ADA convention

We had a fun time at the ADA convention. We had classes on Thurs, Fri, Sat. We stayed at the Sheraton Waikiki for Thurs and Fri night. It was fun to stay in waikiki and not be driving back and forth in the terrible traffic!

The whole thing was amazing. There were over 24, 000 dentists, hygienists, dental assistants, and vendors. The Honolulu convention center is a large building that is nearly all glass at the main entrance and atrium and open air on the sides of the second floor. They had special buses running from the hotels to the convention center. Everywhere you went in town there were signs welcoming the dentists. There was even a special TV channel on in our hotel room just for dentists visiting for the ADA (things to do in town). So we went to our classes and also picked up some free stuff at the vendor showcase (reminded me a bit of going to funeral director conventions).

Some of our classes were good, some not so good. But at least we had each other to keep awake for the dull ones. Thurs night we went out for dinner and drinks. We started at Rumfire, its a restaurant in our hotel outside on the beach. They have live music, and lots of tiki torches and such. But later, we had some bad Thai food and ended up with the worst heartburn of all time. Man, we're old now! We at least had a margarita at Cha Cha Cha's before we gave up on the evening. We also stopped at a Hawaiian quilting store while wandering around. There were some good things, but I think my quilting has more heart. Plus it takes me about 6 weeks per pillow.

On Fri night, we decided to go to something we've wanted to for a long time...first friday. Its an event on the first Friday of every month in Chinatown. The Honolulu Academy of Arts opens up at night and there was live music and hula dancing. Lots of people were sitting out on the lawn and there was food, and drinks. Upstairs on the second floor of the museum, there was an outdoor pavillion with Makana performing. Makana is a local guy who was recently named the second best slack key guitarist. He was having a CD release party. We stayed for awhile and then moved on a few blocks to the main part of chinatown. All the local art galleries were open and local restaurants and bars display art. Some of the streets are closed down and there was a live band playing in the street. They had some sort of "zombie parade" (people dressed up and dancing down the street) since the next first friday will be in Nov. We stopped at a bar we like and it was filled with some photography from a local artist. Then we went to Murphy's Irish pub (yes, in chinatown) for dinner. It was good, plus the only place where we could get a table quickly. Afterwards, it was getting really busy and crowded. By 11pm, there were lines to get into bars, so we caught a cab back to our hotel.

We sat out on our lanai having a rum and coke. I was admiring the city lights when I decided I wanted my glasses. As I sat down, I said to Brian, "wouldn't it be bad if we got locked out here!?" Brian said, that's why I never close the sliding door. "oh", I said (knowing I closed the door). That's right....the door was locked. We were on the 22nd floor locked out at midnight. Our phones were inside. We called out trying to wake up our neighbors, but no one was home. We were laughing/starting to panic when our neighbor's lights came on. Brian banged on the banister until they came out. They were from Milan and spoke enough English to understand us. The husband went down to the front desk because he didn't think he could communicate on the phone well enough.

20 min later, a hotel staff member came out on their lanai to talk to us. He said, "Listen, the noise really travels around here and we are going to need you to quiet down and go inside." Brian says, "We are trying to get inside, but we are locked out." He says, "Just go inside and keep down the noise." Brian says, "You are not listening to what we are saying. We are locked out here. We are stuck. These nice people are helping us because we cannot get inside." The Italians were mortified, they were embarrassed that the staff thought they were complaining about us and apologized up and down for their English.

Of course, I had latched the slide deadbolt on the door, so they had to break in and cut through the deadbolt. They then determined that something was wrong with our lock on the sliding door and the safety was broken. So we made it in within an hour 15 min of being locked out.

Of course being locked out in Hawaii wouldn't have been as bad as being locked out in Alaska or something. The next morning, we checked out, went to our last seminar and came to home sweet home.....