What a day, what a day. it’s been a while since I last posted, but that’s because I was preparing for the annual [NSREC](http://www.nsrec.com) conference which starts tomorrow morning. I’m posting this from the Sheraton hotel in downtown Seatle. Getting here was quite the adventure.

Here goes a quick recap:

Getting on the plane went as planned. I was able to take three carryon items (My backpack, my luggage, and my NSREC poster in a tube) because I didn’t ask for permission. Note to self: when it comes to matters of policy, do first and let them tell you you can’t later is the best course of action.

The trip started to go south as soon as we took off. Shortly after taking our drink orders, the attendent started asking for any doctors or nurses on the plane. Someone was sick and laid out on the floor in the back of the plane. 2 hours and no drinks or bathroom breaks later, the captain told us we were turning around and flying 137 miles back to rapid city, South Dakota because the guy needed to get to a hospital.

We landed and got the guy off the plane. No big deal, I was fine with that, time to get back on the plane and go on. Unfortunately, it didn’t quite work out that way. Instead, we had to get the field mechanic to come look at our plane. Our plane was too heavy to land at the field we were at so we needed to get rid of some fuel and get special permission. This took some time and was where all hell broke loose. There was an unfortunate number of small children sitting all around me and they started whining, kicking, yelling, and screaming. It was terrible. That being said, I wanted to do the same, but sadly, it is less socially acceptable for me to do something like that. I could go into the details of the bad parenting I saw, but it’s really not worth it. Suffice it to say that bad parents make bad kids.

We finally got back in the air and made it to Seattle. Made it to the hotel, changed into my running clothes and ran around town for about 40 minutes. The best way to get to know a new city is to go running around it’s downtown area. I checked out the sights, figured out that there are a ton of hills there (which exhausted me), and saw the waterfront. It was beautiful. After that, I came back, cleaned up, and started looking for a place to eat.

After talking to a few people I ended up at a little lounge like place called Cutter which had a sushi sign in the window. I ordered the 10 piece sashimi plate which was freaking great. The nice waitress had the chef give me extra hamachi (yellowtail) because the cuts they had today were the best. The plate was amazing, the cuts were thick and I was a happy camper. Desert was (upon suggestion), a wild berry bread pudding dish. Quite unlike any I have ever had, it was a pile of bread pieces with blueberries and strawberries all over it, drizzled in a strawberry-orange sauce. On top of that was a slice of vanilla ice cream. It was brilliant.

I’m totally beat now. Its only 11:45 here, but it’s 1:45 in my time zone. Time for me to crash. Hopefully I won’t have nightmares about screaming children.