Well, I’m home now… have been for almost a week but I didn’t have much “play”-time on the computer, so I’m just updating now…
Having to leave my family to go on the work trip was a drag… I was feeling quite under the weather before I left but my manager GB was even sicker so I didn’t really have an excuse not to go. It made for a long day… We left the office at 11:30 AM last Wednesday and took a cab to the airport for a flight at 1:45 PM.
Landed at our destination at 3:00-ish, then drove for almost three hours to our hotel. After we got settled, we had supper at about 6:00 and I went to bed almost right after… spent the entire night in a pool of sweat (attractive I know), shivering a fever off until I woke up the next morn.
The next day was one long meeting that went from 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM… I still wasn’t feeling that great but it was a productive meeting none-the-less — we were designing a number of signs and needed to have a face-to-face with the fabricators to hammer out the final details.
Day three was nothing but travelling again… left at 9:30 AM… drove to the airport for our flight at 1:00 PM (stopped for lunch and a vanilla soy latte on the way)… the flight was delayed so we arrive home almost an hour-and-a-half after we were supposed to. HOWEVER… the upside to the delay was that I was right on time to be dropped off a the daycare to pick up Little “L”. It was amazing to see everyone.
Now that I’m back, I’m glad I went (work-wise only, that is). Yes, I realise that I was only gone for three days and that might make me a man-baby for being so sappy but hey… that’s me. Back to the routine now…
It’s amazing how the daily pattern can seem monotonous until it’s gone… then it’s amazing how comforting you realise it is and you’d give just about anything for it.
—
steelie
UPDATE: Okay… so I was going to do a video post to tell this part of the story but I thought I heard Little “L” crying upstairs so I stopped part way through and didn’t save it… Soooo… I’m just going to do a quick textual recap… One of the signs discussed at the meeting had previously been sent to us as a prototype — twice… the company wanted us to bring them back with us for discussion… this means we had to check them as luggage on the plane… the one GB chose to check was small so they took it no problem… mine was about 4' x 3' so it had to go through the “special” check-in place… it was too big to go through the scanner so they had to surface-swab it for illegal substances… they got a hit on it… “What does that mean?” “It means your package tested positive for explosives.” “Excuse me?!?”… a “LEVEL 1” had to come down and question me and oversee the unpacking of the questionable package… the sign/package was cleared because the “swabber” (not his official title) could find no wires attached to the sign… the sign was repackaged… I was escorted down through security for further questioning and a full-body pat-down… they were nice enough to warn me before checking my “back pocket area” (not my words… theirs)… every item in my carry-on was emptied and individually swabbed… I was cleared and allowed to board the plane.
And to top it all off… I was pulled out of the line for a random full-body pat-down on the way home too.
Fun.
Wow. I've been pulled out of line (randomly) and wanded before, but have never had to be patted down. Yikes. (Although if the guy looked like Wentworth Miller, I don't think I'd complain.)