I am on the second business trip of my adult life, attending a training session down in Ft. Lauderdale. Why would I willingly choose to go to Florida in July? Well, I’m a glutton for punishment and my alternative was New Jersey. So…. here I am.
When I first booked my plane tickets, I was planning on getting a hotel of my choosing and a rental car. And then I found out that there was a preferred hotel and a shuttlebus. So, instead of hanging out at a beachfront hotel, I’m hanging out at a trailerpark-front hotel in the commercial district. There’s a hooters down the street. Now that’s Klassy with a capital K, right there. So, yeah, I guess that I didn’t need to build in extra time to hang out.
I spent pretty much all of today hanging out at the hotel, with a brief foray out into the heat to get a smoothie at Jamba Juice. Oh my dear lord is it hot out there. And some idiot (namely: me) forgot to pack sunglasses. Everything here is white. I thought that my retinas were going to end up completely seared. Luckily, the hotel gift shop had several pairs of cheap shades (but no copies of US Weekly… lame!). Tomorrow, I should be able to walk around without the risk of heading back to Boston with a new set of crow’s feet.
I suppose that it feels a bit silly to fly all this way only to spend my Sunday sitting in a room and watching Harry Potter on HBO. But, hey, I got room service. And I went to the fitness center. So, that’s like, a whole hour’s worth of activities right there. Plus, I took a nap.
All hallmarks of a most excellent lazy Sunday.
Speaking of the fitness center, all of the treadmills have TVs in them. Unfortunately, I chose the one treadmill with a TV that I could neither change the chanel on nor power off. And it was tuned to an infomercial. An infomercial for some truly disgusting looking tabletop fryer monstrosity.I think that I might have thrown up in my mouth a little.
This was my thought process:
“Hmmm, I can’t change the channel. That’s ok, I wasn’t planning on watching TV. I’ll just turn the TV off and continue rocking out to my iPhone. Hmmmm, the TV doesn’t seem to be turning off, I’d better hit the button a few more times and WHY WON’T THIS THING TURN OFF FOR THE LOVE OF GOD OH NO DON’T ADD MAYONAISE TO THAT I THINK I JUST THREW UP IN MY MOUTH A LITTLE!!”
Sorry to shout, but I assure you that it was ten times worse for my fellow gym rats. :p
I could have gotten off and used another treadmill, but I was already about ten minutes into my run (previously, it had been an infomercial for a pilates machine and I just stared at the pretty people and generally tuned it out) and I didn’t want to break my stride. That stride breaking, it can really mess you up, you know. So, I just kept running and the food that they were cooking in that thing just kept getting more and more vile. It was a double whammy of a workout, really. Burning calories and supressing your appetite all in one go.
So, yeah, that’s my boring trip to Florida, so far. I really can’t complain, though. My room had a king sized bed and about a hundred pillows. I fully intend to build myself a fort. And it’s nice to get away for a bit. Plus, there’s that whole learning thing which is the actual reason that I’m here.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go refill all the booze bottles in the mini-bar with complimentary shampoo.
Just kidding, there’s no mini-bar…. that my boss knows of.
Unfortunately, we were on planes that passed in the sky. (Well, not really, but that sounded lyrical.) You’re in Ft. Lauderdale, while I flew out of Ft. Lauderdale to come to California. OTHERWISE, I would have come up from the Keys to take you around or would have figured out a way for you to come to the Keys to visit for the day. Oh well. Maybe next time!