I’m still feeling the effects of yesterday’s fourteen-hour journey to Pittsburgh and back again. I can’t even begin to describe how empty I felt by the time I got home. I went for eight hours without any food, missed my scheduled return flight from Pittsburgh to Charlotte, and none of it accomplished a damn thing. Why did I wear a suit for that? I don’t know; I guess to give the metal detectors
something to detect — suspenders always set off the buzzer and earn me a public cruciform wanding (illustrated at right). If I’m really lucky, I get frisked, too; normally, you’ve gotta pay extra for that.
Hey, at least The Wife was there with a nice glass of vino to mark my arrival, and the dogs were there to pet and give love to. It made coming home that much sweeter than it already was. People who work as road warriors all the time have got to be in a perpetual state of exhaustion; I can’t imagine how they do it, and they don’t get the benefit of loving spouses and doggies when they check in at the Courtyard hotels that pass for their on-the-road residences.
I used to think that travel was fun and exciting because when traveling, one gets to see lots of new and interesting places. But I don’t think so any more. Airports come in two varieties — modern and corporate, or dilapadated and dreary. Either way, they’re uncomfortable, loud, and unpleasant. That’s where you spend most of your time when traveling. You don’t get much of a taste of the places you visit when traveling on business, because there’s business to do. Traveling for work is… work.
And there’s work to do here, but since I’m still so burnt-out I am having a hard time staying motivated to do it. But, that’s what being a professional is all about, so it’s back to the grindstone.
