Home Again

Did you miss me?

I spent the last four days on a business trip that took me to Ohio as the seeing-eye contractor supporting my customer's visit to some offices out there. Happily, it also provided me the opportunity to visit with my son and his family, who lived in the same town. During the day it was death by PowerPoint briefing...during the evenings it was grandchildren overload. I think that by the end of the coming weekend, the ringing in my ears will stop and the pain will go away (grandson Joe, age 4, greeted me every evening with a scream of GRANDPAAAAAAA!!!!!, and hit me like a runaway truck to hug my legs...the problem being that his hard little head is just at the right height to slam into my unprotected crotch).

Grandchildren are absolutely wonderful. I understand the old comment that says something like, "If I'd known grandchildren were so much fun, I'd have had them first!" Marcy, the happy chatterbox, Joe the perpetual motion machine, and Noah the cheerful little crawler made the evenings a joy. I'm still exhausted, but it was worth it!

Here are a few observations on business travel (actually, travel in general):

Don't wear shirt garters when flying. Before going through security, I carefully took everything out of my pockets, removed my shoes, took off my tie clasp and glasses...and still got pulled out for a full-body patdown and wanding because the metal detectors alerted on my shirt garters. AARRGGHH!

Bilbo's First Law of Airline Travel: If you change your flight with a later departure to a flight with an earlier one, the new flight will be delayed so that you arrive at the same time you would have had you taken the original flight. I was traveling with my boss, who changed his later flight to get onto my earlier one...which ended up with a delay that got us both home late. AARRGGHH!

Bilbo's Second Law of Airline Travel: On every flight some moron will try to cram an upright piano into the overhead bin. Or someone will interpret "One carry-on bag and one personal item," as meaning they can bring on board a rollaboard suitcase, a briefcase, a purse, and a large shopping bag, none of which can possibly fit in the overhead bin or under the seat in front of them without taking up your space, too. Sigh.

Okay, I'm done bragging about grandchildren and complaining about dumb travelers. This is a short post, but I've got to get back into the swing of things again now that I'm home. It's good to be back...at least, until I get to the office!

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo