8/7/2013 : The flight up

Was seated on the second story of the 747. It was pretty amazing being in such a huge crowd of coworkers.

Flight was a red eye and didn't sleep much.

Punts Cana airport was neat. Thatched roof outdoor customs area and luggage retrieval. Then took a very comfy bus to the hotel. And good times were had by all.

8/8/2013 : Thursday

Woke up pretty late the second day for the excursion. Grabbed food at the snack bar and boarded the bus for the trip.

They hustle us all on to a large catamaran and go through a well rehearsed patter. But at least it was funny.

Swam with stingrays (sans stingers, I'm pretty sure they didn't appreciate that part. One was stumpy) and Nurse sharks. Despite what I thought I knew, these guys got to be 5 or 6 feet in length. Chasing them around underwater was a hell of a thrill. We got our pictures taken with a pissed off stingray as a momento. The thing was flapping madly to try and get away. :(

But it was super fun to get back out into the ocean. I forgot how much I missed that.

Then came back and had to change quickly to get to the State of the Company presentation. Lot's of mind-bending info about the history and current status of the game. I can't mention any of it, of course.

8/9/2013 : Friday

Today was supposed to be several guest speakers (nasa engineer and a couple others) about achievement and stuff. I missed it due to lack of sleep as I got to bed at 5am. Will have to snag a copy of the video to watch later.

Did make it out to food for lunch, then a bit of League at the makeshift pc bang and then the department dinner. Everyone was there from around the world, (sadly except for our Korean counterparts. They had to stay behind for work.) The food was fine, but the drinks were nuuuuumerous. Got drunk enough that I had to stumble back to my room. Then was still drunk enough that several of us thought skinnydipping in the Atlantic seemed like a great idea. It was, btw. Water is super warm here. Another 5am night.

8/10/2013 : Saturday

Didn't sleep as late because I wanted to grab lunch and participate a bit in the Hunger Games knockoff competition that was slated for today. The event I had my eye on was a minor-obstacle laden 3k. Was very fun despite the oppressive heat. Then back to the room and games for a little while until the night's dinner/indoor beach party.

8/11/2013 : Sunday

Time to flight: 2h30m

Was awoken not by my alarms, but by the hotel staff calling to tell me I should have checked out a half hour ago. I did not have nearly enough to drink the night before to justify any of this. :(

Blitzed through final packing of my bag and tore off to the lobby. Checked out and looked for the shuttle.

Time to flight: 2hr

... which did not leave for 30 mins.

Time to flight: 1h30m

Shuttle finally took off with the travel contact assuring me this would be no problem. Got to the airport and things again took a turn for the worse.

Time to flight: 1h

Our bus driver was taking people on a normal flight and I was the charter. I asked several official looking people where I should check in and they said they didn't know. Another guy who seemed marginally more informed took me upstairs to the offices. This was a 10 min wild goose chase and we headed back out. At this point my travel agent says there's no way I'll make the flight and she's going to look into rescheduling.

Time to flight: 40min

I finally get forwarded to someone who looks like he's working for a different travel company. He's able to wrangle me to a guy willing and able to print out the boarding pass and then hands me over to another gwntlement who's taking me to security. They were both handsomely rewarded.

Time to flight: 25m

The second man, whom I should heretofore refer to as the miracle worker hustled me through to the front of the line at security, THEN CUSTOMS, and then to the gate where I was on the last shuttle out to the flight. Travel agent informs me if I hadn't made it, the other options would have all been delays until tomorrow.

Time to flight: 10 mins

This has to have been some kind of record.