BLOODY GOOD TIME

If it’s April, it must be time for the CBBS (California Blood Bank Society) annual meeting, usually held in some high-end hotel or resort that we normally wouldn’t pay for.  Ah, but ever since our retirements, Loni has volunteered us to work the registration/help desk in return for free room.  We’ve been doing this now for at least 8 years, and it’s been pretty nice to enjoy resorts like the Hyatt Regency at north Lake Tahoe, various fancy Vegas hotels, and, this year, the Paradise Point Resort on Mission Bay down in San Diego.  That’s us with Judy, the recently retired (and much longed-for) general secretary of the CBBS.  She was volunteering as well, to help out in the transition to the new secretary, and thank goodness.  There were more than a few glitches.  We, however, kept things running smoothly and the attendees hopefully didn’t notice them. 

This is an old resort;  in fact, it was the first thing built on Mission Bay when it was created back in the early 60’s.  It sits on its own 44-acre “island”, connected to everything else by waterways and causeways.  It’s not a high rise, but rather a lot of one-story “bungalows” that are duplexes through quadplexes.  While the grounds are lushly landscaped, the bungalows are a little dated, both outside and in.  We got a primo duplex suite (living room, bedroom, and long dual-vanity-rooms bathroom) which looked out onto the sand beach and bay-lagoon.  Strange, mis-matched furniture in the living room, but everything was serviceable, including great wifi adequate for streaming.

The view out the front of our bungalow was pretty nice.  Not much going on out there in this shot, but we had, at one time or another, sailboats, “cruise” boats, jet skis, and families playing in the sand on the beach.  (All these photos were taken on my iPad then emailed, so there is some loss of clarity.)

The food in the various restaurants was quite good, which is fortunate because you can’t walk to anything else, you’d have to drive.  We were happy to just stay there for meals.  Actually, the catered lunches that they provided for the attendees were very nice and you could make that your main meal of the day.  I ate like it was, but still went out for dinner!  At our first meal there, which was lunch the day of our arrival (Tuesday), we were eating on an outdoor patio overlooking the boat pier.  We had just been served a large plate of calamari, when a strolling heron leaped on our table, beaked about a third of our plate and dove off with me hollering and shooing him.  Turns out he’s notorious, is named Humphrey, and is a regular pain-in-the-butt for the restaurant.

The physical layout of the resort made for some problems, as the various meeting rooms were in three buildings, each about 100 yards from the others.  Not a big problem, unless it decides to rain on your parade, which it proceeded to do all day Thursday.  Yeah, I know, California needs the rain, but our attendees weren’t happy campers splashing through the puddles going to and fro.  Fortunately, although the forecast was for more of the same, it was just cloudy and threatening Friday, and sunny on Saturday.

After the morning rushes for registration, Loni usually went off to listen to the presentations, coming back later gushing over how good they were.  This year’s main topic was the Zika virus.  Egads.  The more you know about it the scarier it is.  The way it hides in the body means that detecting it in the blood supply could become a horrendous problem.  People are working on it all across the country.  Anyway, Loni really enjoys keeping up with the latest developments in her field, as well as seeing dozens of folks she has met over the decades.  She’s happy, so I’m happy holding down the fort at the desk.  It wasn’t so bad because they had very good wifi and I downloaded the Masters Golf app on my iPad and streamed the event all day right at the desk.  I did have the sound off and the iPad hidden under the desktop counter so no one knew it was running.  Gotta look professional, after all.

Several years ago, Loni started a scholarship program, and the UCLA blood bank kicked in additional funds, to award annually some deserving blood bank tech enough funds to pay for the registration and hotel at the annual meeting.  It’s a good way to get the younger techs involved in the organization and increase their knowledge.  She also shells out for a very nice (and $$$) technical book which is the tech’s to keep.  We took this year’s awardee out for dinner one night, and Loni made sure to introduce him to members of various committees.  He seemed pretty enthused, and we observed him actively participating in the Q&A sessions after each talk.  He’s the third “mentee” that she has shepharded.  The organization will have to start promoting things like this or it will be in danger of aging out and disappearing.

Saturday we broke things down and packed away and got on the road to come home.  Even with heavy traffic, we took just 2 1/2 hours to get back, so not bad timewise, but driving in that kind of traffic is wearing on these old bones.  I was happy to flop when we arrived.  Next year, the meeting is at Squaw Valley, so that should be nice (as long as the remote venue doesn’t discourage folks from attending).