Wow. It's so nice to be back in the land of the living - such as it is. We finished our case presentation at 9:10 this morning and got hammered by the judges, but I felt that I answered my questions sufficiently, especially on the question why Microsoft ought not license CE for free - that was a positive note to end the presentation on. However, we did not make it past the first round. Those two hours of waiting for results was a killer - you have 60 black-suited folks just congregating the hallways, nervously laughing. After all, $4000 was up for stake.

Though, we did say that if we all dropped out and split the price money, the expected value was $58 a person - a good deal for the 8 teams which did not make it past the first round as well as the team which would come in 4th place. Not a good deal for teams 1-3. Ah well. Results will be announced in about 20 minutes as to who actually walked away with the prize, but I left Wehner at 11:35, having spent way too much time there yesterday. Apparently, two of the teams which were still there when we left at 3 am, went home around 6:30 am to change into their suits and freshen up.

At any rate, I've slept for 2 hours - not enough, but I already feel better and not so cranky and grumpy. In fact, I had gone to work right after the competition only to realize that I had left my key at home and I swear, I thought I would cry on the spot. Really, I almost did, but the lady in the building office was really nice and tried to let me in, but she doesn't know me from Adam, so in the end, I thanked her and decided that sleep was more important than checking to see if my boss had missed me over the last 2 days.

And in other news, I found the missing glove (thanks, Katie, for offering to look for a pair for me!). Yeah! And yes, I do have an extensive collection of mittens and gloves and yes, you do wear them here. Every coat I own has at least one pair of gloves that go with them - it's the one style thing I did care about in New England and it's much fun that here I have such cute and varied styles still, compared to the leather driving gloves (which are not warm) that everyone wears here. And yes, I do have a pair of those as well :-)