Long, long day.. we finished packing about 2 AM last night which gave us 3 hours of sleep before we had to wake up for our plane. Scott graciously offered to drive us to the airport.. none of us were too wide awake..

   The flight from Burlington to Chicago was uneventful.   It was good having all four of us traveling together..

We got to Chicago around 9:30   which gave us  little more than an hour to wander around O’Hare.. I’m always in such a hurry when I go through their that I never take the time to look around. There’s some cool stuff

    The trip from Chicago to San Diego  went very quickly for me since I slept nearly the whole way. While I slept, Gabe kept busy with my camera..   Some pretty weird stuff.

 We got in to San Diego about noon, rented a car and headed for the hotel. As soon as we had dropped our bag, we headed to a nearby restaurant for a quick bite.

After lunch, Max was so sleep deprived that he opted to stay in the hotel  and sleep while Gabe, Diane and I headed for the beach..   We headed over the Coronado bridge and drove to Coronado beach.. Believe it or not, it was almost deserted. Gabe and I went to a small surf shop ad bought a skim board while Diane slept off some of her jet lag.

   Gabe tried to teach me to skimboard with minimal success. His own mastery of the sport improved 100 times just today… By the end of the day he was skimming and.. he made it look easy.  When we were tired of skimming, Gabe and I headed out into the frigid water to dodge the waves. Gabe had to keep reminding me that I loved  cold water… my teeth were chattering after about 15 minutes.

     We were freezing as we drove back to the hotel. I had to stand in the hot shower for 10 minutes to chase the chill. The boys went out for an explore while Diane and I got dressed for the IBM CTRE dinner    … The dinner was out by the pool and very casual, As always with these things, I saw many, many folks that I know from all over the company.

Many folks came by to talk about Sam and tell us where they’d put their SamStones. I have to admit that I wasn’t feeling very social tonight.. I didn’t run around talking to everyone. I was content to stand pretty still and see who came by. We didn’t eat or drink much.. and drifted back up to the room around 10. The guys were here half asleep and watching TV.. they looked pretty peaceful.. Now it’s time for us all to get some sleep.. I’ll give more details of the meeting tomorrow.

G’nite everyone.. g’nite Sam..

 

-me