Well, Day One is nearly in the bag. I got to the office early today and set up my gear, waited for people to arrive to photograph and then got down to business. I’ve done about half of what I needed to do while I’m here. I’m also getting the distinct impression that tomorrow is going to be hell. I’ve got an open-house, a party, corporate headshots with the VPs of my company and I have no idea when any of it is going to happen. I had wanted to get some nice photos of the office as well, but I’m not really sure how I’m going to squeeze that in.

The rest of my trip (which hadn’t occurred when I wrote that last post) what sort of nightmare-ish. My plane leaving Chicago was delayed, twice, stuck on the runway and very late getting to DC. The rental car that I was supposed to pick up was of course booked at an off-site lot. I waited a good 20 minutes for a shuttle that didn’t come, only to catch a ride with a different shuttle who was going nearby. I got to the car, got the keys, put everything in the trunk and drove away. 30 seconds down the road, exiting the airport, was a tollbooth! The airport access road is a toll road. How retarded is that! Of course, my wallet was in my jacket, my jacket was in the trunk and so I had to get out of the car in the middle of the road, get the wallet, and pay Consuela a whopping $0.50. Then I promptly proceeded to get lost trying to find my hotel. Apparently the name of the “area” I’m in isn’t any sort of town or city, it’s just an “area”. Well, guess what isn’t on highway signs? Areas! The only reason I found it at all is because I’m staying at a Marriott and it’s the tallest building around.

Finally pulling into the hotel and trying to check in presented it’s own set of problems. The room I have is in a block of rooms prepaid for by the company. So, I was slightly confused when the lady asked for a credit card to “hold the room”. We went back and forth for quite a while before she finally admitted she was trying to put “incidentals” on my card in the form of $100 a night. I told her to go suck wind. Prepaid means prepaid. It’s on a corporate card, if you have any problems, put it on that. I’m not a fucking rock star, I’m not going to trash the room, I’m not going to drain the mini-bar, please just give me the fucking room key. She relented.

So, at about 10:00pm, I finally put my head on my pillow and called it a day. A long, long day.

The rest of today has been going fine. Lots of meeting and greeting. I finally get to put a lot of faces with names, which is always nice. Our DC office is very nice and they’ve got me set up in my own office with all my gear. My only real concern now is what kind of steak I’m going to have at Shula’s tonight. lol.

Matt out.