Sorry for the lack of updates… I was back in the States, but I lost my laptop charger in the airport on the way over.

It didn’t really start out very well… The Heathrow Express wasn’t running and it took about 3 hours to get from Southbank to LHR (something that shouldn’t have taken longer than an hour or so) because of signaling failures and other Underground problems. And then, an 11.5 hour hell flight to LA because I couldn’t get Virgin and business class was overbooked by 4 seats… Then, the hotel somehow lost my booking! But, after that, everything turned out really well. Hertz was out of compact cars, so they gave me a convertible instead. (A crappy Miata, but, hey, it’s better than the Ford Focus I was supposed to get!) And the training class was really cool – It was just the developers sitting around telling us what they’d done and why and how the product does what it does. Plus, it was cool to put faces to names/voices that I’ve been dealing with for some time. I got to see beaches and surfers, and the normal SoCal stuff. Plus, I got Ray a jersey from Triathlete Zombies. It’s your standard tri store, but with a name like that, who could resist?! Though, every restaurant that we ate at had really bad late 70’s, early 80’s crap music. It followed us everywhere.

Then, I went back home for a couple of days. Mmmmm… Pulled pig. And Mom made a real Southern dinner for Father’s Day. And I got to see Marcee. And I got extra clothes and stuff. It sucked though, because they gave me a Kia Sorento, which was a hunk of crap. My backpack strap got stuck in the tailgate and we could never get it out , nor get the tailgate open. Also, Mom’s miniature dachshund, Honey, hates me and tried to bite me. (I have never had a dog dislike me, ever. Dogs can smell a sucker, and they tend to react accordingly.) Otherwise, it was pretty uneventful, but, at the same time, really relaxing.

Oh, and, yay! Marcee is going to be here for the Tour!