today and I was struggling to be able to get any time at the conference at all.  It was awful.  Next year I’m going to make a point of taking more time off because this really ended up being far worse than expected.  I was stuck in the hotel nearly all day and constantly on my BlackBerry any moment that I was away.

I wore my new, bright orange polo today.  I walked out of the hotel and across the courtyard and ran into Nic who instantly was like “can I get one of those”.  I had just five minutes earlier asked Dominica why I had an extra polo in exactly Nic’s size and she said that it was an extra that she had not meant to pack.  So I walked back to the hotel, grabbed it and brought it out to Nic.

I tried to see more vendors today, I especially wanted to see Verecloud, HP (because they had the Proliant MicroServer on display) and Buffalo (because they have their new Windows Storage based products on display) but I never got a chance to hook up with any of them.  It was that busy of a day.

Lunch today was really awesome.  The vegetarian and pescatarian options were really outstanding.  I mean the food was truly amazing.  Way, way better than what we get at La Cima, for example, and that is saying something.  Everyone was raving about it.

I was able to attend an MSP session this afternoon which was really valuable.  I’m glad that I was at least able to get into that one thing.  That was the only complete session that I was able to attend this whole year.

As soon as the session was over I ran up to talk to the vendors but every single vendor had packet up and only one or two had not left completely.  That seems incredibly silly.  In the MSP session they told us to run up and talk to the vendors before they left.  But they had all left before then.  To put in all the time and effort (and money) to present a booth at a conference like this and to leave before the show is over seems like a waste of good opportunity.  I was not the only person looking to get some vendor time in at the last minute and other than Unitrends who took time to hang out on both Wednesday and Thursday nights I really did not see any vendors participating outside of their booths which is a real shame because the real value happens outside of that space.

I had to get back to the hotel room and work all afternoon and evening after that point.  My Friday night deployment schedule ended up being completely insane and I never had a chance to even talk to anyone.  That really sucked.  I did have just enough time to organize the “Scott Alan Miller Afterparty” at the Highball before going to do the deployments but everyone had to go there without me hoping that I could join later.

I ended up working until after seven in the evening.  What a horrible Friday.  It was insanely busy and I never had a chance to step away from my desk in any way at all.

As soon as I was able to step away, and I was only able to leave as early as I did because I asked some of the teams if I could wait until tomorrow for some of the items, I jumped in the car and ran down to Highball.  I was quite impressed that I was able to drive myself directly there without missing a turn.  I’m starting to know my way around Austin just a little bit.

It was really late by the time that I got to the Highball and several people were already close to leaving.  But we hung out for maybe an hour before heading back to the hotel to drop off cars.

After the Highball party was over the last remnants of the die hard SpiceWorld crew walked from the hotel down to sixth for a final night out on the town.  We had a good time and hit several venues including, of course, taking Andy and several other attendees out for their very first Flaming Doctor Peppers.  Andy got some great shots of the fireball resulting from a Dr. Pepper too!  He actually brought his good SLR out for a night on the town!  We hit Maggie Mae’s where one of the events from my first SpiceWorld was held and we hit Coyote Ugly for Andy.

We stayed out all night, dragging ourselves in sometime after two in the morning.  Once the bars closed down and would not let us in anymore we grabbed slices of pizza (not a good food even in Austin) and headed back to the hotel to collapse.  We are all meeting again tomorrow for breakfast at Denny’s.

Medifast Status: Day 171, Down ~63lbs

I slept in a little this morning but only a very little.  I got up and started working for the office before jumping in the shower to get ready for SpiceWorld.  When I got in the shower is when I looked down and realized that I had been “branded” at Coyote Ugly – I had a large heart on my chest with “Jordyn” written in it in permanent marker.  Now that was pretty surprising.  I did not remember that at all.

SpiceWorld was a blast this morning.  It is awesome now that I’ve been here for three years because there are tons of people that I get to go back and see.  The first year was very much “meeting” new people for the first time and I was there by myself so I had to meet everyone that I was going to hang out with.  The second year I knew a lot of people already and had a ton of people who went with me as well.  This year I really just seem to know almost everyone.

Bob right away came up and had to get a picture of the heart.  There wasn’t much left to see after the shower but he got a picture and posted it online in the community.  So I was pretty famous for that before the conference really even got going.

Everyone was really surprised to see how much weight I had lost.  I’m used to it and I really do not see myself as being much thinner than I was a year ago but just one person after another mentioned it to me and some people even didn’t recognize who I was who knew me from previous conferences.

I spent much of the day running between the conference and my hotel room, which was only feet away, to work from my laptop as it was easier than bringing it into the conference itself and trying to work from a presentation session.

Lunch was quite good.  The AT&T Executive Training Center really does an awesome spread.  I was quite impressed.  Overall I was exceptionally impressed with the venue this year.  I liked the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema the last two years but this is definitely a significant step up in quality compared to that.  The conference felt larger but not nearly so cramped.  There are places to go and sit, places to work, more rooms for more sessions, enough room to actually get to see the vendors and nice places outside to go enjoy a drink or snack.  The training rooms were really nicely done too.  I hope that they use this venue for a while.  And being walking distance to hotels is a huge factor.  The Alamo is so remote that it is extremely cumbersome to do anything there.

This evening’s activities were out at the Salt Lick which is a Texas BBQ place far outside of town.  Had I realized where and what it was, I would have just skipped.  The bus ride out to the Salt Lick was about forty five minutes and that long on a warm, rocking bus does nothing to make you feel good after a long day at a conference.  I was pretty worried about the drive back once we finally arrived.

