WAHOO!!!
It's all over. Today was awesome. Very nice indeed. Slept in a little this morning, about 15-30min. Took while longer to get ready then normal because I had to get all spiffed up in my suit. Today was final presentation day for our MQP. I got in to work at 10am, hour later than usual. We were meeting Prof. Wilcox at 1030 to give her a quick plant tour and then it was off to lunch. We went to lunch at Sweet Tomatoes, the awesome salad buffet restaurant. We got back to work around 1230 to meet Prof. Nowick and do any last-minute prep for our presentation. 1pm was go time. We knew everybody was interested in hearing our talk, but we didn't think they actually meant it. Boy, were we wrong. It was standing room only at our presentation. There were probably 20-25 people there. We didn't know how many people were there, but that's kinda what we were expecting. Our presentation took forever. We had 40 slides to go through and they took about 40-45 minutes. Not really sure how everybody liked what we were saying, we were throwing so much at them that it seemed like they didn't really have time to react. It was such a relief once it was over. And there weren't very many questions from the audience about our presentation. We couldn't have been any more happier with the way things went. Next, we went back to the office to clean it out. When we went to go turn in our badges and key, the security officer saw Prof. Wilcox and asked her who she was. The security officer thought she was a classmate of ours, but Prof. Wilcox bluntly said "I teach them, yeah their my students." The security officer could not have been any more shocked. Anyway, we finally got to get away from the plant for good and went home. Prof. Nowick (Hank) drove around town checking out apartments all day except when we was at our presentation. So that left us with Prof. Wilcox for the afternoon. The reason we had to hang out with the profs was because we had to kill time until dinner at 6pm. Might have been kinda awkward with both profs there or even just Prof. Nowick. At least Prof. Wilcox is around our age and interesting to talk to. We were thinking about just hanging out for the afternoon until dinner time but that didn't exactly turn out as planned. We wanted to run errands since we had the advantage of having a car. Those errands took far longer than they should have. All we had to do was return our cable modem and package and ship our wine. Cool thing was we were late to our own dinner. I mean the dinner was for us and the reservation was in our name, but we were running late so Prof. Nowick and Bill Stewart just had to wait on us.
For dinner, Brock and Lupe recommended this restaurant called Slates. We had no idea what this place was like other than it was fine dining. Yeah, it was fine dining alright. The cheapest entree was $25 and it went as high as $50. For starters, I got the caesar salad. Was this actually a salad? It seemed like stalky lettuce leaves coated with some cheese and dressing. The leaves were about 8in long so it was the 1st salad I had to cut up before I could eat it. Then our waiter brought us some fancy hors d'oureves. It was a mixture of cream cheese, smoked salmon, capers, and other stuff on a piece of toast. Nice touch with the free appetizer, Slates. We also had a glass of Pinot Gris while waiting for our entree. But the profs and Bill wanted a red, so Hank got a bottle of Cab. Sav. For the record, no it wasn't Gallo, but then again there weren't any Gallos on the list. I believe it was called Cakebread Creek or something like that. Strange name but Hnak had it before and it was very good. Cool thing was we got to have both wines. After our glass of Pinot Gris, we helped them finish off their bottle of Cab. Sav. We finally got around to ordering dinner. I was torn between the grilled filet mignon and the crab-stuffed colossal prawns. I went with the crab-stuffed colossal prawns. They also came with fome fancy-flavored mashed potatoes. I knew prawns were basically jumbo shrimp on steroids and I always wondered what they tasted like. Since these were colossal prawns, they were huge. Each prawn was probably worth about 4-5 shrimp. To top it off, each prawn was stuffed with a crab mixture. When I first saw the plate, I was wondering is this all I get for $31? Didn't seem like a lot, but I did feel full by the end. Oh and of course Hank had to order a second bottle for when the actual entrees came. After dinner, we just sat there and talked forever over coffee. Bill Stewart seems to be a really cool, laid-back guy being THE guy who runs the Fresno plant. I think my dinner alone was probably $70. So the total bill was probably $300-350 and we stayed there for 3 hours. Never been out to dinner for 3 hours before, but I wasn't complaining. Especially since I didn't have to pay.
For dinner, Brock and Lupe recommended this restaurant called Slates. We had no idea what this place was like other than it was fine dining. Yeah, it was fine dining alright. The cheapest entree was $25 and it went as high as $50. For starters, I got the caesar salad. Was this actually a salad? It seemed like stalky lettuce leaves coated with some cheese and dressing. The leaves were about 8in long so it was the 1st salad I had to cut up before I could eat it. Then our waiter brought us some fancy hors d'oureves. It was a mixture of cream cheese, smoked salmon, capers, and other stuff on a piece of toast. Nice touch with the free appetizer, Slates. We also had a glass of Pinot Gris while waiting for our entree. But the profs and Bill wanted a red, so Hank got a bottle of Cab. Sav. For the record, no it wasn't Gallo, but then again there weren't any Gallos on the list. I believe it was called Cakebread Creek or something like that. Strange name but Hnak had it before and it was very good. Cool thing was we got to have both wines. After our glass of Pinot Gris, we helped them finish off their bottle of Cab. Sav. We finally got around to ordering dinner. I was torn between the grilled filet mignon and the crab-stuffed colossal prawns. I went with the crab-stuffed colossal prawns. They also came with fome fancy-flavored mashed potatoes. I knew prawns were basically jumbo shrimp on steroids and I always wondered what they tasted like. Since these were colossal prawns, they were huge. Each prawn was probably worth about 4-5 shrimp. To top it off, each prawn was stuffed with a crab mixture. When I first saw the plate, I was wondering is this all I get for $31? Didn't seem like a lot, but I did feel full by the end. Oh and of course Hank had to order a second bottle for when the actual entrees came. After dinner, we just sat there and talked forever over coffee. Bill Stewart seems to be a really cool, laid-back guy being THE guy who runs the Fresno plant. I think my dinner alone was probably $70. So the total bill was probably $300-350 and we stayed there for 3 hours. Never been out to dinner for 3 hours before, but I wasn't complaining. Especially since I didn't have to pay.