James & Carolanne

For those of you who hadn't heard, I recently went on a business trip with a couple of my coworkers, to the CCC Headquarters in Orlando, Florida. We went down in order to discuss and work through some of the details of a transition that we are making into a new software system that they have designed. This system will help with the matching of the 5000+ emails that we receive each month off of our websites, with the various mentors and volunteers who help to answer them.

I would say that the trip went quite well, all things considered. Though it did involve an excessive amount of flying and layovers, the traveling itself was rather uneventful. While down there, we had the opportunity to spend time with some members of their programming team, getting to know some of the people we have often talked to, but had not yet had the opportunity to meet. We also discovered some relatively critical issues with the system that we are moving into, and were able to work through the process of finding a solution.

It was a little disappointing to be so near Disney World and yet not have time to go through and visit all the attractions, but we did have the opportunity to eat supper one evening at Ohana's, one of the restaurants in their Polynesian Resort. All you can eat shrimp, steak, turkey and pork.... MMMmmmmmm.

On the way back, we discovered that we had made quite an impression on one of the waiters in one of the airport terminal restaurants. During our Calgary layover on the way down, we had spent some time in this restaurant waiting for our plane to arrive. It was quite busy while we were there and the waiter had to come over a number of times and apologize for the wait. Since we weren't in a hurry, it wasn't a big deal, but finally after the 3'rd or 4'th apology, I told him [at Sheldon's prompting] that my "weight" really wasn't that big of a deal, and he should stop bringing it up. :) Anyway, apparently that made quite the impression, because on the way back up, we met him again and he promptly told us that he'd been telling people that joke all week. Much fun was had by all.

Well, that's about all for now. I've included some pictures from the trip below for your viewing pleasure. Have a good one, James.