Marooned in San Diego

At the time of this writing, I am sitting in my hotel room in a Homewood Suites near La Jolla, California, waiting for the weekday evening ritual to begin downstairs - a buffet meal put on by the hotel management (tonight is ... burgers on the grill), along with free wine (choice of 2) or tap beer (choice of 1).  The menu rotates each day; it's not exotic, but it is surprisingly good, and very homey.  Last night was lasagna, the night before chicken enchiladas, before that Philly cheese steak, and so forth.  Very pleasant.  :)

But I would rather be home in Des Moines.

I had several purposes in coming out here last Saturday:

     > to sit for a professional exam (Certified Risk Management Professional).  I think I did well, but won't know for 6 weeks.
     > to inspect the apartment/office of one of my direct reports who telecommutes now, and recently moved here to be near family.
     > to attend a convention that should net me some Continuing Education credits (it was huge - 10,000+ people, and well done).
     > to visit some of our Sales Directors and brokers, which I expected would take me about 2 1/2 days.  Instead it took only 1/2 day.

Not enough visits materialized to use up the entire week that I thought I was going to need.  Fortunately, I booked on Southwest Airlines, and they don't charge change fees, but... they do require you to pay the difference in airfare from what your original trip cost and what it would be now on the new return flight.  Pooh.  :(  The company is actually money ahead if I stay and work remotely for the last two days of the week.  So, I'm confined to quarters until Saturday rolls around and I can get out of here.

You would think that I'd be overjoyed to be in sunny San Diego, but for one it isn't sunny!  (well, not continually anyway - it's actually the rainy season).  Des Moines is actually warmer this week than it is out here.  But be that as it may, I have gotten out a little.  Pictures posted below as evidence.  :)