Blessed by the Potato

The drive to Ottawa was relatively smooth. There were, of course, a few construction slow downs, and a couple of insane drivers (one guy was zooming around lanes and passed me on the shoulder — I almost called 911 on him). The residence room here is pretty sweet. For less than the conference rate at the hotel, we’ve got two separate bedrooms, air conditioning, two desks, and a fridge and microwave. I knew it had a kitchenette, but I thought that would be fridge and stove, so I brought pots in pans so we could save more money and cook here… oops. Anyway, the full-sized fridge and freezer will let us stock up on drinks and soup and doggie bags from restaurants. We’ve got the dial-up working (as you can see by my access), but I forgot to bring a network cable to give the in-room high speed a try (it’s wired up, but they told me on the phone it wasn’t working).

There are really only two downsides to the place. The biggest is that the windows face east (right into the rising sun in the morning), and have crappy panel blinds, and both rooms have at least two panels missing, so it’s really bright when the sun comes up. If we’re gonna be here a week, I’m thinking some masking tape and tinfoil might be in order… :) The other minor thing is that the only light in the rooms are two lamps, and they took the light bulbs out of the desk lamps!

The conference doesn’t start until Monday, but I’ve got a full load of work to do here to prepare my presentations today. Hopefully we’ll get to do some touristy things afterwards.