One Day to Go

Two days down and one day to got. Sitting through 9 hours of PowerPoint presentations is just pure hell. Make it all about engineering processes and you double the pain. I have no real involvement in the today's or tomorrows presentations. More there as a referee making sure that our side doesn't impose new requirements on the Contractor and not allowing the Contractor to cry foul where none exist. Its a matter of getting from one break to the next. Occasionally looking up to make sure the meeting is still on track. Really the only thing to look forward to was the food. So lets get down to the food rundown:

Breakfast: You basic pastry and muffins. No donuts, Bagels that should be embarrassed to call themselves bagels. Definitely LA could learn a thing or two from NY about making proper bagels. The upside is there is plenty to go around. Coffee is overflowing and kept hot. Frankly I don't care since I'm not a coffee drinker. Water and juice are available, but for those of us who get our caffeine through soft drinks, where are the Cokes? Pepsis? I'd give breakfast a "C".

Lunch: One of the IPT Leads apparently loves a Russian restaurant close by so we had Russian food for lunch. Two different salads, two different meats (lamb and chicken), some sort of meat pastry and bread. Very tasty and very different. Plenty to eat, it was warm and more or less on time. I give it an "A". Definitely something a little different and not the typical working lunch of Italian pastas or sub sandwiches.

Dinner: Oh the obligatory "social" where the Contractor and Government teams are suppose to mingle and bond and its all good for the program. Of course what usually happens is the Government people mingle with the Government people and the Contractor people mingle with the Contractor people. The social was at a Mexican place of some repute or so we were told. We're from the east coast so what do we know? Anyway it was more about drinks and appetizers. I lucked out and sat by a guy who was celebrating the birth of his first two grandchildren and who bought the first two rounds. Score! The appetizers were good and plentiful. Certainly no need for dinner. Two different versions of southwest spring rolls. Chicken pot stickers and steak quesadillas. Overall a pretty good time, even if I got stuck talking to China Lake engineers about their motorcycles. Overall a "A-"

I did manage to change my flight home and will be on the red eye tomorrow night instead of waiting until Friday morning to fly home (and spending a whole day on a frigging plane). Looking forward to going home.