NaNo NaNo...

The question I pose to you today is this: what would you do with 3+ hours a day of sitting at a desk with minimal work to do? If you said, "Write a novel in the course of a month," you should definitely join me in the quest of NaNoWriMo.

National Novel Writing Month has been on my list of things to do for a long time, but this is my first chance to have hours of unused time to spend writting 50,000 words in 30 days (that's 1,667 words a day for the non-math inclined). I'm going for it with a story I've ha in my head for a long time. Nothing earth shattering in my opinion, but it's there and fleshed out mentally enough to make for a good first NaNo attempt.

If you're planning on joining me in this quest (yay EGW!!) let me know and help keep me to my word. I plan on cheating a bit, and starting on the plane ride this evening. What else to do for however long my computer battery wil last?

This may mean less frequent posts on the blog, or more frequent writer's block posts... We shall see!

You Are My Lucky Star…

My mother constantly says I live under a lucky star, and I have to say I agree. When my cab driver picked me up in Long Island to drive us to LGA airport, I left a solid 2 hours to allow for traffic. We made it the 60 miles in about 65 minutes. Before you think anything, just know that we also left our hotel at 5pm. The driver was in as much shock as I was, probably even more!

Sometimes I am stunned at how lucky I am, but maybe I just recognize it more often. There’s plenty of unlucky things that have happened already: my flight was canceled yesterday, my tortillia soup in San Antonio was disgusting, there have been multiple issues with my faxes for work, my projector bulb died, and let’s face it… I haven’t gotten a presenter who liked to go out of the hotel. But for all those things that are bad (the flight and the bulb being by far the worst), it’s always worked out. I got put on a better flight than I was booked for yesterday. My projector problem was fixed in less than five minutes. And actually, for all the bad food and exhausted presenters, I’ve still gotten out and gone into more cities in the last few weeks than I’ve ever managed before in a similar string of time. I even maximized time in Seattle by running off to Leavenworth with some friends to eat brats and take fall photos.

Rochester was a fun city to be in actually. There was beautiful old architecture and lots of newspaper buildings and statues around town. I wandered during lunch and then picked up a sandwich at a shop on my way back to the hotel. Then today in Ronkonkama (Long Island) I met up with another PM and we found lunch in a little part of town called Sayville, which was adorable looking and had AMAZING pizza. This is the kind of life I lead now. Sometimes I just want to explode with happiness and amazement. This is an almost daily experience. How did I get here again?

I really am a lucky girl. I can hardly believe it sometimes. But the more I believe it the luckier I get. I really think it’s half grace, half attitude—half blessing, half my own openness and efforts—never all my own credit, but partly my fault. Or maybe I just like to think so.

Travel Drama in Rochester

I think I'm developing a true ambivalence towards US Airways... with strong feelings in both extremes.

The initial dislike came from the facts that they charge for drinks on the plane ($2 for an orange juice or soda!) and don't really have the most cushioned of seats. That's really nothing, since their flight was more or less on time the last time I flew them. But then I flew them yesterday...

I checked my flight status at 2:30pm, like our schedule allows, and the flight was delayed by 10 minutes-- really inconsequential, and easily made up time. Then as we waited for the shuttle an hour later (our flight was scheduled for 5:30pm), I checked once again on my phone. Suddenly the word "Canceled" became a part of my travel experience vocabulary. Evidently mechanical problems had grounded our plane. I found the phone number for US Airways and called the airline to see what the options were. A 4pm flight was going out and a 7pm flight... I got her to guarantee us on the 7pm flight since I thought there'd be no way in hell we'd make it for the 4pm.

We pulled up at the ticket counter at about 3:58 and started to check ourselves in when the ticket agent asked us if we were on the canceled flight. We said yes, and she called into the gate agent to see if we could make the 4pm flight. Luckily for us, Rochester airport is tiny and the 4pm flight hadn't even started boarding yet! The wonderful woman tagged all four of our big bags to check, and my presenter was such a trouper as we rushed through security and ran for the gate. We made the flight with time to spare and ended up getting into the hotel a full hour before we'd have made it if we'd taken our canceled flight.

So, damn you US Air for canceling my flight, charging me for even a soda, and packing us in like sardines. But thank you US Air (or at least your ticket agents at Rochester and that one oh-so-luckily late flight) for helping us catch a flight we thought we'd never make.

