i'm a mule

Hellebore orientalis, February 2006.

There is a really long old thread on flyertalk about the things that we are asked to bring back and forth as frequent travellers. My mom just talked to my auntie in London. My bag, once empty but for a few tech documents, powercord for my cracktop, a skirt, yoga pants, tights and a tshirt or three is now chockablock full of zip lock bags and emergen-c. No biggie, she has done millions of things for me in the past and I love her to death. I would bring her my mom if she would decide that London in February wasn't so bad.

Typically I bring emergen-c, ziplock bags (I question this), l'oreal conditioner, chicken stock and lemon pepper. I bring back cheese. That is about it. I love London to bits, but short of cheese and a few books, I need nothing from there. I will be hitting the cheese shops and perhaps a bookstore or three if time permits, but mostly I'll be there to make sure JK doesn't get into too much trouble.

OCD

I usually don't check my seat assignments very often unless I have a crap seat, which I do LHR-ORD on Monday. In hopes of moving from my okay seat to a better one, I have been checking the seat maps in hopes the others coach to business class upgrades have cleared and their seats have opened. That is, the creme de la creme of the coach seats that mere mortals cannot pre-reserve.

Just my luck, 31B opened on my return, so I'm back to the rollaboard as the ottoman, the latest OK!, powerport and tons of leg room seat on a not very full flight. A picnic lunch from the Cathay Pacific First Lounge and a large costa coffee and I'm good for the next 9 hours.

Sweet.

Now if my domestic upgrades would clear and I would feel better, then we could be very excited.

I'll stop boring you with the minute details of my life.

too much information

It appears if I will be flying in the back of the bus for my trip to London on Friday. The transatlantic part doesn't bother me that much as I'm getting used to it and I have an exit row which if I can leave my rollaboard down for most of the flight, should be great.

My Seattle-ORD flight may suck, again I'm in the exit row, but for some reason, they just aren't yielding the seat for me.

I hate that.

I usually pick my seats on my preferences, exit row, bulkhead, desire to see Greenland, etc... If it is a plane I'm not familiar with, I use something like Seatguru as my guide. The website has lots of seat maps for different airlines and plane configurations and gives you the locations of the powerports and user comments. I have found it a great resource. You do need to know your equipment though, you can usually find that on your reservation and itinerary.

Give me strength. I was seriously considering calling Alaska and seeing if I could redeem 90 to 120K for a Club/First seat on Friday just to avoid Chicago and the infinite delays, no points, but a non stop flight.

And I'm catching something...

nm

Happy Valentine's Day

I would send you all a bunch of marshmallows, but I'm about 12 hours from a working kitchen, so that is going to have to wait. You're going to have to settle for virtual mallows.

I used to hate Valentine's day. I like it now, its close to my birthday and there is usually chocolate involved. TH used to hate it, but I think she now realizes that its not a bad way to show your affection.

Then again, shouldn't every day be valentine's day -- be good to yourself, your loved ones and realize that if we all showed a little more patience, understanding and compassion, life would be more sane.

Oh, pass the bonbons will ya?

nm

100 hours and counting

My upgrade for sea-ord on Friday has not cleared. They are holding 5 revenue seats, I am either number 1 or 2 on the waitlist. At least I have an exit row and will go to TJ's on the way to airport to pick up asian chicken salad for lunch. So, maybe I'll have JK's luck and I'll clear.

If not, its going to be a looooooooooooooong day.

nm

Happy Birthday

The tshirt. February11, 2006.

let the fun begin

Woke up this morning to the rat a tat of a flicker trying to drill a hole into a birch tree, it was comforting and a sure sign of spring.

Spent the day running errands including a trip to the Winter Market for veggies and hellebores, Ace for more little felt pads and trying in vain to wash my car. It was sunny, it seemed like a good idea at the time.

Spent a bit of the afternoon celebrating the impending decadal bd of AM, while lunching at the Bayshore Room at the Yarrow Bay Grill. Yummy food, lovely room and lovely company.

