I use to think it a point of pride not to be bothered with trifling details like coats on cold days, but I’m ready to admit that I’ve lost any semblance of tolerance for the cold weather that growing up in Western Maryland bestowed on me. It’s colder than blue hell here in Chicago. It’s cold outside. It’s cold inside. It’s just cold. Next time someone wants to send you to a conference, make sure you ask them where it is before saying yes.
Category Archives: Travel
Hog butcher for the world…
Off to Chicago for a few days… Assuming the weather doesn’t totally screw with air traffic tomorrow afternoon. As always, I’ll keep you in the loop with any late breaking developments.
Big old jet airliner…
Other than the obvious work-related foolishness, there really hasn’t been all that much going on this week. I’ve done a little photography in the evenings, but the light wasn’t terribly conducive to getting the long shots that I prefer. I do have a couple from down around the World War II and Lincoln Memorials that turned out much better than expected, though. Hopefully I’ll get them posted when I get back to Memphis and after I’ve had a chance to tweak the color settings a bit. All in all, it’s been a quiet couple of days here in the District. Good hotel, good food, good work. At the moment, I’m at a loss for things to bitch about… and you know how that drives me crazy. Even with that said, I’m ready to hop on that big old jet airliner and get back to the house.
Two day pass…
Having slept in until a ridiculously late 7:00 this morning, I’m feeling rested and ready to again take over the world. I’m on a two day pass to get some things done around the house… think laundry, lawn care, and general cleaning… and then I’m on the road to Richmond for a week. As an aside, there’s no good way to get from Memphis to Richmond. Apparently, the only way to do it on a Sunday is to go through Newark, New Jersey as an intermediate step. I’m sure there is a logic to the way airlines do what they do, but I’m damned if I can figure it out.
Live, from the 5th Circle of Hell; or From Atlanta with Love
There are a few posts from this week’s trip and you’ll be reading them in whichever order I feel like fleshing out my notes. There is also one that will be written, but not posted without the consent of the other parties involved. Barring that consent, it will remain a permanent part of my personal archive and never see the light of day. Either way, it’s there as a part of the record. You know, for 300 years from now when someone finds one of my old flash drives buried in the rubble of civilization and has to reconstruct what life was like in the 21st century based on only a handfull of snarky blog posts.
I digress, however, from the work at hand. I hate the airport at Atlanta. It’s over crowded both in terms of flight operations and the sheer number of our oblivious fellow airport patrons (did you really think I was going to use the phrase “fellow traveler?”). All the early flights are sold out, so here I sit until 7:30, when, I hope, the skies over the ALT are not full of thunderheads. It’s summer in Atlanta so I’m not holding my breath. This place is some kind of hellish business traveler’s purgatory where time takes on no actual significance.
It’s only saving grace is that it has indoor smoking if you know where to look; thus proving that even hell has its perks. Thank God I’m easy to please.
The saga continues…
OK, I’ve filed my plans (for the second time) and have all the paperwork cut, reservations made, all the appropriate notifications that I’ll be floating around the old homestead over the weekend have happened (almost). When everything is going according to schedule, my day ends at 3:30. At 3:19 I got an email that I had been “uninvited” to the DC meeting on Friday. At 3:26 another email hit my inbox that I was “reinvited.” I appreciate you boys fighting over me, I really do, but this whole plan has all the classic hallmarks of a typical government operation… no one has a damned clue what is actually going on.
As of 8:30, I’m planning to fly out tomorrow. That, of course, is subject to the requirements of the service and can change at any time before “the cabin door has been closed and customers are asked to turn off their cell phones, pagers, and other electronic devices.” If you don’t see a stark, raving post about government ineptitude by 6:00 PM eastern time tomorrow, you’ll know I’m winging my way somewhere over the Eastern half of the country. Stay tuned for developments as they happen.
Itinerary…
Spend enough time doing what I do and you’ll learn that flight plans are never for sure until you are taxing up to the terminal at your destination. I filed all my paperwork this morning that put Uncle’s official stamp of approval on my travel plans… Thirty minutes later I was walking to the shredder with those plans.
You should always be suspicious when the boss wanders over to you and starts the conversation with “since you’re going to be on the road Monday anyway…” So, instead of a nice quiet flight back to Memphis on Monday morning, I’m going to reroute through Atlanta for a 10 hour layover so I can take a meeting downtown before heading back to the airport to catch my newly scheduled evening flight to Memphis.
There ought to be a law against forcing someone to go through two airport screenings in one day… especially when one of them is Atlanta.
Live from Cincinnati…
I’ve been incredibly lucky to travel to some of the world’s great cities over the years. I’ve been even more fortunate to usually be traveling on someone else’s nickel. Though this is on Uncle’s nickel, rest assured, Cincinnati is not one of the cities I mentioned above. The hotel I am staying in, on the other hand, certainly has a “wow” factor, especially if you like “old stuff.” It’s a 30s vintage hotel and Deco to the core. It’s amazing that it’s still around. Sitting here in one of the very basic (i.e. cheap government rate) rooms, you can see that it was built at a time when there was true craftsmanship and thought put into the details. Even my simple room has 6 inch crown molding and 10 inch toe molding. Seven decades of paint don’t hide all the nicks and scuffs at the edges, nor do they hide the beadwork that was probably done by hand in all 500 rooms. It’s a real privilege to stay in places like this, even if they are in places like Cincinnati.
Getting the good light…
Most of you know that I’ve always harbored a secret love of photography. And now that I’m looking at DC with less of a jaundiced eye, I am finding some really good shots. It’s hard to think about taking pictures when all that’s on your mind is dashing to the Metro and getting to your car before the rush home starts in earnest. The last couple of days, I’ve had time to really walk around the monumental core of the city and watch how the light moves on it. With so much sculptural detail, it’s a really magnificent study in shadow and depth. Just sitting at the reflecting pool, or lurking in the trees along the north and south ends of the building give you a chance to get a sense of the building. I think the ones I posted here are a good example set of what I took early yesterday evening.
I’ve always liked to take pictures early in the morning or late in the afternoon. Getting the good horizontal light that softens the edges without sacrificing detail. Sure, you can shoot tourist shots at high noon and be perfectly happy with getting Aunt Franny and Uncle Cletus in the frame with the bottom half of the dome. You can even control aperture speed to compensate for the harsh mid-day light, but you lose something in the translation. I’ve never quite figured out how to keep everything from washing out on the edges even at high speed. For me, the hour between 6 and 7 is almost perfect; exhausted tourists are heading off to dinner and most of the staffers have started to clear out. And you have this window of opportunity where the sidewalks are deserted, the light is perfect. If you’re quick, you can even manage to avoid getting the ubiquitous Capitol Police in the picture. Pictures with people are a pet peeve of mine… I want pictures of the thing, not the thousands of jackasses who came to see the thing. Any time I can get some good pictures, unobstructed by Skippy and Suzy Dragknuckle and their 3 kids, I’ve had a good day.
4740…
That’s the number of air miles I will have earned for the month of May when this week’s road stand wraps up. True, taken as a single trip, that distance would be something approximating the trip from here to London – only a 7 ½ hour hop. My 4740 will all be accrued on the trip between Memphis International and Reagan. There’s a certain wear and tear of three weeks of back and forth, of packing, doing laundry, and repacking. I’m a little frayed at the edges, but that’s nothing that won’t be solved by spending a long weekend firmly planted on the ground.
Here’s hoping I won’t see 6320.
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