I'm around during the day, obviously, what with the living here. and stuff.

If I am left out of Vortex's birthday fete, I will be cranky. That would be - unwise. I get cave-slayer when cranky.

Laura, if you're coming in from SFO, Supershuttle will take you straight to hotel's front door, for $15, I think. The hotel may even have its own bus. I'll check.

Thursday and Friday, I want to spend an hour or so making sure the hospitality suite is ready, and stocked with food. That would be mornings, though. Also need to remember to get the DVD player up there and hooked up on Thursday morning. Since Thursday is the one morning Nic *can't* take time off (weekly status meeting at work, carved in stone, half past eleven every Thursday), I could use some help on that one.

Ok.

ALCATRAZ NIGHT TOUR

Cost is $23.50/person. They haven't set the times yet, but the times they had last year were 6:20-8:45 and 7:05-9:30.

Personally, I am of the opinion that doing the earler night tour would be better for a number of reasons: A) Baby - although that's totally shelfish. and 2) we'd still have time to go congregate in the hospitality suite and hang with those that didn't go.

They are emailing me the form for the group request. They say we should book early and often! So, we can do one of two things. We can forgo being a group - there is no discounted rate since it's a National Park (one more thing put under Dubya's list of how he sucks) - and everyone can book their own tickets or I can accept money into my Paypal account and abscond with the cash for the Michael Kors shoes that I covet buy the tickets myself.

Who wants to do what?

I like the early option too, because it'll let us get back in time to eat dinner at a reasonable hour.

Who wants to do what?

I'm up for the Michael Kors shoes - oh, wait.

Carry on.

Seriously, one nice thing about doing the earlier tour? You'll get the beginnings of sunset through the Golden Gate as you're heading back to the City on the boat.

If there is no group rate then booking ourselves makes more sense because of the paypal fee. We just need to pick a time. I am good with the early time for the reasons you mentioned. eta: and Deb's sunset note seals the deal.

Thanks Deb, I figured there would be a convenient shuttle of some sort. I'll arrange that closer to the date. Which is just not close enough!

I like the early option too, because it'll let us get back in time to eat dinner at a reasonable hour.

Works for me.

OK, so looking at the food choices at the moment, and agreeing entirely with Jessica that we don't want masses of leftover food, it occurs to me that a closer to 50-50 split of that $1500 requirement between food and liquid would be a good starting point. I'd initially thought $1000 food, $500 drinks, but not so much.

So, how does this sound, as a starting point?

Food:

Spanakopita $140.00
Domestic Cheese Board with Sliced Fresh Fruit $100.00
Coconut Shrimp $220.00

and

either Pot Stickers $180.00
or
Beef, Chicken or Pork Kebabs $200.00,

plus

Antipasto Tray with Artichokes, Olives, Salami, Pepperoncini, Roasted Peppers, Bread Sticks and Mozzarella Cheese $125.00

That gives us a five-tray spread, with something for basically everyone, and a food total of between $765 and $785, plus tax.

If my admittedly piss-poor math skills are even close (I have a calculator, but it's under one of the cats at the moment), that leaves a bar requirement of between $715 and $735. I personally think that, with an open bar out by the pool and then moving it indoors for a few hours afterward, we should hit that easily.

Opine, please.

That spread looks about perfect to me. Did Lilibeth ever get back to you about the cost of an open bar?

No, because I didn't call. That's on this morning's agenda; in fact, I've got her card on the desk next to me. She should be in the office by now.

I might suggest adding the crudites, but otherwise that looks just right.