US trip 2010: Southern California

20 03 2010

I had a relatively quiet day today, though very little sleep last night — jet lag? or the ginormous nachos? Sue and I were up very early (5-ish) and we had breakfast and chatted until I left San Diego just after 9AM. She showed me some of the cool stuff she was doing to create Windows Mobile Help, too.

I headed north to Carlsbad and the outlet malls there. On my shopping list was the purchase of two new suitcases. Our old ones are starting to come apart, and I knew the Samonsite outlet would likely have something suitable. And they did! I found two nice dove/silver grey ones (I did NOT want black — every man and his dog seems to have a black suitcase, based on my baggage carousel experiences this past week). I got some of the other things on my (short) list, then headed out at 11:30AM hoping to be back north of the Orange County Airport to meet a fellow technical writer for lunch. But it was not to be. After making really good time (65mph maximum = 80mph in reality on the I-5), I got caught in a traffic snarl near San Juan Capistrano. There was no way I was going to make our 12:30 lunch appointment, so we took a raincheck for next year!

Instead, I filled up the rental car with fuel (one less job to do on the way to the airport tomorrow), and headed back to my uncle’s place, where I spent much of the afternoon removing packaging and tags off things, and nesting the new suitcases one inside the other then packing the inner, medium-sized one with my shoes and clothes.

My uncle and I had an early dinner of grilled salmon and stir-fried veges at the California Pizza Kitchen in Fashion Island at Newport Beach.

I leave fairly eary tomorrow morning for Seattle and the conference — and to swim with my own fishies again! 😉