Category: travel

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Standard Operating Procedures

I’m off to Belfast tonight for a client visit. Better go over my checklist!

E-check-in, print boarding pass, dig up passport: check

Pack suit, toiletries, walking-around clothes: check

Put together electronics kit, with chargers and international outlet adapter: check

Check battery in noise-canceling headphones, charge iPod and camera: check

Find some reading material downstairs in the library: check and check

Receive e-mail from my father with a joke about a plane crashing:

check

Pack extra Xanax for flight: check

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What it is: 1/28/08

What I’m reading: John Lanchester’s Mr. Phillips, Cormac McCarthy’s No Country for Old Men, and Osamu Tezuka’s Buddha, Vol. 3

What I’m listening to: Sing You Sinners, by Erin McKeown

What I’m watching: almost finished with the first season of The Wire!

What I’m drinking: Balgownie Estate 2004 shiraz

Where I’m going: No trips planned this week, although we’re thinking of visiting our friends in Providence next weekend

What I’m happy about: that the heavy push to get my Jan/Feb combo issue done in time for Informex has left me a little more leeway in putting together the March issue and planning out April and May

What I’m sad about: that one of my best pals just deployed for “parts unknown” with his carrier group, and the dad of another of my pals just had surgery to remove some not-so-good cells from his pancreas

What I’m pondering: how awesome it is that, when I felt a twinge of nostalgia for my old college stomping grounds on Saturday, I was able to zoom in the satellite view on Google Maps, retrace my old travels, and remember that the Amherst Cinema is where I first watched Miller’s Crossing

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Happy New Year!

Have a great 2008, dear readers! We’ll be spending today recovering from Amy’s dad’s last holiday gift to us from our Louisiana visit last week: a headcold.

Meanwhile, here are my two photosets from that trip: New Orleans and Oak Alley Plantation. Oh, and Amy wrote pretty extensively (with more pictures!) about our trip here and here.

If I’m feeling up to it later, I’ll try to write something profound about my hopes for the coming year. Meanwhile, we’re gonna chill out and get back to our Lord of the Rings marathon on the big TV.

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What am I, a farmer?

Last night, I was writing to a buddy about how tired I was from my autumn biz-travel schedule. I think I was attempting to elicit sympathy for going to Milan, Las Vegas and San Diego over the course of 6 weeks. “Boy, you think you’ve got it tough. . .”

In that spirit, I won’t even try to express any sort of discomfort over tonight’s gala in NYC. It’s a dinner/dance benefit event for Just One Break, an employment service for people with disabilities. Pfizer’s outgoing R&D chief is one of the honorees, and one of my pals at that company kindly invited me and my wife. (Thanks, Mak!)

I’m suspicious that this is just a plot by my (day job) readership to find out exactly what sorta woman would consent to spend the rest of her life married to me, so I’m thinking of asking Amy to wear a burka to the event.

I, meanwhile, am wrestling with the concept of “black tie optional.” I don’t think that covers leather chaps and a giant sombrero, so it looks like I’ll have to stop off at the dry cleaner and ransom my nice black suit.

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Deee-LAYED!

Well, we got out of the hotel at 6am to get to the airport for the 8am flight. There was an enormous line for security, but my Elite Access pass got us to the front. And, as it turns out, the Delta Crown Room Club accepted my Il Duce Club card, so my boss & I got to lounge for a bit.

And, as it turns out, the card is worth every penny. Our flight’s delayed 75 minutes, and the atmosphere out at the gate is getting pretty surly.

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Martini madness

More pictures from the show. These are from a post-conference reception, which featured an innovative way to make martinis. Since vodka is my kryptonite, and gin doesn’t go well with raspberry or apple, I decided to stick with beer.

rose-colored (and other) glasses

mixmixmix

Voila!

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Sorry

I really don’t blog much when I’m at conferences, so here are a couple of pix from yesterday:

The view from the roof of my hotel.

One of the exhibitors has a foosball table set up. In case the proportions of the two figures seems odd, note that the woman in the foreground is over six feet tall.