The food was purely meat.  Not a single thing that I could eat.  There was corn on the cob but I’m not supposed to be eating corn on my diet and that was pretty much it.  From the Texans they all seemed to be really impressed with the meat.  From the New Yorkers the consensus seemed to be that it was alright but certainly not up to par with barbecue in New York or elsewhere.  It is hard to say if it is a difference in preference or if New York barbecue is just the superior.  What sets the groups apart is that New Yorkers tend to eat BBQ in both places and compare but very few Texans eat NY BBQ – and avoiding the unknown implies that you are convinced that it will be better and you just don’t want to find out.  The meat did not look very appetizing as meat goes, I can tell you that.  It would remind you of a firehouse fund raiser back home.

What was interesting at the Salt Lick were armadillo races where I got to pet my first armadillo in person – I’ve seen them in the wild living in Texas but have never touched one – got to see people riding the mechanical bull and they had live karaoke.  Good entertainment stuff although it was pretty chilly outside and being so far from the hotel and being basically an all outside venue meant that people didn’t have access to jackets and stuff from back at the hotel.

So when a friend with his own car was leaving Salt Lick early I hoped in and got a nice, quick ride back into town.  I got back and hit the bar in the hotel with one other SpiceHead who was also escaping early and had a nice, healthy salmon salad.  We talked for probably an hour or two.  We had a good time.  I’m glad that I skipped the main event.  You really miss out on the one on one time at a lot of those functions from the noise and commotion.

After there was no one left from SpiceWorld around I left the hotel and walked down to sixth and hit Touche’s for a couple of hours.  I just hung out down there on my own.  It is Thursday night so the place is packed – just wall to wall people.  I met and had drinks with several random people.  Austin is a very social town.  It was fun but a very quiet night.  At two I walked back to the hotel and called it a night.

Medifast Status: Day 170, Down ~63lbs

I had to go into the office this morning and get as much work done as I could.  I am into my insanely busy stretch that is going to last for a few weeks.  I am going to be exhausted when this is all said and done.

At noon Dominica drove Andy down to the office and he piled in to the Mazda with me and we hit the road to drive down to Austin.  It was a nice day for a drive and Andy got a chance to really see Texas out on the open road.  He had his camera at the ready taking pictures as we went.  He got a lot of roadside Texas.

The drive down was nice and we got a chance to really hang out.  This was the first that we had really gotten any time to hang out together.

We got to the AT&T Executive Training Center and I got into my room, no problems.  It is a nice room and it has a view of the courtyard where the SpiceWorld conference will be so that is very nice.  I like being able to easily keep tabs on what is going on in the conference like this.  So completely different from the last two years.

Then I drove Andy down to the Omni downtown where he is staying.  We got him checked in and then he returned to the AT&T with me to hang out until it was time for the beginning events.  We had a bit of time to kill because the entire strategy today was to get to Austin early during “lunch” set up and work from the hotel for the afternoon and then catch up with the SpiceWorld kick off events later on.

At four thirty Andy walked downtown to meet up with the SpiceLeader dinner at Frank or something like that.  I was not clear as to whether or not I was invited to this event and not having gotten a formal invitation I felt like I would be crashing to actually just show up so since I still had work to do I stayed at the hotel and worked until just after seven.  Then I walked downtown to the warehouse district myself and joined the real kickoff party at Six.

After brief hellos when I first arrived I actually ended up going up to the third floor and hanging out with a smaller party going on up there for much of the evening.  That ended up being a really good time and I managed to hang out with some really cool people that under normal SpiceWorld circumstances I probably would not have gotten a chance to hang out with.  It was fun and relaxing.

After the party on the top floor wound down I came down and hung out for maybe an hour or a little less in the main party area with Grey, Andy and some of the other long timers.  John arrived quite late and was just ready to go out when everyone else was calling it a night.  So John and I went out for dinner and drinks with the girls from Unitrends – no need to make an early night of it at SpiceWorld!

We found a good place for food.  Austin is one of the few places where you can actually eat late without much of a problem.  It is actually incredibly wise for the vendors to hang out late and actually do the party activities with the attendees because the most connected and influential attendees are spending time with each other during the off-hours of the conference.  SpiceWorld is dramatically more social than normal IT conferences.

After dinner the four of us went to Touche’s.  It was at Touche’s on the first night of SpiceWorld 2009, two years ago tonight, that I first managed to get a Flaming Dr. Pepper.  We ordered a round of them since the girls had never been to Austin before and this was there chance for the real experience.  The girls did their Flaming Dr. Peppers and headed back to their hotel so that they could crash for the night.

All this time I have been watching Katie’s flight status.  She was supposed to be getting in around eleven and had a shuttle to take her to the hotel.  She was hoping to be able to join us at the first bar before the party ended.  No such luck.  Due to heavy rain delays in New York she has been on the tarmac at JFK for hours.  So since she was not going to be in any time soon John and I stayed at Touche’s for a while.

Katie’s flight was just getting later and later and she was not expected to get into Austin until nearly two in the morning.  So from Touche’s John and I went on briefly to Coyote Ugly.

After Coyote Ugly John went back to his hotel and I started back to mine.  I had a hard time getting there, though, as I was unsure of exactly where on sixth that I was and I first went south instead of north and then when I finally went north I did not realize how far east we had been in downtown and I went the wrong way to get back to my hotel.  All in all I’m guessing that I walked nearly four miles.  At least I managed to get some exercise.

By about halfway back Katie was at the hotel and emailing me to see where I was.  At least I was on email so we knew what was going on and I knew that she had managed to get in and she knew that I was walking around Austin getting some exercise.  It was not cool out either.  It is much warmer in Austin than in Dallas.

By the time that I finally called it a night it was roughly five thirty.  Welcome to SpiceWorld!