fire alarms: 2 for 2

I’m at the NCMPR (community college marketing people) regional conference in Portland today and tomorrow.  (C came with.)  I will, hopefully, be liveblogging, for those of you in the studio audience who enjoy that sort of thing.  (And for my own recollection, of course.)

We got in yesterday afternoon; the conference is being held at McMenamin’s Edgefield, which is a poor farm that was converted into a hotel, plus 3 bars, two restaurants, a winery, and a movie theater.  It has a feel of a Disneyland for grownups, at least in terms of the fussy little details.  Everything is covered with art.  (Photos to come later.)  Our room is a little garret on the 3rd floor; like most of their rooms, it’s a “European-style” room, which means shared bathrooms down the hall.  Which is less annoying than I thought it might be.  There’s a cluster of private bathrooms, including a couple with big Victorian bathtubs.

We wandered around, I got signed in, we had a bite to eat.  (Spendy but tasty.)  Then I went off for “networking” while C went off to read a book.  Ran into one person I know, got to meet a few others, had a drink.  Then I was ready to head off to bed.

I was just dozing off when…the fire alarm went off.  Since I was not as asleep as when this happened in Austin, I had the presence of mind to review all our belongings and to grab anything that seemed valuable.  Although, alas, I was preoccupied enough with that not to get dressed; instead, I just pulled on the robe that came with the room, grabbed gear, and headed down the stairs.  The alarm stopped when we were most of the way down…never did find out what happened.  And yes, the people I knew saw me in my white fluffy robe clutching my laptop bag.

We went back up to the room…and just weren’t ready to go back to sleep.  So back downstairs, all the way down to the “pool hall,” for drinks and some really excellent conversation.  (Even if there were too many “air quotes.”)

This morning, however, my knees were killing me.  Up and down all those stairs, followed by sleeping in an unfamiliar bed, just knocked me for a loop.

It looks like there’s a few interesting sessions, so I’ll be trying to take good notes.  Keep your fingers crossed for me: I’m hoping that there’s wifi in the conference hall too.