Toooo Early
Dec. 13th, 2006 05:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
liralenI was up at 5:15 am this morning, Mountain time, and I got up, put myself groggily together while John snored away happily in his warm bed, and then I went downstairs and got all my stuff into the Passat and took off, out into the greater darkness...
It's been a very long time since I've done business travel and the last time I did it was actually with John. Travel alone always seems harder, somehow. Less entertaining, I guess, without a little five-year-old to show me everything that is new and cool.
Amusingly enough, though I wasn't stressed too much about the travel itself. I'm starting to feel the "It'll all work out in the end." kind of feeling.
And it did. i got to the airport, checked in, and through security a full hour before boarding time. So I got myself a breakfast sandwich and some orange juice as I'd decided to sleep on the plane. I ate. Then I went to the gate and knitted until it was time to go on board. It's funny to realize that I can knit with my eyes closed. *grin* A little dangerous, too.
So I managed to get on the plane and I fell asleep as soon as it was obvious no one was going to climb over me for the middle seat. This is the very first time I've been on a plane to San Jose that was half empty! I was amazed. I slept very well until the drink service came through. I got three drinks, a juice, a water, and a coffee, and I put my iPod Nano on and knitted and laughed until the person sharing my row looked mildly alarmed at "Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!" and then cried at "Knit Cast". All were pod casts I'll pulled before the trip.
The coffee headed off my headache, and by the time I got to San Jose, I felt mostly human.
The fact that it took nearly three buses to carry away all the rental car people should have warned me. But the Hertz desk was completely and totally swamped. It took me an hour and a half to get a car, and while I was waiting in line I nearly finished one of Jet's socks. Meefle. First time I'll ever be able to claim that I was actually able to finish a sock while standing in a Hertz line. They were out of cars, and giving away anything they could by the time I got to the front. They offered me an upgrade to an SUV without any additional charge and at first I was thinking Exhibition or the Hummer 3 they had standing outside, and I said no, I'll wait for a car. But fifteen minutes later, I finally conceded and took the "little" Exterra. *sigh*
It is nearly as tall as the Eurovan. And, alarmingly enough, the darn thing had the four-wheel drive with diff lock and lo gear on. Eeep. I hope someone didn't drive it the whole 600 miles it had on it in lo gear! Eek.
Anyway... I took it, studied it, and then drove it off the lot and was just thankful I was out of there.
While I had been standing in line, my celphone had gone off, and it was John, asking me a few questions about some stuff. Then he asked Jet if Jet wanted to talk to me, and he assented. He took the phone, said he loved me, which I said back, and then he went into a long explanation involving exploding ice and a lot of other muffled words that I just couldn't, for the life of me, get. So I just made assenting noises at the right pauses, and he happily kept going. When he gave the phone back to John, I admitted, "I didn't get ANY of that!" And John explained, "Oh, yeah, he's wearing his vampire fangs from Halloween. I can't even understand most of what he says..." I laughed so hard, the other folks in line even smiled involuntarily. That was great. *grin*
I went right to work, bought myself a subsidized lunch in the company cafeteria of curried lamb with roasted vegetables, which was just as good as you might think from the name, and then found a report in the cafeteria! It was great. We sat down and talked a lot and caught up as people rather than meeting attendees. That was excellent, and I got to give him my little Christmas thank you, that I usually do.
From there it was meetings all afternoon. One to fill in some technical holes I had in my training materials, the next was a 1:1 with my boss, the next was a security meeting, and finally I got to meet the admin I've been working with for nearly three years. Yeah, she and I haven't met before this, and it was good to just sit in her cubicle and talk about stuff for a while.
I'm tired now. Probably going to just go to the hotel, call the boys, and then find some dinner nearby and then work a bit before going to sleep.
It's been a very long time since I've done business travel and the last time I did it was actually with John. Travel alone always seems harder, somehow. Less entertaining, I guess, without a little five-year-old to show me everything that is new and cool.
Amusingly enough, though I wasn't stressed too much about the travel itself. I'm starting to feel the "It'll all work out in the end." kind of feeling.
And it did. i got to the airport, checked in, and through security a full hour before boarding time. So I got myself a breakfast sandwich and some orange juice as I'd decided to sleep on the plane. I ate. Then I went to the gate and knitted until it was time to go on board. It's funny to realize that I can knit with my eyes closed. *grin* A little dangerous, too.
So I managed to get on the plane and I fell asleep as soon as it was obvious no one was going to climb over me for the middle seat. This is the very first time I've been on a plane to San Jose that was half empty! I was amazed. I slept very well until the drink service came through. I got three drinks, a juice, a water, and a coffee, and I put my iPod Nano on and knitted and laughed until the person sharing my row looked mildly alarmed at "Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!" and then cried at "Knit Cast". All were pod casts I'll pulled before the trip.
The coffee headed off my headache, and by the time I got to San Jose, I felt mostly human.
The fact that it took nearly three buses to carry away all the rental car people should have warned me. But the Hertz desk was completely and totally swamped. It took me an hour and a half to get a car, and while I was waiting in line I nearly finished one of Jet's socks. Meefle. First time I'll ever be able to claim that I was actually able to finish a sock while standing in a Hertz line. They were out of cars, and giving away anything they could by the time I got to the front. They offered me an upgrade to an SUV without any additional charge and at first I was thinking Exhibition or the Hummer 3 they had standing outside, and I said no, I'll wait for a car. But fifteen minutes later, I finally conceded and took the "little" Exterra. *sigh*
It is nearly as tall as the Eurovan. And, alarmingly enough, the darn thing had the four-wheel drive with diff lock and lo gear on. Eeep. I hope someone didn't drive it the whole 600 miles it had on it in lo gear! Eek.
Anyway... I took it, studied it, and then drove it off the lot and was just thankful I was out of there.
While I had been standing in line, my celphone had gone off, and it was John, asking me a few questions about some stuff. Then he asked Jet if Jet wanted to talk to me, and he assented. He took the phone, said he loved me, which I said back, and then he went into a long explanation involving exploding ice and a lot of other muffled words that I just couldn't, for the life of me, get. So I just made assenting noises at the right pauses, and he happily kept going. When he gave the phone back to John, I admitted, "I didn't get ANY of that!" And John explained, "Oh, yeah, he's wearing his vampire fangs from Halloween. I can't even understand most of what he says..." I laughed so hard, the other folks in line even smiled involuntarily. That was great. *grin*
I went right to work, bought myself a subsidized lunch in the company cafeteria of curried lamb with roasted vegetables, which was just as good as you might think from the name, and then found a report in the cafeteria! It was great. We sat down and talked a lot and caught up as people rather than meeting attendees. That was excellent, and I got to give him my little Christmas thank you, that I usually do.
From there it was meetings all afternoon. One to fill in some technical holes I had in my training materials, the next was a 1:1 with my boss, the next was a security meeting, and finally I got to meet the admin I've been working with for nearly three years. Yeah, she and I haven't met before this, and it was good to just sit in her cubicle and talk about stuff for a while.
I'm tired now. Probably going to just go to the hotel, call the boys, and then find some dinner nearby and then work a bit before going to sleep.
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no subject
Date: 2006-12-14 01:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-14 04:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-14 08:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-14 10:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-15 09:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-15 09:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-14 11:38 am (UTC)but with your impending retirement, perhaps you'll land in socal sometime
soonish?
i want to take you to my yarn shop. :)
no subject
Date: 2006-12-14 04:19 pm (UTC)I would *love* to see your yarn shop. And your beautiful bebe.