I had an 8:00 wake up call. I showered, and walked over to the Howard Johnson’s for their “best breakfast deal on the beach” — 2 eggs, 2 sausage, 2 bacon, and 2 pancakes for $5.95. That’s the most I’ve eaten for breakfast on this whole trip. I had coffee with it, and two big glasses of water.
I checked out, and debated saying something about the “automatic $2.00 charge per room per night for the safe” that they added onto my bill, but didn’t bother. They did have a sign at the registration desk upon check-in that said, “For your convenience, a safe is provided in each room. There will be an automatic charge of $2.00 per night for it.” I was going to say, “since I was in a room the first night with an air conditioner that didn’t at all work well causing me to have to switch rooms for the second night, and since I didn’t use the safe in either room, either day, for the hotel’s convenience, I’m not going to pay you.” Oh well. It still was a great value for an oceanfront room. Most of the other hotels I saw on hotels.com started at just over $109 a night, and some of them weren’t oceanfront. My room was $69.00 per night.
The trip to the airport was short, and straight-forward. As it turned out the Alamo place was right on the way, and I saw it before I even realized I needed to fill up the car. I passed the Alamo place, did a u-turn, got gas on the other side of the street ($2.09 a gallon for regular unleaded), and then went to the Alamo place. Uneventful car return, uneventful bus ride to the airport, uneventful check-in at a kiosk, and uneventful wait for my flight. Just how I like air travel — uneventful. I caught up my diary at the gate while waiting for my departure. A sexy man came along looking for an outlet, and I told him he was welcome to use the one behind my chair, as I was only using one socket.
The flight from Ft. Lauderdale to Charlotte was uneventful. There was an open middle seat, which is always nice. The flight from Charlotte to Raleigh was delayed, and we ended up leaving at the time we were supposed to be touching down in Raleigh.
I checked in with Courtney to let her know I’d be late, and she told me she had forgotten her keys in Baltimore, so couldn’t use her car. I gave Steve a call, and he agreed to pick me up after work. I called Courtney back to tell her I’d ask Robert to stop and pick her up after work, since he was going to stop and get me anyway, and take her to the house.
Steve arrived at about 5:00, and I got home at around 5:30. Nice to be back. Robert and Courtney arrived at around 6:00, and Courtney was an absolute mess from a terrible family incident that happened on their cruise.
The three of us went to Pizza Hut, and drowned her sorrows in the salad bar and pizza buffet. Courtney is really hurting, and this breaks my heart.
Robert and I left for dancing at around 8:40, and dancing was just okay. The crowd was small, both in terms of dancers and bar patrons. Richard B (from IBM Canada) did stop by, which surprised me, and we chatted briefly. He wanted to see the CC Drag Show, and we’re having lunch tomorrow with Jay et. al.
We left Flex at around 11:15, with a lot of drama giving Kurt directions to my house for Saturday on the way out of Flex.