I left for Sacramento from Long Beach on Saturday at about 12pm and made it here in 6.5 hours.  My room is big and I have a view of a Lake with paddle boats that you can rent.  My first night stay was a little rough.  The couple next door were having a good 'ol time and woke me up at 4am.  I really didn't appreciate that, until I walked outside to go get some coffee and I saw a car that had "Just Married" on the back window.  I was tempted to change rooms, but I haven't seen their car since, so they must have been on the way to some other destination.  I'm here for an alamode appraisal software convention.  I'm learning all kinds of cool stuff that is going to make my life easier and also enable me to get my appraisals completed faster for my clients.  I have all the "bells and whistles" alamode has to offer, so it will be fun putting it all to work now that I'm learning how to work with it more efficiently.  I'm really excited about the DaVinci Mobile Pro Software that I can put on a tablet pc and take to job sites with me, so I can complete my inspections more quickly and more thoroughly with less typing.  I also learned about the new generation of software that is still in the development stages, they are calling "Armstrong".  Last night I visited a local pizza place called "Extreme Pizza".  I had 2 slices of pepperoni pizza and it was very good.  The crust was crispy, just like I like it and not to thick.  The owners were a very friendly couple married for 42 years and it turns out they were both appraisers too.  They gave me some free samples of imported beer and we chatted for a while.  They bought this business 1.5 years ago when the appraisal industry started changing so drastically.  They still do appraisals in addition to running their pizza business.  Well, I better run.  I still have to get my breakfast and coffee.  Speaking of coffee, the folks at alamode commented yesterday that they couldn't believe how much coffee we appraisers drink.  They were serving Starbucks and it was gone by lunch time. I still have 2 more days of seminars to go, so I'll keep you posted on how it goes.  Then, I'm off to Lake Shasta to visit my sister for a couple of days.