Tonight TH and I being dragged to a garage in Interbay to listen to AM and his childhood friends, college friends and med school friends play loud instruments and eat bbq. We're bringing Top Pot donuts and earplugs. Should be good, Steelpole bathtub, Mr. Epp, Morphine and Snowman Hospital. Like I said, I'm bringing earplugs and my camera which are key. JK is in Austin, but I know if she wasn't she'd stay until the bitter end. ;)

nm

drat, foiled again

Trying to find somewhere to stay in Rome for four days in March. The apartment we would use is booked, I tried to get another one in the same area and was told by Dottore M. that our stay was too short and his apartment was too exclusive to rent it to us for a shorter stay because we were not really going to see all we could of the Eternal City in such a short period of time.

WTF? What the heck does he know what we are planning on doing while there?

Geez. I responded snarkily that I spend 15 days a year in Rome. I was not a tourist and there to do a research project (I am) and that I would find somewhere else that would be more amenable to our short stay. I refuse to stay in a hotel, which limits our ability to find something that will work. I continue to look, hoping that I can get into this as a stand by.

Bite me D. Mauro.
nm

frequent flying

Great circle mapper - January-March 2006. Oh the places you will go! Some over and over again, it seems.

Today I spent a great deal of time placating JK whose upgrades to DFW/Austin hadn't cleared before the 24 hour mark and figuring out with TH how to get to London and back and then to FCO with the least amount of stress to our pockets and our bodies. Hint: Upgrading on BA to Club on 2 hour flights makes it all better. It is all okay, its just part of the game, the checking the flight loads, calling the super secret line, figuring out the cost/benefit ratio to upgrading v. sitting in coach. I still managed to get California to behave and have a decent conversation with my accountant as well. Sometimes, multitasking is a good thing.

Anyhoo,when I put in my travel from January until the end of March, I was appalled to see that I will have flown over 64K. Yes, campers, that is alot of peanuts and little bottles of water and luna bar and only 15K of it will be work related!

Hmm, I wonder why I can't seem to lose any weight.

nm

storage lust

TH wants one of these for Valentine's day. Seems practical and honestly, ever since I lost my work laptop hard drive, I have become fanatic and obsessed about backing up and archiving data, photos and documents. I use a thumb drive for some stuff, but its now too small. I love my lacie 160 gig drive, but I'm looking to buy another one, like this, for another back up.

How do you back up your information?

nm

PMA

Aqua Virgine, Rome December 2005.

I'm trying hard today, I've been sort of negative the past few weeks with all the stuff that has been going on.

Things that currently make me smile:

1. Spring is springing up here! I'm excited to see my bulbs up, the sun out, neighbors and their dogs out walking and that maybe we'll get out and garden this week.
2. My silly district line cosmetic bag that TH bought me for Xmas. The color scheme is orange, yellow and black which matches my computer bag perfectly and reminds me of London every time I use it. I still can't understand why the green district line has orange upholstery.
3. My father, for all that he can drive me crazy, still calls me every day at work just to check in. I love that.
4. TH, since she came up with a brilliant idea for my project topic for my "representations of Rome" seminar that takes into account my love of maps, rivers, flooding, GIS and symbology. She is soo smart.
5. The fact that we both do the same sorts of things technology wise and that we can talk about it at length and bounce ideas back and forth of eachother.
6. That Saturday may be marshmallow making day chez nm.
7. Tomorrow night I will be buying bulbs at the NW Flower and Garden show.
8. Sunday, I will be planting sweet peas.
9. That for all I bitch and moan, there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

just a wall to lean on

That is what I am currently doing, leaning on a wall in my hallway as there is not a place to perch to blog.

We went to my parent's condo tonight for dinner, TH made a yummy mushroom udon with springish vegetables and a chicken we roasted the night before. It was excellent and green. I caught up on a up/down and TH channel surfed until we got bored and decided to go home. Neither of us are big tv watchers, but the other options at home are to read (no big there) or sleep. Since there is no where to read, we would just sleep and sleeping at 8 pm is not an option.

