Well, two wonderful weeks of vacation are drawing to a close. All in all it was an excellent time. There really were no bad spots. There is one (just one) incident that happened during vacation that I wish hadn't. On the day we were leaving San Diego, as we were leaving the cafe where we had breakfast (the Mission Valley Resort), my friend T.S., who was driving the rental bumped an older Kawasaki that was parked behind the rental car and tipped it over. No problem, we all had insurance and Tony was on the rental as a driver. He reported it to his insurance company, who in turned called me. Since the car was in my name, I have to now report it to my insurance company. T.S. was out of town for the weekend and his agency called me on Friday (and I got the message late Friday night), so I will give my insurance company a call on Monday and figure out what all needs to be done. In the scope of things a minor inconvenience. (Two year ago on the same vacation T.S. threw his back out, tore a muscle, and ended up spending most of the vacation laid up in the hotel room and was ultimately in physical therapy for several months - that was a bad vacation. This was just a bump.)
The San Diego Comic Con was excellent as it usually is. I got to see many different panels (and I will provide a list for your reading amusement a little later in the week). There were only two panels that I wanted to see that I did not manage to get into and in both cases it was a "no fault" kind of thing. I made the decision that I would rather not spend the time standing in line. I missed seeing Terry Gilliam and I missed seeing the Boondock Saints II panel. If you have never seen The Boondock Saints I highly recommend it. It is a great movie and has become something of a cult classic over the years.
The weather is San Diego was nearly perfect and outside of the convention we had a great time as well. I really liked the hotel we stayed at (The Town and Country Resort) and we spent three days in different museums - two days the Maritime Museum and one day the Air & Space Museum in Balboa Park. I would have liked to have spent more time museum crawling up at Balboa Park, but there are limits. It was the first vacation I have had in several years where work didn't call or where I did not have scheduled work, so that was great as well. It was remarkably stress free. I am sure dealing with the insurance companies is going to be a bit of a hassle, it always is, but if I rated the vacation on a scale of 1 to 10, it still comes in at a rock solid 9.9 in my book.
My next trip, probably in two months, will be a week back to South Dakota. That is always a fun trip, visiting family, and September is a good time to go, since it is before the arrival of winter and the after the departure of summer. The only drawback to the SD trip of course is the lack of functioning internet and cell phones in the region! But, as usual, that is actually probably not a bad thing.
So, to sum it up, I am ready to head back into work tomorrow, where I will make the rounds of my analysts and ask two questions. "Is anything on fire I need to worry about." and "Are there any angry customers lying in wait." I expect negative answers on both counts, so I will settle in with a carafe of coffee, so nutritious snacks, my iPod, and work my way through the several hundred e-mail that I am sure are eagerly awaiting my arrival.
Tonight the plan is a simple one. I am going to read myself to sleep and get a start bright and early on the new day.
