(Written at the Wynfrey Hotel 9/17/2007 at 11:00 PM)

One more thing about the camping trip. Shannon remembered something from her childhood and then found it and we also made bananas with M&Ms stuffed into them, wrapped in foil and put into the fire. However, I don't think we did it exactly right, but they still turned out...good idea...maybe we'll do better next time.

So after a busy morning of trying to get a whole lot of things done before I headed off. I had Keith follow me home and I put my car in the garage to check out a few things. Shannon got home, so I got to say good bye to her again, before she headed off to CR. Keith took me down to the airport and I started to work on things there.

After a while of me working (yes actual work), Proctor showed up and we headed on the plane towards Cincinnati. The flight was short and we were quickly in the airport for a 1.5 to 1.75 hour layover. We at dinner at this place called the Pub. The food was ok. The crisps were good, but I think the highlight of the meal was the Brown Sauce. It tastes like worcestershire sauce (which it has in it), but thicker. No free wifi in Cincinnati...

So we played around with Proctor's new iPhone for a while, I browsed some places, logged into my work email...and now he only can login to my work email...it is weird...but I guess there's probably some way to reset it...anyways. After a bit we got on the plane and headed, uneventfully, to Birmingham.

There is simple enough we headed out, got my luggage and then proceeded to wait for the shuttle. Apparently we just missed the previous shuttle, so we hung out and chatted for a while, before the shuttle showed up. As it arrived, Shannon called at the end of her day to tell me about it. It seems like it is going well.

So this hotel is classically beautiful, and I'm kinda surprised they're putting us up here. Though this being my first experience with The Wynfrey, I'm kinda miffed. No free wifi or internet for that matter. $10 a day...silly...just silly. I don't care if it is some sort of standard, it is way to much money to pay for internet access...especially considering the price of the room. The bathroom is nice, the bed is huge, and it seems like the hotel you'd see old rich white people staying at. Telling of that, there was an older woman that checked in shortly after we did, and she had many bags from Channel....so...that's we're at. I'm not sure what we are doing tomorrow. If there is an itinerary, I never got it...Proctor may have, but he is about a week behind in his email...so we are kind of flying blind with the morning. I'll get ready for an early day, eat my breakfast, and hope to know what in the holy hell we're doing by then.

(Written at the Wynfrey Hotel 9/18/2007 at 5:40 PM)

So I got up early in the morning (before my alarm went off) and got ready for the day. I eventually headed down to their breakfast and had an ok meal...nothing about the meal was outstanding. It was better then a breakfast buffet at, say, a holiday inn, but nothing about the food was really outstanding. The sausage looked better then it actually tasted. Afterwards I camped out in my room until the 8:30 meeting time with the CEO to walk us over to their offices. Around 8, since I discovered that my CPAP mask was breaking, I called and ordered a new one (delivered at home).

So basically how this works, is that there is the hotel, a mall and then an office building...so without even going outside, I was able to get to their office. It has a glass face elevator that you ride up quite a few floors.

Their offices are under construction and we walked through the construction to get to the finished spaces. It looks pretty nice, looks as though they are making a chunk of change.

Anyways, we saw what they are working on for the future release of their product. While I will not describe what they said, since I respect their desire for privacy and their desire to "leap" ahead in the market, I will say, however, that I am a bit torn by it. While I agree with what they are doing and it does seem to be the right way to go, I don't necessarily like what they are using to get there. I know why they are, but it doesn't mean I like it. Proctor was in an out for most of the morning, dealing with the press release on the new IHS CEO and giving comments where necessary. After he was to a good stopping point we headed for lunch.

We headed over to Firebirds Rocky Mountain Grill. The smell of the restaurant was a light wood smoke. It was really a good thing to smell on the way in. Certainly they do it to probably intensify the wood smoked used to cook the food. I ordered a steak sandwich with fries. They served bread before the meal and it was a hard crust and spongy on the inside. Certainly ok, but not something to write home about... I did like the hard crust, though. The sandwich, unadorned by sauces, came on a simple bun with lettuce, tomato and onion. The beef was done to a wonderful medium rare and very tender for the most part. At one point in the middle of the sandwich I did run into a extra chewy portion, which was hard to bite off. The fries were done very well, thick fries that were very crispy on the outside and soft and tender on the inside. Good over all. Proctor got a call and missed a good chunk of the meal...it was just that kind of day...

We headed back to the office and Proctor got a quick review and then we headed into information about the upcoming project that we're buying from them...and...well..since I am not dreadfully involved with it, I tuned my attention back and stopped paying as close of an attention.

