Philadelphia! Greetings from Philly, Dear Reader. It's about midnight Eastern time and I can't sleep...well, I mean, I could sleep and was asleep, but not now. I went to bed at 9pm Eastern because I'd been up since 3am Central. And now I'm up at midnight...figured I'd write to see if I can go back to sleep.
I'm in town for our annual disaster recovery exercise where we pretend that our office is no longer operational and we have to bring it back to life somewhere else. This year, it's Philadelphia. We're staying right across the street from City Hall so we're really close to lots of stuff, but I'm not sure how much we're going to be able to see. If all goes well, we'll have a decent amount of free time, if not...well, I'm not going to say it because I don't want to jinx it.
After getting something to eat, we headed back to the hotel. Several of the guys were headed towards the historic district which is about 8 blocks from here. I didn't really feel like walking so I passed. After about 2 minutes of staring at the walls, I changed clothes, headed to the hotel's fitness center, found an empty treadmill and, uh...walked.
We had dinner this evening at the Capital Grille and it was awesome. Most of the guys ordered the 24oz porterhouse, but, and I'm amazed that I'm saying this, it was too much for me. I just didn't want to waddle away from the table, filled to the gills with meat, so I got the 14oz filet instead...medium rare. Oh man, it was gooooood. Truly a great steak.
Afterwards, a buddy and I wandered to Tower Records. I'd never been before and wanted to check it out. Several people I know have bragged on the place. Uh, it's just a big record store...with overpriced CDs. $18.99 for Don Henley's Greatest Hits? Um. No.
Wandered back across the street, wandered into Borders, and heard a reading by John Grogan, author of Marley & Me. Couldn't really here him very well...lots of people, bad microphone. Didn't stay long because, by this time, my happy ass was whipped. Wandered back to the hotel, grabbed my book and made it about 3 pages before I was asleep. Woke up at midnight and here we are.
UPDATE: The original closing paragraph to this post was lamenting the fact that I had no one to call when I landed. Um...I was reminded this afternoon that someone did in fact check to see that I arrived safely. Then I remembered that I got email from a few others who also checked on me. So...this new paragraph is an apology to all of you. Turns out that I do have folks checking on me and I appreciate it very much. Howard
G'night.
Aw! Come play in Manhattan!!!
Posted at July 20, 2006 04:59 PM