Turkey day was great.  It was nice to have a day off between setup and the expo, greater to eat some home-cooked food, and greatest to catch up with relatives I haven’t seen in a while.  I saw my Great Aunt Annie (who hosted), and Ashley (second?) cousin who I hadn’t spent any time with for probably a decade, plus other semi-distant relatives.

The last two day have both been long expo days, particularly with reduced staffing available for the event.  I did, however, have time to venture out into the fray of Black Friday.  My theory regarding Black Friday is that it originally started out as a popular shopping day, but is now actually a manufactured marketing ploy.  Companies and the media have repeatedly reinforced the idea that you’re supposed to shop the day after Thanksgiving to the point that it’s almost becoming a tradition.  Not that I have a problem with that – I think it’s good marketing.  Just realize that if you’re feeling compelled to shop it’s probably because some company paid money to put the idea in your head.

Friday night I took a stroll to check out the lights after the official Christmas tree lighting.  The most impressive has to be the 5 story star on Macy’s.

With the long expo days, it’s been nice that we’re provided with VIP passes that get us into the hospitality room on the top floor of the hotel.

There were all sorts of sandwiches and munchies.

Load-out from the expo tonight went fairly smoothly given that there was one freight elevator for dozens of vendors and very few parking spaces.  I made my own parking space.

After packing up, we went over to the Seattle Center and set up most of our area for tomorrow’s finish line.  We finished by 10, which isn’t too bad considering there are only two of us.