My Own Personal 'In Good Company'

This week I headed back into the fold of traveling on a plane for work. I worked from home for a whole month and haven't flown for work in a long ass time. It's not like riding a bike. It's like greasing a rusty chain and then riding a bike. I am not only traveling, I have a travel schedule that is stupefying: in the month of August I will be in: Maine (3 days), Boston (6 hours), Asheville (9 days - yes, I live in Asheville and I will be there 9 days), Cincinnati (24 hours - if all goes well), Memphis (14 days), Atlanta (WAY TOO LONG), Charlotte (a few hours), Denver (a few hours), Colorado Springs (3 days) and Myrtle Beach/ North Carolina Shore (a few days). Although not all of it is travel for work, it is still all travel. The only part that had no work travel involved was the trip from Maine, via Boston to Asheville, via Atlanta. My head is spinning. I am worried I have forgotten to book a hotel or a car for part of this travel. I still wonder how I can get 6 days of clothes into my roller bag. I can't figure out how to not check my bag since let's face it...my Lush shampoo is clearly part of a terrorist threat. Checking a bag adds a lot of time to a business traveler's schedule.
Anyway - I was supposed to travel to DC this week to teach a class. This class was a little weird. I couldn't know exactly what I was teaching, nor could I know what I was teaching the class for. I was instructed I couldn't bring a cell phone with a camera into the class and I wouldn't know the student's names. They would be 'user01', 'user2', etc.... The class was for a government agency but I couldn't know which one. I could talk with some of the people who I was teaching but it was all very hush hush. It had something to do with maps. Tony thought they may be fighting the zombie threat so I was a perfect match for the class. I spent 4 weeks developing the curriculum. I can spend a remarkable amount of time developing a curriculum based on very little information. I think I have a future developing vaporware.
What I was really looking forward to was drinking with meeting SAGS, seeing some old friends who live in the DC area and be a secret agent girl for a few days. I have to ask...which 007 girl would I be? Please say Pussy Galore. The curriculum I developed was probably some of the worst work I have ever done. Vaporware development is tough work. And then, as I was sitting on the beach with Kara (if you don't know her link by now you are lost) last week we got the call. The class was cancelled. Phew.

BTW - that was your tax dollars that paid for me to work from home for a month. There are some great power point presentations I can show you if you want. They will beat insomnia soundly on the head.

After all that, I ended up in Memphis this week, feeling a need to buy some blue suede shoes and eat some ribs. The project will be great, I am managing a little project and it will go well. Eventually I will have a few people under me, right now there is only one. He is at least 20 years older than me.

He pronounces my name 'Ah-win.' He wears white polyester shirts. I am pretty sure I can see where there used to be a pocket projector. He smokes. He has a chemistry back ground but now does computer stuff.

He is a reincarnation of my father without the end stage cirrhotic liver.

I have managed people older than me before. I have even managed people with much more status in the company. I have never managed my father. I waver between thinking it is hilarious, since he has the same sense of humor as my dad (he has told two of the same puns I distinctly remembering my dad using) and being completely freaked out that he is a carbon copy of my dad.

Now I am in the Crown Room in Atlanta gnashing my teeth that my flight is delayed 4 hours. I will say, the Crown Room on Concourse C has great views of the the sunset. Too bad I shouldn't see it because I should be on a plane going home. I hope I can get my groove back on this whole flying for work thing. I will be doing it until January and this week I felt pretty out of shape.