Drinking and being Disney-ized

I passed my certification test! Woo-hoo! First try. I needed a score of 65 to pass, and I got an 81. I'm cool... Now I have my first certification. If I can use my "free pass" to take another test, I'm going to take the Advanced Administration test. No studying. If I pass, great. If not, I don't care. Plus, I won a $200 Best Buy gift card from one of the vendors! If it was only the new laptop instead... Nonetheless, I achieved my objective for the Admin test, and the conference is a success for me, regardless.

I'm enjoying Orlando, but everything here is "kid-friendly". Dammit. (One of the guys told me that he's staying at a Disney resort and it seems that the only TV channels he has are Disney. He actually heard a bastardization of the adage "Don't shit where you eat" on one of the shows - "Don't work where you food." What is this world coming to?) All family restaurants and the like. All of the bars are parts of restaurants... unless you go to Pleasure Island and want to spend at least $10 on cover charge. Of course, that's where we ended up last night. I've found some of the "cool kids" here at the conference. While having a smoke, I started talking to a guy named Scott from Edminton, Canada. He's got the same sick sense of humor as I do, and I saw him at every smoke break in between sessions. Since I had nothing planned for the evening, we decided to hit a couple of bars to celebrate my certification.

We definitely celebrated. We headed to the Lone Star steakhouse near the hotel for dinner before drinking. The only mistake of the evening. The food was crappy and the steak was overdone and dry as a bone. Since I was already a few beers into it and had eaten a bit of the appetizer, I didn't bother sending it back. His was worse - still overdone but greasy as heck. We decided we needed to get out of the place. We headed over to the other restaurant/bar near the hotel, Bahama Breeze. They have an outdoor deck, so we figured it would be a good place to drink. We also inquired about other bars, but the cabbie said that there was nothing around so we'd have to go into Orlando. The cab fares are outrageous here, so Bahama Breeze it was!

We get settled in and the drinks are flowing. I got a call for a dial-a-shot from Al, and Scott thought the concept was funny but drank his shot all the same. He ordered a different shot - one that I'd never heard of but something he gets in Canada all the time. The bartender made it wrong, so of course he had to try again and we got another free shot out of the deal.

This is where the night gets interesting. A guy sits down next to me at the bar - not an uncommon occurrance. He's wearing a polo with the Sun logo embroidered on it. We're at an HP conference, so we start picking at him about drinking with the enemy. He's a fun guy and we have several more drinks with him (which he paid for at least one or two). He remarks that the scene was kind of dead (which it was), and we agree but tell him we don't have a car to go anywhere else. He says he has a car, but if we'd like to go to Pleasure Island, he'd pay for the cab ride. Score!

At Pleasure Island, we found out about the exorbitant covers for the club - $10 for one club, $30 for a club hopper pass. We just wanted the one bar with a band, so we chose the singe - which Sun guy paid for also. We head in, and Sun guy starts a tab - tells us that his company will pay for all the drinks. Score again! We proceed to have several more drinks, and I made each of the guys dance with me several times - which was like pulling teeth since neither likes to dance, but I was not to be denied.

At one point, we're standing around the bar and discussion gets around to Sun's Solaris product. I open my big mouth and tell him all the things I think are wrong with the O/S. He smiles at me and asks me what I think he does - I'm thinking sales since he gets the company to pay for stuff. He said that he was a tekkie and would bring the suggestions back. Of course, I find out the next day from Scott that Sun guy (according to him) was the lead tech in the development of Solaris' kernel and was the one who wrote all of this. Oops! Put my foot right in my big mouth! He didn't seem to be offended though, and I escaped unscathed.

The bar closed at 2, and we get kicked out. The arcade next to the bar was still open, and we head in for a couple of games of car racing. I lost the first race against Scott, but I won the race against both of the guys - and I was driving stick while the guys were using automatics! Shame on them...

The night ended shortly after, and I crashed. I woke up in the morning with an Al-sized headache, but a couple of aspirin and some water fixed me right up. I got dressed and headed to the conference (after missing my two morning sessions). I didn't realize my next session wasn't until 3:30, so I'm sitting on the outside patio enjoying the warm Orlando weather and writing this. Even with the slight hangover, it's still a better day than being at work!

I'll be doing some shopping later on tonight or tomorrow. They've got an awesome outlet mall within walking distance. One of the guys on the shuttle saw the Polo logo on my t-shirt and started telling me about the stuff he got. They have t-shirts 3/$10 and all kinds of awesome deals. I just can't help myself.

I've also dropped the "business" part of the business casual dress code. Plenty of people were wearing jeans on day one, so of course I have to. It seems to be the trend - everyone's moving to jeans. If I'd only known, I wouldn't have needed to buy the two pair of khakis. Next time, I'm only buying one for the first day!