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| NASCAR Hall of Fame in Charlotte, NC |
Thursday's morning session, was held at the NASCAR Hall of Fame, which is locate next to the Charlotte Convention Center. The morning talk was about the economy and how it has impacted racing. Advertising and sponsor dollar are drying up for racing, as much as they are for every other sport and they are having to do more with less like the rest of us. The panel speakers included Michael Waltrip, Winston Kelley (Director of the Hall of Fame) and Ray Evernham (former pit chief for Jeff Gordan and ESPN analyst). It was an interesting talk, but way beyond our financial means, they were talking BIG dollars.
The luncheon speaker was four-time Olympic speed skater and gold medalist Dan Jansen. Dan held eight world records in the 500- and 1,000-meter events and was inducted into the Olympic Hall of Fame in 2004. He was an amazing motivational speaker and you couldn't help but get drawn into his story. He is an amazing man and one heck of an athlete.
Thursday was also the last day of the conference/expo and we had our last appointment at 4:38pm. The event ended at 5pm and we then had to break down our booth and haul it out, which was very quick and easy. The last part of the event was a dinner reception from 7pm to 10pm and the one thing that we learned from talking to all the attendees is that most of deals are made during the social parts of the event, so we were going. It was a very long day.
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| Washington, Dulles International Airport |
Friday was a travel day. Our flight didn't leave until 2:37pm from Charlotte Douglas Airport and our flight path home would take us to Washington's Dulles airport, to Portland and then home. The flight to Washington D.C. was quick only taking about an hour and 8 minutes. We had just under 2 hours of a layover, so there was time to eat and checkout the shops in the airport. I had to check out the "America" store and their front table made me chuckle - I had to take a picture. The unhappiness with our government and leaders was the buzz of the airport and these t-shirts were their number 1 seller and again I had to chuckle. It was actually kind of sad.
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| United Airlines at Washington Dulles Airport |
The flight out of Dulles left on time and was nearly full, with a flight time of 5.5 hours to Portland. The on-board movie "Grown Ups" was hilarious and helped kill 2 hours. I was able to read ahead in my "Read the Bible in 90 days" and of course I was able to snooze a bit. The flight arrived 30 minutes ahead of schedule, at 8:30pm. The last flight home would depart at 9:45pm and we arrived in Redmond 30 minutes latter.
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| Last flight home |
I was so glad to be home. The cats were happy to see me and the house looked great. The first thing I wanted was shower and then I wanted to sleep. I was in bed by 11:30pm, which was 2:30am east coast time.
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Sarah Palin has become so popular she
even has her own bobble head! |
Saturday morning was fantastic and I slept in until 7:45am and laid in bed another 30 minutes. I heard a clucking outside the window and realized the chickens where out. The door to the pen was open, so they were taking advantage of their freedom. I did a quick count and all 11 were accounted for, so no varmint had gotten to them in the night. I got up and got dressed and went out to say hello to them and make sure they had some feed and scratch to eat. They all came running up to me and were happy to eat the bread crumbs from hand. I checked the coop and there were two eggs in the nest and they were all happy.
Back inside I started my normal weekend chores, laundry, cleaning, winding the clocks. It was good to be home.
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