Back From Women's Retreat Part I

Normally I enjoy going on retreat with my women's group from church -this was not one of those times. Held at the Clock Tower Inn in Ventura, this retreat was more stressful than it was relaxing. Since I'm the techno person on the Women's Ministries Team, it's my job to do the sound and computer stuff for the meetings. Mostly, I like doing that sort of things but lugging around the full-size Roland keyboard, amp, mixer and speakers is not the most fun aspect of the job.
Friday, I took the day off work (not the smartest idea when you're in the middle of a project costing exercise) so that I could load all the equipment in my truck. Laura helped me and we finished just as it began to rain. Of course the rain meant traffic on the 405 would be worse eventhough we were leaving around 1pm. Three hours later, we arrived, checked in and I began to set up for our meeting at 7pm. It took me a while, but I finished with an hour and a half to spare. The bummer was that most of the women who were already there had left to go to dinner, leaving me and Karen to guard the stuff (our meeting room was adjacent to the hotel nightclub/bar and had no means of securing the meeting room or our equipment.)I did manage to go a block away to grab some tacos from the local taqueria for a few minutes, but I missed the opportunity to go to a nice restaurant with my friends. The meeting itself was interfered with by the nightclub patrons celebrating St. Patrick's Day. Occaisionally, a bar patron would poke their heads into our meeting room. After the meeting, I had to tear down the equipment so it could be moved into a more secure location while the other women played games and talked. I did get a chance to play two games of dominoes, but after 11pm, the bar really turned up the volume, making it difficult to be heard.
The hotel room turned out to be much smaller than advertised to us -two double beds to be shared by the three of us -me, Laura & Dee. Then there was issue of the hotel manager suddenly trying to charge us twice the contracted price (he eventually backed down when confronted by the leadership team). While it certainly had some charm, it was only a three star hotel at best, not worth the $200+/night for the room and food the three of us paid. We joked about the wine, cheese and crackers they served to all the guests at 5pm the crackers were saltines, the cheese was one step above CheeseWhiz and the wine came out of a box (although I don't drink alcohol, even I can tell box wine when I see it in a carafe.)
To be continued...