Juli and Brett: Comcast Jeopardy

I feel like I haven't given you anything but LOs lately, so I will give you more of an update post. I still haven't told you about our trip to Denver, my week from H-E-double hockey sticks, the snow, our ward Christmas Party, and then family stuff! Man, this post will be a doozy if I fit it all it in. I guess I will just go in order and see how far I can get tonight.

Edit: Comcast Jeopardy is a LONG post, so I think I will separate them...

Comcast Jeopardy

First off, I would like to say that I am very pleased with Comcast. They really are a great company and they really treat their employees well. That said, I do have some complaints in this story. Just wanted to make sure to be thankful first. Seems like I am a better person than I really am. =)

Ok, so Monday, December 1st was the start of our adventure. Our plan was to leave around 6:30, arrive at school around 7ish so that I could drop off the DVD the sub would need, go to a good breakfast place, and arrive at Brett's office around 9. Sounds good right? Wrong. We discovered that the place we were going to for breakfast was not open on weekday mornings. Sad. So we ended up at Jack in the Box. I don't really like fast food breakfasts. Oh well. We arrived at the office much sooner than we planned, so we hung out with his co-workers and discovered that while Comcast is a great company, they make mistakes. Lots of them. The first one is that the 8 person limo they were supposed to order turned out to be 2 town cars. These two town cars are supposed to fit Brett, me, Eric P, Eric's wife, Liam (Eric's 2 year old son), Liam's car seat, Mike, Eric S, Eric S's girlfriend, AND all our luggage! Eric S ended up driving his car and leaving it at the airport.

While driving to the airport, I freak out because no one has given us instructions on what to do when we get to the airport. We don't have tickets and I wasn't sure how that would all work! Turns out it wasn't a problem. We just stuck our credit card in and recognized we had tickets in our names. I had never done that before, so glad it all worked out. We get our tickets and realize that none of us are sitting together. The airline can't change them for us, so we try to do our own switcharoo and it doesn't work out as well as it could have. I ended up sitting in the row ahead of Brett.

When we arrive at the Denver airport, Eric S calls the guy who is supposedly driving an 8 person hummer and is picking us up. Well, it is not an 8 person hummer. Another screwup! It ends up being a suburban and we don't all fit! Sue ends up sitting on the console thing between the driver and passenger seats all the way into downtown Denver which is a 45 minute drive! That was annoying. Details apparently weren't important.

We stayed at the Grand Hyatt Denver which is an amazing hotel! Beautiful! Our room was very nice with a nice view. We were pretty hungry at this point, so we all met at the 1876 restaurant (*BTW, anyone know the importance of that year for Colorado? I will tell you at the end of the post!*) in the hotel to have dinner. This restaurant is very nice. It is expensive, small portions, and lots of food you can't pronounce. The food was very good, but like I said, small portions. The guys weren't too happy with this. They paid about $100 for a meal (that is for two people) and were STILL hungry. So they went out and found a fast food restaurant.

Brett and I were pretty pleased with the meal. I eat small portions anyway and Brett liked it because it was cooked very well. We went back up to our room and enjoyed each other's company. We did end up going to a little bar the hotel had and ordering some appetizers later on that night, but that is ok. We charged it our room. Gotta love expense accounts!! =)

Tuesday morning: I knew the guys would refuse to eat in that restaurant again, so I asked the concierge for a good breakfast place. We walked to "The Delectable Egg" and really enjoyed our breakfast. The guys decided to do a little studying, so I went out to the 16th St Mall and talked to Jessica on the phone. It was quite enjoyable. I really thought the weather was going to be bad, but it was in the 60s on Monday and Tuesday.

We all met for lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe around 2 and then met for dinner around 5:30. Let me tell you, I was stuffed on Tuesday. The entire day revolved around food. Dinner that night was at a really nice steak restaurant attended and paid for by the head of the Washington Market Len Rozak along with other management people.

Funny story about Len. I am walking to the restaurant and Vicki texts me saying, "my friend's dad is going to say hi to you tonight." I had forgotten that Vicki is really good friends with Len's daughter Megan who also goes to Willamette. Vicki asked me where the team would go if they win on Wednesday and I told her we didn't know because we had heard three different locations. She told us to wait a second and Megan would text her dad to find out. Isn't that funny? So we get to the restaurant and introduce ourselves to Len by saying, "So you have a daughter at Willamette huh?" That started a nice conversation and Len ended up sitting next to me during dinner. I was a little nervous! I was sitting by my husband's boss' boss' boss! Kind of scary! It went well though. I tried very hard to keep talking which is hard for me to do sometimes. I really like to stay in my shell in situations like that. I did it for my husband.

Wednesday was the LONGEST day ever! It started around 6:45 when Brett had to be at a breakfast/meeting for all the teams. When I got down to the room where they were holding the competition, I tried to sit down next to Brett, but Mike (one of his teammates) told me those seats were reserved for the team. I moved and sat two rows behind them. I stayed for about 5 minutes and decided this was completely pointless! I wasn't going to stay and listen to this game that Brett wasn't in and ESPECIALLY if I couldn't sit by him. In Brett's defense, he didn't know that is what Mike said to me...So, I just left and went back to the hotel room. Brett came up between the first and second games and asked why I had left. I told him I wanted to sit by him and I wasn't going to sit there unless that was going to be the case. He made sure that he saved me a seat and then I was happy.

Brett's team played 3 games, won their second and lost the first and last. It was sad. Oh well. There is always next year. The second game gave us hope, but the third game was a killer. Brett said that it was poorly written with some really outdated information. The final game was between Colorado, California, and Oregon. Oregon won which made a lot of people happy. No one wanted to see Colorado win. They had won the last two years and won nationals two years ago. This time, the won their 3 games quite handedly and were so cocky about it. I am glad that they were knocked off their high horses. Brett was also happy because they beat Portland in their second game.

Thursday: We woke up to a lot of snow, so Brett's parents had a harder time than we planned picking us up. Sorry you guys! We still went to the temple as you saw in my Denver temple LO. That was great. The rest of the weekend was great! We went to the Garden of the Gods again, went shopping, and just hung out. We had a great time.

Saturday: We flew home and this time Brett and I were seated together with a seat to spare! It was nice to be able to spread out a little more. When we landed we were supposed to call the town car that dropped us off on Monday to come pick us up, but that wasn't going to work. Eric P, his wife, and son were on the same flight and needed a ride as well. The five of us were not going to fit in the car, so we called my mom to pick us up.

That was our trip! My complaint is if you are going to make a big deal out of something, do it right. There were several things that I would have done much differently if I had been in charge of this event. Brett excuses the mistakes by saying that they have better things to do and that is true. I come back with the thought that they spend a TON of money on this event and then don't make it as good as it could be. Don't make it such a big deal if you aren't going to plan it out like it is a big deal. I mean, they sent 5 teammates and guests, along with a coach and guest, and most of corporate to Denver. They put them up in a hotel, paid for ALL expenses, spent money on prizes, decorations, meals, etc. They did all that and then didn't make sure their games were accurate, well written, etc. What is the point? What do you guys think? Think I have a point?