That was quite an interesting trip back home. Let's just say this: it's a good thing when our sales guy makes over $100 playing poker with the other guys and decides to blow it all on food and drinks at every opportunity within both the Baltimore and Atlanta airports. ;-)

Got home at 11pm. It was rainy. Lots of various stories to tell, but I'm way too tired right now. Pictures will come (I keep saying that).

The meetings yesterday went on for a while, but I learned a lot about how this company is run and how we are successful. Beyond that though, it was pretty dull as these things tend to do. The company party afterwards was quite impressive: open bar, full catered dinner of filet mingon, sea bass or stuffed chicken, piano entertainers. I got to meet a lot of the field consultants, which are probably the greatest technical asset to the organization.

I'm up again way too early for my own good... the sun isn't out yet. Also not looking forward to four hour layover in Atlanta today :-(. I'd rather just get home.

Note: remember to arrive at airport at least 2.5 - 3 hours early... apparently Baltimore and the route to Harrisburg, and including a lot of Harrisburg/Mechanicsburg, is under construction. But it was a beautiful sight seeing snow and country nonetheless. Harrisburg is definitely not what I expected; it's both spread out and crowded at the same time. And old. Very old.

Not the home office however. The Perfect Order office is absolutely exquisite. There's a nice glass wall after you come in with two racks of sun servers and cisco equipment. In the lobby. I finally met everyone and put faces to names that I'd known for over 6 months. After working on a small project for my boss, we headed out to dinner and beer.

First off, Pennsylvania has some real damn good local brew. I sampled Yuenglings, apparently the oldest brewed beer still in existence in the U.S. Went to a place called Kclingers. It's got a bar downstairs. Nice. Finished up by coming back to the hotel and mingling with the other out-of-towner coworkers in the hotel bar. After finishing up with a cigar and club soda, I went upstairs and slept.

I'm in the 10th floor of the Hilton here, it's 7:30 EST, and I'm watching the sun rise over a mountain. :-)

Writing this after safely landing in Baltimore-Washington Airport. I'm waiting for my coworker to arrive in an adjacent gate. I got up at 4:30 this morning because my flight out of OKC was at 6:45. Take 30 off that for boarding, 45 for security and another 25-30 for travelt to the airport, that means I had to leave at 5. yay.

Both flights were thankfully uneventful. And I got to have my own seat/bench each time :-).

This is the first time I'm this far northeast for any appreciable period. Baltimore has next to it quite a few large bodies of water that I passed over in the plane. Except for the largest lake/inlet/whatever, they were all frozen over. Good thing I'm wearing a sweater, skijacket, and a scarf. Sucks moving around heated interiors, but I'm going to be thankful when I go outside. I think it's 20 or something.

I'll write more later, my coworker's plane just pulled up. I hope he doesn't want to make any long stops, I've got to get to the main office with at least a couple hours to work :-/.

Good god, the highest high for Thrusday through Saturday in Harrisburg, PA is 32. Jesus Christ in a chicken basket, that's cold! Best I pack a good jacket, eh?

Yes, I'll be travelling once again. Not for too long though, only for 3 days. And a lot of that is travelling time. I'll be going to the company meeting/dinner/shindig in Mechanicsburg, PA (which is next to Harrisburg (which is about halfway between Pittsburg and Phillidelphia)) this next Thursday. I've already had my agenda made for me; not the meetings, etc. but the pubs and restaurants I'll be going to. Fine by me; not like I know where anything is ;-). Besides, I have a feeling I'll not have the capacity to know where I'm at. I'll take lots of pictures to help me remember and post them here.

It's true. While you're there alone at the bar, it's just you, your beer, and any other non-person that's interesting to look at. Hopefully it a TV, but hey, the frozen margarita tumbler works just as well. You never know what's going to happen next... will the margarita develop sentience and burst out of the tumbler, devouring everyone in its path?? Watch and find out!

(yes I drink alone sometimes, no I don't have a problem...)

Tape library at OU fritzed out again, spent most of Friday and Saturday working on it with Andy and a guy from Sun.

The apartment is slowly becoming home again after it was made a war zone of bags, packages, and mildew upon coming home.

