I'm back

The genesis of this sadly neglected little blog was business trips.  I spent a lot of time traveling from about 1994 to 2006. I needed something to do on the road, and writing this blog was it. 

I have not been writing much lately.  I have not been going on business trips lately.   

In fact I have not been on a business trip since I started working for the foundation.  My last business trip was when I worked for the airplane factory.  I had to fly to homophobic, racist, Republican, fuckwit Arizona, on Alaska, like a donkey, in coach! Me? In coach?!? What a nightmare. I still wake up screaming.  

So why are we here today? Because I have been signed up to go to IT Leadership Training in San Francisco with some of the other managers.  This quite expensive training is three two-day sessions in February, May, and August. While flattered that we got chosen for this, we all really just wanted to go to San Francisco to eat and drink, but no, it turns out we are not really going to San Francisco.  We are going to IT leadership training in Fuckwood City or Redfuck City or something annoying like that, which is south of the airport. I mean really. South? Will the trainers have Valley Girl accents and call the freeway "The 101"?  Jesus.  

The other managers are flying Alaska like a bunch of donkeys. I am flying Virgin America because...I am...after all...me. They will be staying at some Homefuck Suites motel with a continental breakfast and free wi-fi.

I will be staying at a small boutique hotel and paying for my own wi-fi, thank you. 

Oh business trips...how I miss you, kind of. London, New York, Los Angeles, San Diego, Washington DC, Boston, San Francisco.  

Not Florida! I will never miss all those trips to Florida.   

And not Texass!  Hate Texass.  Although I could be talked into going to Austin again if it wasn’t in the summertime.   

Most of this travel was paid for by the mermaid.  I spend years on the road for that bitch.  Not London of course.  That was for the bookstore.  My how times flies. 

Anyway. I woke up screaming early this morning. My ticket was for coach. Fortunately I was able to get an upgrade to fist class for $89. Is there a god? Of course not, but I am feeling religious about Virgin America right now. 

Echoing my trips to London, I managed to nearly cut my right big toe off with a nail clipper one hour before I had to leave for the airport.  Black socks hide a number of sins.  

There was a moment today where I thought about not parking in the Sea-Tac garage and taking a shuttle bus like some hat check clerk at an ice rink.  Of course I snapped out of it.  Me parking in the garage for 2 nights like a civilized human being is not really going to change the funding for vaccines in Africa.  

As I zoom through the first class security check line, making sympathetic eye contact with all the people stuck in the coach line, I see people making the same face at me!  What is this?  A new line?  A shorter line?  A faster line?  Oh my god!  I want to be in that line!  Ah, it’s the new TSA precheck line.  You don’t even have to take your shoes off!  I feel bad about myself now. 

Shamed, I wander over to Anthony's and I order a Blood Mary and hop on Facebook so I can quote Joseph Campbell about the importance of rituals.  At the bar some woman with an annoying accent turns to me and asks, “Are you a Yank?”  Thinking she said something else I check to see if one of my hands has slipped into my pants. Recognizing that neither of my hands are in my pants, and that she is one of those sneaky Canadians, I say, “Why yes, yes I am a Yank.” 

She asks why the Olympics aren't on the TVs in the bar.  I explain. “NBC.  NBC does not show them live so they can make more money on commercials at night.”  She is appalled. We talk about Sochi, the CBC, CTV, the Super Bowl, the Vancouver hockey riots, the whole biz. Next to me other business travelers who also don't know each other are talking about skiing in Colorado over their margaritas. As I am leaving the sneaky Canadian says, “Oh and by the way our hockey team is going to kick your butts!”  

Do I miss this -- this ritual of banter between anonymous travelers?  No.  

Soon Virgin America is asking for volunteers to give up their carryon bags because the flight is full.  I think of the giant overhead bin that will be all mine. I hug myself and smile. 

…..

There are so many kids on this flight. I stare at them as I sip champagne, watching them make that long, long, long walk of shame to the back with the donkeys. I want to be a hater but they are all so fricking cute. “Mommy, look, it’s pwurple in here.  It’s pwiddy.”  

Wow! VA has changed their awesome safety video. Now it's a musical and the flight attendant in first class dances and sings. Really! Click here. 

Some horrible woman got an upgrade to the window seat just before I did.  She’s plastered to the window just like I would have been.  I hope I never lose that excitement of looking out the windows when I fly.  

One of the huddled masses tried to cross the barrier into First Class to use the bathroom.  En masse we all boo and the person rushes back to the donkey area. God! 

……..

Soon we are landing.  The other managers all waited for me in the donkey terminal, which was nice of them.  They are all sore from the cramped seats.  We get a taxi and head south.  One of my coworkers keeps saying, “Wow, the freeway has 5 lanes going each way.  Wow.”   I roll my eyes and say under my breath, “Our freeways have 5 lanes going each way too, fool!” I think he heard me.  

