Live from Bloomington Illinois, it’s…. babble

Mac has only said “it’s like pandelirium!” once so far this trip, as again we are surrounded by busloads of kids traveling for some sport tourney.

I would go on about how shitty flying out of Hartsfield is on a Monday morning, but other than the lady at our travel agency who books our reservations, every other person in the world already knows that. It was the first time I’d ended up in a line extending outside the building to get through security, though. Kept hearing security people talking to each other about how they’d wound people around everything they could think of to make a better queue and still had to just let the line go outside — apparently they were all very concerned with it extending outside the building. I had flashbacks to being at 6-flags a couple years ago when we did that cool ride, “The Line” for a couple hours just to get a close-up look at Deja-vu, which was shut down. Did not get pulled aside for a search this time, nor stuck in line behind any men with half-buttoned shirts, weighed down in gold chains and rings who didn’t understand about metal detectors, complaining that they were being asked to strip naked by taking off their jewelry either. All in all, dull security line and airport experience.

Between the time after security, the flight, the idle time Monday afternoon with only 1 person in my class — because they’d mistakenly allotted me 4-hours to do a 20 minute presentation, and it scared everyone away (oh darn) — I managed to finish both books Maggie lent to me. Lucky for me there is a Barnes and Noble a block away from the hotel, so I walked over Monday night for something to occupy my time.

Once again, the “fabulous” hotel, owned by the customer we come out here to see, has provided a lackluster room experience. Last time neither the heater nor the alarm clock worked, and they didn’t refill my in room coffee/tea or toiletry items the whole week. This time, only the power, volume, and the channel up buttons work on the remote control, and when I got back to the room last night the power outlet under the desk was no longer working and the alarm clock had been unplugged by the bed. At least they don’t force feather pillows on me…

Yesterday we made the trek 70 miles out to visit the handful of agents in a satellite office. Mac had hyped them up as the “fun” crowd, since last time he visited (while I sat in the hotel room trying to work) they’d kept him out doing shots until after midnight before letting him start the drive back. No shots this time, but plenty of wine flowed after 5pm, and we ended up having pizzas and appetizers. They were upset at seeing the regular cola glass in front of me, so I finally had to order a Miller Chill to go with it. Thankfully, just seeing the bottle there seemed to do the trick and they didn’t complain any more. We did get to sit through a pretty interesting storm while we were there, spending the last of the evening on their covered patio. It’s so flat here, that lighting was just amazing — as you could see it all over the sky and it was hard to judge the distance on it.

As it turns out, I need to be back home on Friday to participate in a web-ex training on some big changes to our site setup/admin tool for our customers, so we’ve canceled Friday’s appointments and we’re trying to get a flight out Thursday night. Mac already switched his flight to Thursday night because he wanted to get back for his “grand-baby’s” dance recital, and was planning to leave me here a night by myself and to do his training on Friday. But… glad that didn’t work out.

So, this may be my last evening in town. Provided we don’t get carted off by any agents this afternoon — which I guess is unlikely since this isn’t the “fun” crowd, I may get well into my new book. I think my yoga mat freaked out the maid, because she picked it up from the floor and left it folded on the end of the bed for me. It clearly rolls up, and it was completely out of the way where it was on the floor — but I guess it was in the way of her unplugging the alarm clock so she could vacuum or something.

It is likely Marc and Jennie will be in town for at least one day of this weekend, and Jennie and I will have some girl time to occupy as the guys go to watch the golf tourney. No real plans, but I sure would like to bring Jennie to brunch with the girls on Saturday or Sunday if they’re up for it.