Rolling Through

Making the most of the short time I have in a city is sometimes really difficult. When I get into town it's already dark and then I have to combat hunger and fatigue to get myself to move. This week is both easy and hard because I'm flying everywhere... Hard because I have no mode of transportation other than cabs but easy because I've got some great cities.

In Houston I took the hotel shuttle to get some BBQ at Goode Co. The next night in San Antonio, I made the effort to go out and see the alamo and riverwalk on the local shuttle, but I ended up spending money on a cab ride home (although, for <$10 total, it was worth it!). Dallas was a stay at the hotel night, since we were in the middle of nowhere. Phoenix was fun because another PM was in town and so we went out to get some dinner. Then last night my presenter and I went to the hotel bar to chat, drink, and look at some of her amazing photos from her african safari. Today my flight doesn't leave until late so I'm going to be able to check my bags at the hotel and borrow their shuttle to Old Town to wander around the fun parts of Albuquerque.

So all in all, I guess I'm making the most of this job. I'll see how much I can keep this up, especially in colder climates. Sometimes I feel like I'm not doing enough, or doing my job well because there is no one around to compare myself to. Perhaps that's the best thing of all... to be in a position to not really compare myself to other people. I definitely get feedback messages from my manager to reconfirm that I am not screwing up and in fact am doing quite well. God I appreciate those after not having much in the way of real feedback in my previous jobs... or maybe I just appreciate feeling managed rather than feeling like someone who is supervised by someone who makes awkward the general feeling surrounding them.

Oh, and by the way...

where the hell did all these social skills come from?

...and why have I been relegating myself to being the "nerd" when the only nerdy thing I really have going is the fact that every once in a while I throw out a rather large (but utterly appropriate) word?

Warm Fuzzies

We had some extra guests at today's seminar in Dallas: two ten-day-old cottontail bunnies being nursed by two participants who regularly do animal rescue work. These little guys had just opened their eyes, and were residing in a cozy basket lined with a sweater for most of the seminar. They were so absurdly adorable! It made me miss Zoe terribly though... King sized beds are definitely big enough to accommodate her nighttime sprawl and I think I could use the snuggles.

Disconnect is a part of this job. I've walked away from everyone I know and have to forge what I can out of transitory encounters. Luckily, my friends are amazing. The number of people who I'm in touch with on a regular basis surprises me honestly, but I guess I'm making more of an effort myself as well. I feel like I can see into the future where I'll be sitting at this registration table and feeling so incredibly alone and lost in the world... unable to even remember my room number after so many room numbers have passed through my head... but what I know I can count on is that there are a lot of people back home and other places that are still there, waiting for me to call and talk about each and every crazy thing that's happened.

There's program managers that I can share the nitty-gritty complaints about hotel staff that won't bring the banquet bill unless chased up and down three long hallways; girlfriends to squeal about the cute waiter that brought my dinner and stayed around to chat since I was alone and it was long past the rush; and then there's the guy friends who insist on worrying about my safety and are there to talk to when I'm walking somewhere a little sketchy or in a strange taxi (even if the solace I get is from what I see as their unneccessary anxiety). Mom and Dad are a constant... and my lil' sis, who's getting her own place, has me all excited for her!

Really, I've got all the warm fuzzies I need and I'm discovering that I'm resourceful enough to find whatever I'm lacking while being on the road. Well, at least for the first week and a half...

When life is like TV, you just hope it's a comedy

I've had my many sit-com moments in my life, the greatest of which may have been the twins/junior prom episode, but I won't go into that one right now. Right now I'm getting snippets of a certain cartoon...

First things first, I'm in Houston having a lovely seminar. Next door there is a seminar for Terminex workers. One guy in particular has been coming over and chatting me up, in a friendly, only slightly skeezy way. Thing is, the guy has a complete "King of the Hill" accent... and at one point commented on my lunch (a goat cheese salad from Trader Joes) by saying "We had steak!"

He's totally Dale.

Flights

As per the great KAL's suggestion, I've inputted my flights into flightmemory.com. Now you can all see my ridiculous hours spent on planes and look at a criscrossed map to see how insane I actually am. The link to my flights is at:

http://my.flightmemory.com/arirose

I've also included it in the links at the right column. Have fun tracking me around the country!