Today is my first day of full relaxation in weeks. I slept in til 1 (woke up for 30 minutes for food) and now I'm watching TiVo and checking in at work. I think I'll go out tonight to Borders or some other hip place; I miss the college atmosphere. That's funny because I work at OU.. but classes don't start til tomorrow. I'm sure I'll be complaining about their massive infestation upon Norman keeping me from parking, getting anywhere under 15 minutes, etc.

But until then, I'll steep in it for a while.

I'm thinking of going to Texas for a social trip, visiting friends and such. More details later.

Got the tivo hooked up, but there's one problem. There nearest phone outlet is on the wall in the kitchen. The 50-foot cable reaches but I have to unmount the cordless phone base to get to it. So I'll have to do that every few days until I get enough money for a wireless USB adapter that actually *works* (I have one, it just isn't supported). Doesn't surprise me, it's using the linux kernel drivers I'll bet. On top of all that, my Samtron tv is apparently so off-brand that it isn't in the IR code database. So I can't control volume/mute/power with the tivo remote :-P

Aside from that though, the TiVo is wonderful. I've got the season passes for Futurama, Family Guy, Simpsons, DS9 and Sealab 2021. It's also picking up Iron Chef and Dilbert because it thinks I like them. It's right. Scary.

Here at work today at OU, my first day as a Perfect Order consultant. First task: restore files from a backup. Yea.

The the preparation before my brother's wedding on Saturday was fairly stressful with the usual inter- and intra-family bickering and scapegoating. Nothing new. The wedding however was very beautiful and I was glad to be apart of it. However, my shoes were killing me and I was jumping here and there like a monkey getting things done, and taking pictures. I got to bed at 1, and had to get up at 6, but overslept.

Mel and I got out of the hotel and on the road back to McAllen at 8. Got there at 9 and packed all of our clothes and xmas loot into the car (filled it up pretty high in the backseat and trunk) and made it out of the city by 10:30. It was pretty slow going and I was pretty tired already. Then we hit San Antonio and were stopped just south of the 35 and 1604 interchange (NE side). Apparently, a double wide trailer home disintegrated on the road, blocking both directions of traffic some. Northbound was reduced to one lane from four. Traffic was backed up for 5 miles and we waited 1.5 hours. While in San Marcos, we ran into my cousin who was driving back to Dallas. I called him on his cel and we stopped in Austin to have Whataburger. I was practically falling asleep as I sat so they offered to have us stay at their place. We made it to Dallas at around 8:30 and caught the 2nd quarter of the Sugar Bowl (Fuck you Stoops for not putting in Thompson, he would have done something with the ball instead of being sacked so many times).

Got up today at 6 to try to make it here in Norman by 10:30. We got here at 10 and we quickly unloaded the car and I made it to work by 10:30. I've had to fight off sleep more times than I can count today. I just want to sleep but I have to unpack...

Went out to TGI Friday's last night with my brother, cousin, and my brother's best man. We had had a few drinks (well, I did) and I had left my iPod in the car. When we were leaving to a bar to continue the night, I decided to go to the car and put away the faceplate of the in-dash mp3/cd player since we weren't taking that car. When we came back and we drove home, I couldn't find my iPod. It entered my mind that I might not have locked the car when I went to take the faceplate of the radio so I thought someone stole it. What a horrible thought to go to bed to.

I dreamt last night that I had found it, and when I woke up, I had a terrible hangover and no iPod. I went looking in the car thinking I could see better in the day and still no iPod. So I mourn and call the police to file a report. Just as the cop was taking down the information, my cousin calls and says that it was in his car.

Here's what happened: I had actually taken the ipod with me after I had put away the faceplate. I was that gone that I didn't remember that I had taken the ipod in the other car, even though I didn't use it.

Head still hurts, but I need to go to Rio Grande City today and help with the wedding tomorrow. I'll be offline and staying at a hotel there. After that, on Sunday morning, we've got to come back here and pack and then drive to Oklahoma in one day, starting later than usual. Not looking forward to the next few days...

Happy Birthday Mel, I'm sorry that every year your birthday is marred by something... I promise that one year, you will have a real birthday.

New years comes and goes. Mel is very sick though, so not much is going on. Other than my brother's bachelor party tonight. It'll be real low key, he says. We'll see about that, I haven't had a proper outing since I was in Oklahoma.

It's too damn hot here