Twin Cities and Conference.

Well, I’ve finally managed to carve out some time to write. The trip up north was a good one. The conference was very educational and I got to network with very many different people from all over the US which was nice.

I worked half a day on Friday so Anna and I could make it up north at a decent hour. I drove a rental car because it was more economical for the agency to have me rent a car than to reimburse my mileage. The car drove fine and the guy at the rental place informed me to drive the speed limit since there was going to be an operation over the weekend. His brother is a state trooper so he definitely knew something. The drive that would normally take between 3 and 3 ½ hours lasted 4 hours which was a little long for my books. Oh well. I did see five cars get pulled over on the other side of the road so it was with good reason I did not speed.

We arrived in time for dinner and met up with Heidi and Mark. I made the comment that it was just a little over a week and a half when we saw them. After dinner we walked around a little and since I’m a member of a warehouse store, they managed to get some baby wipes at a very good price. Once we were done walking, we headed back to the house and watched the movie, “Revolutionary Road” which was just an OK movie. I really did not know how it got nominated for as many Oscars as it did. Oh well.

On Saturday, everyone took their time getting up and Mark and I got breakfast ready for the ladies. Once breakfast was done, we headed downtown and pretty much went our separate ways. The three of them went shopping while I attended my conference that had sessions pertaining to volunteer management. There were some really good speaker and when we broke into the different workshops, I got to connect with other people in my position. After the session, I met up with the three of them and we headed to the Malaysian restaurant for dinner. We met up with Joel and Kathy and Kathy’s sister’s families. All in all I believe there were fourteen of us in the party. I did a whole lot of recommendation and everyone was thoroughly impressed with their food. When the food arrived, it was pretty much passed around to everyone so people had the opportunity to try it if they chose to. For a good number of people who were they, it was the first time they were eating something that different, but they all loved it.

The conference started on Sunday morning and I actually went to Mass at a church three blocks away from the conference hotel. Talk about convenience. Once again, it was a very good conference with some very good speakers. I like the fact that the conference most definitely invigorated me. There’s nothing like sharing and networking with other peers all around the country and picking each other’s brain. I met up with Anna, Heidi and Mark for dinner at a restaurant close to their place.

Monday was pretty much the same day with an all day conference. I did bump into Joel and two other staff members from the office. They arrived on Sunday and left after the last workshop for the day. The plan for this evening was for me to drive to a mall and drop the car off before riding with Heidi, Mark and Anna to their friend’s place. Gretchen is a childhood friend of the three of them and she married Bob, an engineer from Chicago. They live right by lake Minnetonka and have a boat so we got to go on the boat and spend some time on the lake. The weather was perfect for me although it was a little cloudy. Talk about a jolly good old time sitting on the boat and just getting to enjoy the water. For dinner, we got to “park” the boat and walk to a restaurant that has a dock which was packed with people. Trust me, it’s been a long time since I’ve been to a restaurant this filled with people. I guess they have a really good deal on Mondays so people just pack this place. The food was good and the people watching even more interesting. After we settled our bill, the waitress advised us to get to boat pretty soon since a storm was headed. We did not waste any time and managed to get home before it started raining. Phew.

Tuesday was the last day of the conference. Anna and Heidi spent time with one another before Heidi dropped Anna off at the hotel. We then made the journey back to DM without any problem. That was the trip in a nutshell. Oh, I did forget to say that during the entire, I was not feeling the greatest. I was battling a cold and had a sore throat the entire time. Not fun, but I survived.