Well I woke up this morning on an airplane at 05:45AM local time with the captain letting me know I was about 30 minutes from final approach to Orlando International airport.  I took the redeye flight, leaving Boise at 8:15PM local time, then off to Portland, then arriving in Orlando at 06:15AM this morning.  I tried all the tricks of sleeping on an airplane, including getting one of those horseshoe-shaped neck pillows, an eye shade, and wearing noise-cancelling headphones.  I also took some "Calms Forte" which is supposed to be a homeopathic relaxation/sleep aid.  All of this, of course, had mixed results.  I am a light sleeper most of the time, and sleeping in a chair, let alone one that is flying though the air at 600MPH in a noisy pressurized aluminum can pushed my sleeping ability to its limits.  Needless to say, I didn’t get a great night’s sleep, but I did get a little sleep here and there.  I felt groggy this morning for a few hours, and fully understand where the term "redeye" is derived from.

So after arriving at the airport and waiting around for my checked baggage (it didn’t get lost this time!), I caught a shuttle to the hotel I am staying at.  It is a HUGE hotel, generally very nice. The conference (Storage Networking World) I am speaking at is inside this hotel, so I basically will spend the majority of this week all inside the hotel.

Here’s the hotel, big huh. It is on 225 acres and surrounded by a big golf course.

 

My aplogies for the poor quality pictures, I took them with my crappy cell phone.

 

Here’s the view outside my room.

 

 

This was taken while they were setting up for our "Welcoming Banquet":

 

 

They actually had pretty good food. I snagged some crab legs, shrimp, and some italian food. And a free beer or two (Amstel light was the best they had).

 

 

And look at that, they even had a pretty good jazz band.

 

Anyway, that’s it for tonight. I was bored so I though I would post my pictures. I wish Jenn and Ava could join me, hopefully next year. That flight is brutal and we agreed it would be hard on Ava (and Mommy… and even Daddy!).  Tomorrow is more presentations to attend, then Wednesday I give my presentation. Then, early Thursday morning I am out of here and flying back to Boise.  See you all later, it’s 08:42PM and time for bed!