We covered most of the bases for the day so we decided to go home early. They setup to get us to leave in the morning, rather then in the afternoon. Probably a good thing for the bossman. We headed back to the hotel (through the mall) and I dropped off my things at the room and then went to check out the mall. (Proctor was planning on working) I wandered around the mall for about an hour and a half (it is pretty big), stopped and looked at some Swarovski crystal (they had a store there) and though about a present for Shannon...but nothing really struck me as a must have...(it was usually a "cute by too expensive on our tight budget"). I eventually got tired and headed up here.

We're planning on going to Shula's (America's Steak House) for dinner.

(Written at the Wynfrey Hotel 9/19/2007 at 2:54 AM)

So dinner was very good. The Shula's cut of beef, according to our waiter, is better then prime and hand selected...but well..I had beef for lunch...so I had lamb chops. We started off the meal with a set of appetizers. Barbequed bacon wrapped shrimp, crab cakes, and beef tips. The crab cakes were...well nothing special. Good but not great. The shrimp....were very nicely done, Crunchy bacon, followed by the shrimp...mmmmm. Now the beef tips....I don't know how they were spiced, but they were fantastic...the beef just melted in my mouth. It was truly something memorable.

Next up for me was a gigantic bowl of French onion soup. The soup was...too salty. It kind of tasted like beef bullion. The soup was covered in cheese and getting through it was just not worth it. Nothing like the wonderful and fantastic soup they had at the French Café in Omaha.

They then delivered our main courses and side dishes. The side dishes were two lobster mac and cheeses, caramelized onions, and mushrooms. The caramelized onions...well...were good, but unless you burn the onions, they'll always be good. I didn't try the mushrooms. The lobster mac and cheese was...a good concept, but poor in execution. The cheese sauce was not as good and creamy as some of the sauces that I've made myself, but the idea of putting lobster in there...well that'll probably be happening in the future at my house.

The lamb...oh the lamb. That was quite good. It was done to a perfect medium rare. It was probably the best lamb I've had. Tender and delicious. They also served it with a mint jelly. This tasted like biting down on a sugar covered mint leaf. It was very good...though I only occasionally dipped the lamb into it...it really didn't need it.

Over the meal I had a glass of scotch (Balinvine 20 year old) and a couple of glasses of wine.

After dinner, we headed to the bar and I had a couple more glasses of scotch (Macellan 12 and Cragmore). We talked a bit more and Shannon called, so I talked to her a while, and then headed back to the conversation. It was interesting.

Anyways, we called it a night, especially since we'll be leaving the hotel at 6:AM. For some reason I can't sleep. I did for a bit...but when it came down to it, my mask is broken and I just wasn't sleeping well...

(Written at the Peets Coffe and Tea at the Cincinatti Airport 9/19/2007 at 9:56 AM)
So I finally got back to sleep, I figured I might be cold so I wrapped myself in blankets and a short while later I was snoring away...at least for a couple of hours until the alarm went off. I must say that this is the first time that I've slept on ironed sheets...it's weird...the bed was fantastic.

The ride out to the airport was slow. Our driver, who looked barely old enough to drive, was driving slower then everyone around us...it was weird...though it was a polite young man.

We got in line, got our tickets and got in line to be searched... Apparently, now, using a CPAP makes me a likely candidate for being a terrorist. I fuckin hate flying. The flight to Cincinnati was fairly uneventful, though there seemed to be a strong cross wind on our landing...so it was a bit rough...anyways...not to shabby... We have a 3 hour lay over here...so...*shrug*

It was kinda funny, we're sitting here in the coffee shop, drinking the first real good cup of coffee, and Proctor's texting with his iPhone and two Blackberry sales reps are standing getting coffee next to us...they ask Proctor how he likes his iPhone...I think they are a bit worried about the future of their businesses, however, it doesn't make a lot of sense to me, since the target audience for the iPhone is entirely different. Not directly working with the MS suite of applications kind of rules it out....at least at our job it has (they did look at it).

(Written at work 9/19/2007 at 3:10 PM)

In Cincinnati, we went to Moe's Grill and Bar. We sat by the window and watched a lot of people look up to the heavens at the face of god....or that's what it looked like...cause they were looking at the screens that had the flight information...looking up, many with their mouths open... It was funny.

Now at Moe's, it was well...it's easy to sum the place up. They were good ideas, that were tripped up in execution. So they call their pastrami, smoked meat...which is kinda odd to begin with. So they said they have a smoked meat sandwhich with deli mustard...

No Deli mustard...it's yello mustard.

They have smoked meat on pizza...

Good idea...interesting at least. But the crust was a frozen crust out of a package, so it just distracted from it...Anyways...not that good

We spent 3 hours or so in the airport...Total flight time on both flights on the way back 2 hours and 20 minutes. Ahh layovers...

It's good to be home. I call it a fake trip, because I only left the Hotel/mall/office building twice. Once for lunch and once to return to the airport...