Meet, eat and drink, In Front of 500

I just returned from a three day work conference in Orlando. I took the Tesla and turned on full self driving for the trip. The car literally drove me from my house to the venue without intervention, it’s that good. It almost feels like you are in an Uber.

I have been to this hotel in Orlando a number of times, it’s huge and beautiful. The content of the conference did little to get my excitement level up but it was still nice to hang out with staff from other offices to get ideas from. They really hammer you with food at these things. Although the food choices are on the healthier side it is still available in great abundance. I did a decent job of limiting my intake most meals. Drinking was a big part of the activities as well. I downed a number of Miller Lites over the time period although I never felt significantly drunk as a result.

I had a surprise embarrassing moment during one of the presentations in front of all 500 attendees. The presentation was almost over and the speaker all of a sudden asks if Shawn Duffey can come join him on the stage. I did a double take in disbelief but got out of my chair and headed that direction. As I was walking I realized what was happening. I recently just had my 25 year anniversary at work and my boss thought it would be cool to present the 25 year pin to me in front of the entire audience.

I was embarrassed of course but I appreciated the thought behind recognizing the accomplishment in front of the group. The rest of the conference I had a couple dozen people I don’t know randomly congratulate me over the rest of my time there on the 25 years, it was funny but appreciated.

I did try to keep my activity up. The logistics of the conference aided in that as I had very long walks back and forth from my room to the meeting areas that I would traverse back and forth repeatedly. I also utilized the gym there twice, going at 6AM. I haven’t worked out that early in the morning in decades but it wasn’t as miserable as I thought it might be. It was nice having your workout checked off the to do list bright and early.

I left Orlando early afternoon and once again had the car drive me almost the entire way back. Even though you spend most of your time at these events sitting, eating and drinking I felt sort of drained when I got home. Being out of my normal day to day routine f’s with me a bit.

I had a follow up appointment with the dermatologist to look at the wound on my head where normally a closed incision should be. I just finished a second round or oral antibiotics. He seems to feel that this area never closed correctly because of the infection. He said that although there is the open area that it should heal and fill as long as we can keep it from becoming infected. He said it should look more or less normal once this occurs but if for some reason it doesn’t it could always be fixed with another cut and stitch which I would like to avoid.

They cleaned up the wound and applied a scarier looking bandage than what I had applied. I have a follow up appointment in a week to check on it. I am really tiring of having this gross looking wound on my forehead. I have been playing pickleball a few times since the surgery which makes me extremely sweaty, creating a lot of opportunity for bacteria to enter the wound. I have been washing the area with soap and water and reapplying the ointment after those sessions but perhaps it’s not enough. I’m going to try to not play until my next appointment to see the result.

I have an AC guy coming later today. I noticed within the last few weeks the system not being able to hold temperature as you get later in the day. I then received an electric bill that was my highest ever. The cherry on top was the monthly report I got from my smart thermostat that indicated that compared to the same 30 day time period last year my AC ran 100 hours more, despite the average daily temperature being 1 degree less. Hopefully addressing whatever the root cause is is not horribly expensive.