Okay, finally I'm going to put up some pictures here. I'll break them up a bit so that the load time isn't too long. First off, merely for my interest, here's the view from the hotel room:
Now, of more interest…
Dee and I did start the day off with breakfast at Lowell's, after which we headed to the WTCC so that I could register. My first impression was that this year MS had scaled way back. In past years you went up the main escalators to the top floor and all the registration was right there. This year I did that (missed a sign somewhere) and had to go through the back hallways to find the registration desk. Felt like we were tucked away in a closet. It turns out that I missed the escalators that go to the right place although it still felt a bit like it was in the back room.
Dee and I went shopping for a while, then I spent a while chasing around the WTCC looking for Roger Govier whom, based on the Twitter posts, I kept missing by a few minutes. I returned to the WTCC for the keynotes and met up with some folks though, and here's some pictures.
Bob Umlas at the welcome reception. Bob, incidentally, did not take a vow of silence.
Unfortunately, Dee fell earlier in the day, so was feeling a little too sore to make it out to the Rock Bottom. I headed out and had a few beers with the crew below. From left to right: Tom Urtis, Roger Govier, Greg Truby (you can only see his head here,) Tushar Mehta, Bill Manville, Bill Jelen, Richard Schollar (looking the other way,) Mike Rosenblum and Nate Oliver.
From the other end of the table, again from left: Bill Jelen, Richard Schollar, Mike Rosenblum, Nate Oliver, Kevin Jones, Tom Urtis, Roger Govier and Greg Truby.
And another shot that has a couple of others in it as well. From left to right, front row: Zack "No really! I was at last year's summit even though no one saw me" Barresse, Greg Truby, Tom Urtis, Curt Frye. Second row: Bill Jelen, Mike Rosenblum, Roger Govier, Richard Schollar and myself. Back row is Nate Oliver and Smitty Smith.
Eventually we got kicked out of the Rock Bottom, as it closed, so we started to head back to the Westin. On the way back to the hotel we somehow lost almost the entire group! Curt and I closed down the Westin bar, with the rest of the group showing up after a while. (Apparently they stepped into the Elephant & Castle on the way.) I think I rolled into my hotel room at about 2:15AM, setting the alarm for 6:15…