I don’t think this is Silicon Valley. I think it’s Silicon Swamp.  Oracle’s headquarters are here; built on landfill, surrounded by swamp land and goose poop.  

The hotel is fine but expensive.  It’s run by French people.  Must be a European outpost for techies.  We all meet up soon for drinks and then dinner.  I learn the other managers have much more crazy stuff to deal with than I do, so I decided not to whine about work anymore.  

My coworkers are appalled that dinner for five costs over $300.  It’s amateur night.  

I have a nice king bed with foam pillows and blackout curtains.  I watch some French TV then I crash.

…..

I am up at 5:00AM to prep for the class.  We take a hotel shuttle over to the Oracle Conference Center.  Most of the day is learning to deal with different personality types, then to prep for a presentation the next day.  The people at my table are fools.  They are a collection of senior but not executive level IT leaders from all over California.  They mostly read their work email and don’t pay attention in class.   

As we are leaving for the day, a number of people who clearly work for the Dungeons and Dragons company ask if we want to join them for dinner.  In unison all five of us turn on the Seattle freeze.  It was quite amazing and horribly rude. People in California are genuinely nice.  People from Seattle are genuinely not. Two of my cohorts just walk away without saying anything and start petting a tree so that they will not have to talk to people they do not know.  We are awful.  

Instead of taking a taxi to dinner someplace good, we end up WALKING through the goose poop-covered Oracle campus, trying to find some nearby place called Mistral using someone’s Windows Phone GPS App.  

About 90 minutes in we find what appears to be a lake.  There are a number of very muscular young men wearing only black spandex bottoms standing around.  They appear to be the Stanford Rowing Team.  It’s an awesome sight.  I could have just stood there for hours, but I am dragged along to dinner.  

I drink martinis as my coworkers start with beer and then move on to vile oaky California reds.  I just had a beet salad and an ahi appetizer.  Yet again there is horror over the $300 price tag for FIVE PEOPLE.  

We try to walk back to the hotel.  The Windows Phone app sends us in the wrong direction so we circle the swamp several times only to realize we were two blocks from the hotel when we left the restaurant in the first place.  

I can’t help but think about how many times I have been on business trips and had weird little adventures like this with people I don’t really know.  Do I miss this?  No.

…...

The next day we have to do a presentation.  It’s about selecting a cloud-based CRM solution vs. upgrading an existing hosted application.  The people at my table will not help, so I decide the narrative for our presentation will be, “1000 new customers in the pockets of the pants you already own.”  I do all the slides in Microsoft Paint with stick figures.  It’s quite horrible, unprofessional, and funny.  I don’t tell the fools at my table that this is what I am doing, so when I get up to present they are mortified.  It was awesome.  The rest of the room laughs appropriately and I am vindicated.  

I make Mark get my seat upgraded to first class while I am presenting the 1000 customers in my pants.   

We take a taxi back to SFO instead of walking for some reason and then I am on my own again as they are in the Donkey terminal.  

I find a restaurant.  It’s packed so I ask a young woman at the bar if anyone is sitting at the open seat next to her.  

“Well obviously you are sitting here” she says lecherously.  Oh god.  She cannot be hitting on me, can she? 

I order a glass of Scharffenberger.  The woman says, “That was the only thing on the menu I would have considered also.” Oh god.  Turns out we have both ordered oysters.  I am horrified that my order will be interpreted as some double entendre.   My neck starts to hurt as I stare at my iPad.  

Soon she looks up from her laptop and says, “I just hate having to sell stock.  Don’t you?  I never know what one to sell.”  The Seattle freeze just pours out of me.  I can’t help it.  I am out of practice as a business traveler.  As I get up to go she asks me where I am headed.  “Seattle, on Virgin.”  “Oh me too.  I’ll see you on the plane.” Given that she is selling stock I assume she will be in first class. I have to get out of here.  

I find another bar, order another glass of Scharffenberger, and start the newish Bridget Jones book.  I am hooked by the end of the first page.  Then I remember.  I remember being in Heathrow, exhausted, homesick, sitting in a bar, picking up a copy of the Independent, and finding Bridget Jones again.  It was a godsend.  Well not really, but it was lovely.  This whole trip is so circular and referential.  All I can say is “Am trapped in airport and am saved by Bridget Jones. Again. Hurrah!” 

In seat 1A I pretend to be asleep lest hornicula woman makes contact.  Squinting my eyes I see her had back to donkeyville.  Good.  

As I sip one last changpage on the way home I can’t help but think about how much my life has changed since the mermaid and I broke up.  Bitch.

……………

The next day, Saturday, as I am writing this up, this freaky thing happens.  I am listening to Anne Litt on KCRW and she plays that Shelby Lynne song from the first Bridget Jones movie.  How circular and referential.

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