Our adventure begins with delays in leaving San Diego. Monsoon rains in Phoenix delayed our flight by a few minutes, then a hour, then two hours. We were getting nervous because we had a really tight schedule once we landed in Seattle to be able to make it to set up. We were taking our 360 test kits in the blue luggage (below). Another one of the issues we were apprehensive about was that we would not be able to take the 360's on board with us, especially with all of the heightened security and the fact that I'm Middle Eastern. However, it all went well without any snags.

     

Tom beat us to Seattle and was waiting for us at the baggage claim. We then made our way to the car rental and headed out to Ikea, since our plane was late we only had a few minutes to get there before it closed. What we hadn't really calculated was the volume of our luggage; two monitors, the tool tote, our 15' banner, plus personal luggage. We grabbed the standard wooden shelving just as they were closing the doors .With no room left in the SUV, we strapped the boxes to the roof racks and prayed we wouldn't be hearing any nasty noises of boxes tumbling onto the freeway during our 30 minute drive to Bellevue

     

     

We got to the Meydenbauer Center just as everyone that was setting up for the expo was leaving for the night. However, Robert (Penny-Arcade Director of Business Development) gave us a quick tour of the facilities. The whole set up was incredibly impressive from the scads of "enforcers" (volunteers) turned out in their black t-shirts to the rooms of meticulously set up equipment. We were very impressed with the work Robert Khoo, Mike Fehlauer and the rest of their team had put into the event and were looking forward to opening day. Amazingly enough all of our equipment had arrived and was waiting for us at the booth. Nothing was missing and more importantly nothing was broken, yay for things going right!