My goodness. What a crazy week this has been. It's so good to be home, to have slept in my own bed. To be back with my cats (I can't believe how much Smudgie has grown - he's HUGE!)
The Dive
I am now a certified diver. Yay! We did four dives, last Saturday and Sunday at Breakwater in Monterey Bay. It was fun. Our visibility was about 15 feet on Saturday and more like 8 feet on Sunday. The water was cold, but I only really felt it when we were sitting on the bottom practicing our skills. I was able to do all of the skills on the first try, without any problems. Including removal of the mask. Yay!
We went on two little "tours" where we swam around and looked at things. There were tons of sea stars all over the rocks and on the bottom. The big thick cold water ones - not the little soft guys that we saw in Maine, oh so many years ago. I also saw some anemones, lots of kelp, different kinds of fishies. There were schools of long skinny fishes that would swim over us. There were bigger guys that would hang out by the kelp, and just point themselves upwards, looking at the surface. And big silver and yellow ones that we'd see eating stuff at the bottom. I also saw some type of flounder-type bottom fish that was the color of sand. I just saw the two little eyes and when I put my hand out he swam away. I got to hold a kelp crab - he was really neat. It was so much fun. I can't wait to get back in the water.
The Conference
Sunday night after I got back from Monterey I went up to San Francisco for PeopleSoft Connect, our user conference. I worked at the information booth in Moscone West Monday through Friday. It was fun, though very tiring. There were more than 15,000 people at the conference. I have never seen anything on a scale like that. I totally went into reference librarian mode at the booth. I was helping people find all kinds of stuff - like where to get an American football, where the nearest drug store was, how to get to CalTrain, what to see at Fisherman's Wharf. It was fun.
The only problem was that I never felt like I had a chance to recover and rest. I was at the booth at 7 am each morning (well, got to sleep in on Friday and not go in until 7:30. @whee). Sandi and I were pretty much asleep by 10 each night. But somehow it never felt like enough. I'd wake up and my eyes were so swollen and puffy.
My stress level is SO much better now. The dive is over. All the running around to different hotels is done. The big unknown of the conference is over. There are still the 4 big projects at work, but I'm not feeling the pressure with them that I was before I left. Mags arrives on Wednesday, so I still need to clean the house (the cats made SUCH a mess of things). But I have all weekend to do it. And somehow, two full days at home feels like so much. *deep breath*
And There Was Shopping
So, one of the exciting things while I was in The City was that I stopped at the Apple Store. And what is even better is that they will give you the PeopleSoft employee discount there - you don't have to go through the website only. So... I am now the proud owner of a 15-inch PowerBook G4. And a 40-gig iPod. I know! I still can't believe it. I'm using the PowerBook right now. Poor Sandi - I had both of them in their boxes on top of the TV all week at the hotel. I didn't want to open them up and start playing with them until I had the time to focus and really pay attention to what I was doing. Plus it's not like I had any music to put on the iPod.
So, I'm back to the world of the Mac. I just love the way it feels. The touch of the keyboard is so soft. It's been over 4 years since I've used a Mac on a regular basis. That was OS 8. Sandi and I squealed like little schoolgirls when I turned it on and we heard that Mac bong as it loaded up. I was a bit disappointed that there was just the white Apple and not the happy Mac as it loaded. Oh well. I'm constantly amazed at just how easy it is to use. And the little keyboard shortcuts are all coming back to me.
It's nice to have my own machine. I'm going to spend the day ripping CDs and copying all my files over from the PS laptop. It will be so good not to have personal stuff on that machine anymore.
*happy sigh* It's so good to be home.
