Well, my night wasn’t as bad as I expected. I met up with our partners to grab dinner. One of them was familiar with the area, so we were able to find a restaurant without a wait. Over margaritas, we traded stories about natural disasters, the West Coasters bragging about earthquakes and me bragging about hurricanes. Each side shook its head over why the other would put up with such chaos. 🙂
I am dying to go “say hello to the ocean” as my scuba diving instructor used to say. It’s a ritual where I go splash around in the water. Used to do it before every dive to get things off on the right foot. As I drove past La Jolla yesterday I thought of my diving days, since that was the place I did my very first open-water dive. Kelly tells me again and again how she’d like to learn to dive, but things got sidetracked when The Kid came along. Maybe we can get back in the water someday soon.
Lunch yesterday was at the food court of the Newport Beach “Fashion Island” mall. The guys here told me later that that Newport is one of the wealthiest places around. That explains the Beemers, Mercedes, and Lexuses (Lexi?) I saw parked around my big orange Mustang. The meeting with the customer went well, too, if it ran a bit too long for my taste. I’m still fighting a “midafternoon zone-out” every day, the only jet lag issue I’ve had so far.
One of the guys here is a big cycling buff, and told me Lance Armstrong is in town for a charity event. My friend was threatening to call in sick today to go meet him. Can’t say I blame him, since I’m a cycling fan, too. While I may not get a chance to break away from the presentation today, I did find out that Lance has to catch a flight around the same time I do, so there is a possiblity I could see him at the airport. That would be pretty cool.