Land Surveyors of Washington 2013 conference

Dode gets to attend a conference each year where land surveyors from around the state gather to take classes to receive part of their required continuing education.  He's been licensed as land surveyor now for five years.  He still feels like the youngest person at the conference.  The average age has to be upper fifties, if not into the sixties.  He's intimidated by the knowledge base of the other surveyors and not being a very social person, pretty much keeps to himself throughout the conference.  Networking?  Not for Dode, way too intimidating!

The conference was held at the Tulalip Hotel for the 2nd year in a row.  We like when its held there because it's close to home.  Two years ago, it was in Spokane which meant a week for Dode to be away from home.  The year before that it was in Tacoma.  He stayed with his cousin Jenny during that conference in order to avoid a long commute, so again it was time away from the family.  The Tulalip Hotel is just 10 miles from home so it's easy for him to come home each night and he even gets a bit of time here in the mornings!

This year, for the first time, Dode was one of the presenters.  We wrote his class proposal together months ago.  The class he proposed was, "Surveying on an Indian Reservation: Unique Rules, Challenges and Solutions".  We submitted the proposal and waited for the reply.  We weren't sure if they'd even accept the proposal.  Some of the speakers are renowned in the field of surveying.  They fly people in from other parts of the country to give presentations.  Dode doesn't have any fancy titles but I think he's a great speaker.  Dode figured that if they let him teach he'd be speaking for about an hour.  They notified him that they'd selected him as a speaker for a three hour class.  Wow!  That's A LOT more preparation time involved!  They offered to pay him $300 for his class but that would cause problems with his employer.  He's employed by the Tulalip government and they would be paying him for the time he spent attending the conference.  We didn't think they'd look too kindly on him "double dipping".  So, he asked if he could get two nights at the Tulalip Hotel instead. They agreed so Dode and I got a mini vacation for his presentation. 

I was really excited because I've seen a lot of advertising about the four star luxury of the hotel.  Now I was going to get a chance to experience that luxury!  Sharon filled in for me driving children around and keeping everyone on a schedule at home while I enjoyed the mini vacation.  We decided to stay Thursday and Friday nights.  Dode presented on Thursday so we figured his stress would be over and we could enjoy ourselves.  We ended up needing to cut our "vacation" short when I was asked to speak at our Stake Relief Society Women's Conference that started at 9:00 am on Saturday.

Leading up to the conference, Dode kept getting more and more nervous.  A few days before the conference he read the bio's of the other presenters at the conference and saw that most of the other presenters had been surveying longer than he's been alive!  He felt pretty insignificant and inexperienced.  He worried that no one would show up for his three hour class.  As he tossed and turned the night before his class, I don't think he thought a free hotel room was much of a compensation for teaching a class!  I'd purchased him a tie that had a map printed on it for his birthday.  I figured it would be a good "prop" for his presentation.  I also guessed that he'd wear it once for the presentation and since it's kind of showy it would end up in the back of the closet.  I don't know if he's just humoring me or if he likes it, but he reaches for it quite often when he's getting dressed in a white shirt and tie.

It turns out he didn't need to worry about the turn out for his class.  10 minutes before the class began, it was already standing room only in the room.  They ended up switching him out with another presenter in a larger room who didn't get as big of a turn out as anticipated.

Just to prove he's not a professional speaker, he told the audience he had to get a photo so his wife could see how many people were at the class.   He was shaking so bad with nerves that the photo was blurry!  More people filled in the room after this photo was shot.

I didn't attend his class but I think he did great.  Later that night, we were walking in the hotel hall and a surveyor who had been in his class stopped us to tell Dode that his class was one of the things that made him want to attend the conference and that he'd picked up a lot of great information.  He received an email from another surveyor who said Dode's presentations was one of the best ones there.  Dode's boss came by to check out the class with the plan to stay for the first hour and ended up staying for the whole three hour class.  She did run out to go back to her office at the break to grab a camera!

After standing for three hours to teach, he was spent.  He sat at the front for individual questions when the presentation was over.

A very full room listening to Dode.  Dode is the small person in white in the corner of the screen.

