I flew out of Portland, Maine this morning to attend and present at TLC at the Beach. I’ll be blogging from the conference over the next several days – so stick around – but this is a synopsis of the entertaining misadventures along the way…

• Flight out of Portland was detained from pulling up to a gate for so long that many of us, including myself, had to run across the Detroit airport to catch our connecting flights. I just made it…
• Sidenote: Delta Airlines employees are LOVELY, and they hand out biscotti, mini pretzels and dry-roasted peanuts to all passengers.
• Flight from Detroit to Myrtle Beach hit serious turbulence. The last 25 minutes, as we were descending, was a horror show. Let’s suffice it to say the flight attendants were very very busy handing out tiny paper sacks. No, I did not need a paper sack. But I did pray a lot.
• I had to assist one woman, and her very airsick companion, off the flight and find them a wheelchair – once they were settled with family, I caught a cab to my resort.
• Resort is a keyword here – because the skies opened up just as I arrived at the resort. This place is a city block of separate buildings, so it took about 15 minutes of walking around with all of my luggage in the pouring rain and wind to find my building.
• Just as I walked in the hotel room, ready to change out of my soaking wet clothes, I realized that the smoke alarm was beeping…every 30 seconds…
• Called Maintenance, but maybe they couldn’t find the building either – just kidding – they showed up about 30 minutes later, as I was hanging up my wet clothes from the suitcase. Apparently, suitcases are not water-resistant. Clothes are air-drying as we speak.
• Maintenance had to call in back-up. This was a perplexing situation, which took about 20 minutes to fix. We also realized that the latch on the balcony door was broken, so they replaced that as well. As a final parting gift, which I truly appreciate, the Maintenance gentleman suggested Papa John’s as the best takeout around. Once I found out I had a full kitchenette, I decided not to venture back out in the monsoon.
• Took a nap 🙂
• Back up again, watching TV and tweaking my presentation for tomorrow….

Update: I thought we Mainers were 50/50 Raffle Nazis – but these folks have us beat. We need to hire them to run our 50/50 Raffle next year at the Caramihalis Wrestling Tournament.

Update: I walked to Food Lion and bought Tom his grits. I passed FIVE pancake and omelet places on the way, so there is no shortage of that. Still looking for a Chicken & Waffles place 🙂