I am currently in Georgia for my full-on lawyer geek convention. The highlight is that I am hearing great things from some of the greatest minds in the country on the topics. Way cool but not very exciting to write about. So instead, I’ll give you the lowlights so far and the one true highlight.

CS and I flew in Thursday night. It was one of those rare occasions where the flight was early. We had directions from the airport to the hotel (a 45 minute drive) that we’d printed online before we left home. But the first thing it said to do was “Depart on Local road(s) (South).” That was vague enough for us to ask the car rental place for directions to Stone Mountain. She said something about 2 rights, 285, 85, North and East. I didn’t catch the order of these words. CS said he did. So we headed off and I told CS that this was a test to see how we’d do if we were ever on “The Amazing Race.”

We are zipping right along, and I assumed the agent’s directions would tie in with the online directions once we got to our exit. But when we got to the exit, it was clear we had a problem. The online directions said “Turn right on SR10 and go west.” When we turned right, we were going east. Hmmmm. Then I realized that my online directions ended here. There were 2 pages of directions, and though 2 pages printed, only the first had actual directions written on it. Bummer. I was beginning to feel like we really were on “The Amazing Race.” So I call the hotel and the clerk tells me she doesn’t know what SR10 is. Not good. My map had in parenthesis some other name of a parkway after the SR10 designation. That didn’t ring a bell for her either. She put me on hold for a couple of minutes and came back and said that I was on Memorial Blvd. So, what, this street has 3 names?? Whatever. We get the last bit of directions to the hotel and make it there in short order. I do not think we’d have been eliminated from the Race, though we certainly would not have come in first place.

Anywho, we get to the hotel, and I give the clerk my last name, and she says that my reservation began on Wednesday night and that even before Wednesday someone had canceled it. I stayed calm. Having worked in hotels, I knew that they won’t turn you away unless there is currently no empty room. Guess what? They were sold out. I continued to wait patiently. This is usually where I lose my cool and cause a scene. Again, I just relied on my old hotel days to know to hold my tongue. Sure enough, some calls were made and we finagled ourselves into a “lesser” quality room than we booked (at no reduced cost). It wasn’t the hotel’s fault–it was the convention coordinator’s (to whom I wrote a strongly worded e-mail Thursday night while I was still steaming).

Whatever. We had a room. It was late, the room was dark and cool (just the way I like it) but I could not sleep. We had a wake-up call scheduled for 6:30am, and all night, I watched the hours click by. Then, at 5:30, the phone rings. What the hell?? I have an hour to go, and I need what little sleep I can squeeze out. No–the wake up call was right. Apparently neither the hotel folks nor car rental people have done a damn thing about day light savings time, so all of our local clocks were an hour behind. And somewhere in the hubbub of having the reservation canceled, I lost an hour.

Fine. So we wake up and get a move on. I have a free breakfast with my fellow conventioneers waiting for me. Now, I am very shy. I HATE “working a room.” But, I LOVE free food. So the free food won out here. (I won’t even go into the details surrounding me not getting dinner Thursday night!) So I get to the hotel (this REAL hotel had no more room for us by the time we booked the convention, so we had to rent a car, too, to get there!). Anywho, I go to the front desk to say what convention I am with. They direct me to the restaurant. Ahhh. I go to the receptionist there, and she tells me that only one other attendee was there and asked if I wanted to sit with him. Now, normally, I’d want to do that about as much as stick my arm in a red ant pile. But it was really early, I was really hungry, and I didn’t want to eat alone. Plus, I am pretty good one-on-one, and I thought this might be my best chance to make a friend here. So SHY little ole me walked up to this poor, unsuspecting fellow and introduced myself. He seemed nice. I decided right away I’d not leave his side all day.

Ok, so I have a new friend and some buffet scrambled eggs in my belly. Not a terrible start. Then David asks, “ready to get the bill?” Not wanting to look uncouth, I said, “sure.” But what I was thinking was, “what the hell is this about? This is one of the PERKS.” I was wrong–breakfast was not complimentary. I was so irritated with this damn convention coordinator. I mean, I am not paying for the hotel or this breakfast (happily, my company is), but STILL, this was bullshit. I wanted some PERKS, dammit.

We pay and leave outta there. True to my word, I stuck to David like glue all day. When we registered, we picked up our binders. Don’t ya know my dang binder has a funky ring catching all the pages and ripping them? I looked at others’ binders, and they were fine (of course). I SWEAR this convention has it in for me. And then lunch–yes, it was complimentary. But it was barbecue. Bad barbecue. I am very picky about my BBQ and let me tell ya, this wasn’t any where near acceptable. UGH!

The day ended well, though. The true highlight was that David seemed to take a liking to me–he saved me a seat when we switched rooms and even invited CS and me to have dinner with him and his girlfriend! And with them joined us three other attendees (and one of their sisters). Everyone was totally awesome. I can’t tell you the last time I enjoyed dinner like I did last night. So even with the convention gods conspiring against me, I still managed to have a rather positive first day.