Another shot of the room.  See all those bald heads?  They're Dode's kind of men!

Dode wasn't sure how much material he'd get through in the three hours and worried that he'd either finish early or not get through everything he wanted to cover.  It turns out he got through everything he wanted and finished with five minutes to spare.  A three hour class, never taught before, and he finished up so close to the goal!

So, enough about Dode's presentation.  What did we do with our mini vacation?  I showed up at the hotel around 5:45 pm on Thursday.  I picked up a very jittery Dode who had a hard time following a conversation and I decided that in order to protect other drivers, I would drive to the restaraunt we were eating dinner at.  We ate at Dode's favorite restaurant, Bob's Burger.  We both got the same thing, the Aloha burger but I got mine with a veggie patty.  When the burgers arrived, they'd forgotten that I didn't want meat so they had to take my burger back and fix it.  In the mean time, they brought me a plate of jo-jos and onion rings to munch on while I waited.

How many calories are in this monster plate of fried food?

Friday while Dode was busy learning from other instructors, I was busy relaxing in my own way.  I spent about four hours on my math class and an hour in the fitness room.  I attended the awards lunch with Dode where I received my author of the year award.  For the third time, I had the veggie ravioli special.  It must be the only veggie offer the resort has for conventions!

When Dode was finished, we fought the traffic to Seattle to go to Plum Bistro, a vegan restaurant on Capital Hill.  We both had seitan, Dode had a chicken fried steak version and I had a pan seared version.  It was good, but not better than something I could have made at home.  The entrees were $20 each but I'd purchased an amazon local voucher a few months ago ($20 for $40 worth of food) so the total before tip came to just $1.39!  We were within walking distance of an ice creamery that I'd also purchased a voucher for.  I brought along some lactic acid pills and was able to indulge without a tummy ache.  The ice cream shop, Lick Creamery, has a few normal flavors as well as some unique flavors.  

I don't know if you can read it, but one of the sold out ice cream sandwich flavors is "Sweet Potato Bourbon Turkey Bacon".  

I'd read online reviews that M2 was the best of the always changing flavors but they were sold out when we got there.  I had to try "Anistasia" since I have my very own Anastaya!  It had a faint licorice flavor.  I also tried red velvet cracked peper and R-n-R.  I ended up choosing the R-n-R.  It was a Raspberry Ricotta flavor that was really tasty.  Dode got chocolate mint, crazy guy that he is!  The voucher I bought was for 8 cones so we have lots of chances to go back and try the ice cream again.  Dode was pretty surprised when we walked out without paying for anything.  With our cheap dinner and free ice cream, I told him I'm a pretty cheap date!

The hotel is considered a luxury hotel.  The only reason it is a four star hotel rather than a five star is because instead of putting a bathtub in the bathroom, they elected to put in a fancy shower with three shower heads.

I'm glad we don't have one of these at home.  I think our power bill would be much higher!

It's a nice room with fancier artwork and fixtures than a typical hotel room.  

I tried to figure out how to bring Elizabeth down to swim in the pool with me but there just wasn't enough time!

One thing they didn't perfect is noise from the other rooms.  We were stuck listening to someone's music until 3:00 am on Thursday.  But the shower, very nice!  That was just the first night.  The second night, we actually checked out at 10:00 pm and drove home!  The room above us was an invitation only luxury penthouse suites for high rollers at the casino.  I think they had hardwood floors.  There was quite a group of people above us and we could hear every footstep, chair moving around, ball bouncing, and the murmur of their conversations.  I needed a solid night's sleep in order to be ready for my presentation on Saturday so we left the four star luxury of the Tulalip hotel and drove home to the peace and quiet of our humble abode!

When Dode got back to work on Monday, he learned that his boss was really excited about his presentation.  She wants him to take the three hour presentation and chip it down to one hour.  She also wants him to present at the GIS conference (GIS is the field he's currently working in) he'll be attending in a few months and she's got plans for next year's land surveyor conference.  If the land surveyor conference is at Tulalip again, there is no way I'm staying on the 11th floor!