www.chrisdarbro.com – Chris Darbro

07.22
Up and at em, 7:30am. Today was pretty much a long day of work,
laying power and cable for the different areas of caesars palace
that the trainings for the next 4 days were to be held in. We worked
a good chunk of the day, straight through to about 2:30 am or so
the next morning. It was pretty exhausting.I went back to my room, and
hopped in the shower so i wouldnt have to bother with it in the morning.
Did all of that, went to bed…

07.23
Up and at em again, 7:45 am. I reached up and felt my hair.. still damp
from my shower just hours ago. Damn. Oh well. Got myself together,
went downstairs. Today was the first day of trainings, and there was
quite a bit of hustle and bustle from all of the attendees wondering
the floor. There wasnt too much to straighten out this morning, and
most everything was taken care of about 10 minutes after the trainings
has started. At this point just about everyone but myself had wandered
up stairs and gone back to bed to try and get some of the sleep they
had missed out on the previous night. I should have done the same, but
was now too awake at this point that I wouldnt have been able to get
back to sleep. So I stayed up, and helped out with other things as they
were needed, which was rather often, because there werent too many
people to perform various tasks and things now that the rest of my team
was upstairs sleeping. So, I felt a little better about hanging around,
and was kept quite busy the entire time until the rest of my team awoke
many hours later. At this point there were some things that were
switched around, and more other things to setup, so we started on doing
that. It was roughly about 4pm or so when I noticed I was finally out
of any energy Id somehow had up to that point. So while everyone else
had a good hustle and bustle about them, I couldnt stand up as much and
started to nod off a little as well. One of the guys on my team started
making snide remarks about me not working and how useless I was being,
so much to the point where I just got sick of it, and just dropped
everything and used what little energy I had left to make it up to my
room where it took all of about half a second for me to drop and pass
out. My brain wasnt all there at this point, but enough so that my
thinking was telling me, well, [1]there were definitly enough guys down
there to do the job at hand that one missing was going to do them more
good than bad, [2] there was a 2 hour party in a couple hours, so of
the 4 hours I slept, they were actually only losing me for 2, and that
[3] with some sleep Id be more productive and beneficial to everyone
with some sleep under my belt. So I awoke, 8pm,party had just ended,
I went downstairs, checked my email, then went on a hunt to see where
everyone was at so I could continue working with them on whatever they
were working on. Did that for a couple hours, we all finished up, and
headed to bed.

07.24
The first set of trainings was ending today, there wasnt too much to
do work wise, except making sure all the instructors were taken care of
on the things they needed. I was walking around during one of the
breaks, saying hi to people I knew and catching up with them and such,
when I saw this cute girl across the way from me….wait…could it be?
nah, it isnt her…would she be here?…I swear that’s her….nah,
couldnt be, must be my mind playing tricks on me. oh well. Anyway,
during one of the breaks, amanda, thomas, and rachel, who had just
recently got into town as well, came up to the conference floor to check
out all the stuff that was going on, hang out a little, and pick up some
swag. Thomas asked me if I thought any of the female attendees I saw
were cute. I said, ‘eh, i suppose, though I there was this one I saw
earlier, I swear I recognize her, I think she’s this cute girl I met at
defcon last year..’ I was telling him how I met her and describing her
to him, when out of the corner of my eye I saw her. same girl I had
spotted earlier. she walked up to me, asked my name and if I had been
at defcon last year… YES! hot damn, my eyes didnt decieve me, it was
her indeed. I got nervous real quick, despite how excited I was, and we
had like 2 minutes of short chit chat and meaningless banter before she
had to head back to class. i turned back to thomas who, from what I was
telling him, knew it was her the minute she walked up to me. Kinda
funny. Anyway, the day went on as usual, me having a certain spring in
my step I hadnt before, nothing else too exciting happened for the rest
of the day, though I did quite frequently have my radar looking for
nicole (the girl from earlier) during breaks and such.

07.25
Nothing too big happened today either, more chit chat with nicole
during breaks when I’d spot her, but nothing too much more than that.
A couple members of my team were still being asses and making it look
like, or complaining that, I wasnt doing a whole lot, which wasnt the
case at all, I had just been taking every opportunity to not work along
side the 2 members of my team that I had problems with, and just working
with the others whenever possible, or on other tasks that were needed of
me from the ‘higher ups’.

07.26
Today was the last day of trainings, not too much going on today either,
more hello’s or chit chat with nicole when i’d see her, but that was it.
later in the evening after all the trainings were done, we had to start
cleaning up some of the rooms in preparation for the briefings that were
starting tomorrow. I dont know what it was that was said, but one of
the people that had been pissing me off did something that finally got
me to snap, which I hardly ever do, Im for all intents and purposes a
pretty nice guy with people and will put up with a lot to avoid problems
with or in front of people, but i’d finally hit my limit, I lost my
temper, and it showed.nothing violent or anything, in fact I kept very
quiet compared to how I normally am, but everyone could definitly tell
I was very frustrated or upset about something, and were kind enough to
give me some space. After we were done doing that, we all had invites
to this private party that was being held at the top of the bellagio,
so we went and headed to that. We got there and it was definitly a
good time, definitly what I needed, my frustrations disappeared rather
quickly, now that I was actually having some fun for my birthday again.
It was a great party and I think we all had a great time and definitly
needed it.

to be continued… this is where it really starts to pick up and
get fun..