So, here we blog, leaning, like we're at the airport.

Things are looking up - its supposedly dry this week. I'm going to scoot out early on Thursday and Friday and hack back at my blackcurrants and raspberries and maybe even go for a walk in the light. Imagine that!

chaos redux

TH and I spent today everything from the living room into the kitchen and the front hall. This entailed putting little felt squares/pads onto every piece of furniture we own. I feel like the next step will be doilies, little lladro figurines and coasters.

They are starting on our living room Monday. We are going to call and accept the bid on the cabinets (I think), so we're in for even more disarray.

However, we can enter the kitchen from the back, so we can at least get to our refrigerator. Even managed to eat a home cooked meal for dinner, not at our house, but close enough.

Things could get back to normal by say mid March.

On a bright note: The daphne is starting to bloom, we have tons of irises blooming and things are bursting in the garden.

nm

weather girls

I have spent most of the last week dealing with how science and policy mix and don't mix and really wondering how our next generation of female scientists will excel in a world that still has men saying "so, what do you ladies do" - "er, i'm a rocket scientist" or "I model large scale atmospheric and oceanographic data sets". If I could live my life again I would have combined science with policy at an early age and learned something about management organization so that I could lead instead of follow. That is the only way I believe that women will see positive movement in the sciences.

This week has been very eye opening for me.

Phil!

My Phil, London, November 2005.

The other Phil's prediction.

Don't remove that mulch. Phil has gone back to sleeping, eating chocolate and watching DVDs. He noted that it was nice to see the first ice follies daffodil in full bloom and the rest of the buds looked inviting. He enjoyed the daphne and the irises, but he'll wait for the really fat buds, an infusion of debauve and gallais from Paris (all dark please) and then he'll think about coming out again.

P.S. Methinks it is time to start soaking those sweet peas seeds for early blooms.

nm

WBF

White boy flights. Yup, that is what I had today, the guy who looks like he has the IQ of a tadpole who can't be bothered to take off his sunglasses or his bose headphones the whole flight. The one who was doing multiple guess tests for his futures trading exam and threw his shit on my seat.

Nice.

The next flight had a more well mannered guy who did much the same. What is with these boys? Can you perhaps wait until you are positive you don't have a seat opponent before putting all your crap on my seat?

Could you perhaps help the sub 5' woman get her rollaboard out of the overhead?

I'll bet you tomorrow will be much the same.

Other than that, the floors look great. I called on my way back from the airport and they told me not to walk on them for a while, I said I had to go home to get ready to leave again, they said okay, sans shoes.

It really looks nice. I can't wait to see it in the light.

nm

over and done

Yippee, some decent feedback and good confabs. Home tomorrow for clean smalls, check on the floor, pick up some more data, class and back to Hotlanta for a day at the Weather Channel and a working group meeting with people that I love hanging out with...

The Dekalb farmer's market was really interesting. Decatur looks like a neat place to visit, a guy from the CDC offered some good suggestions that we'll try on Friday.

Great stuff at the market, picked up some cheese, olives, bread and had a nice picnic!

nm

print me and wrap me

Stingrays, Georgia Aquarium, January 2006.

So, I am having a better day I think.

I slept until 9 am. Got up, worked a bit, went to a policy symposium lunch with TH, worked a bit more (actually I sudukoed), looked around the CNN center (mmm, nothing like eating fast food lunch while listening to news reports about child molestation) and then accompanied a historian of science and an archivist (both fabulous careers, dontcha think?) to the new Georgia Aquarium.

I have never been to an aquarium that asks you specifically to not bring in guns or knives. Go figure.

It was interesting. Everything is sponsored by a corporation, not in the little elegant signs that you used to see at exhibits (The following exhibit is underwritten by the generosity of the Dumwithie sprockets company), but more like the Home Depot Life with Leopard Sharks or the Best Buy Manatee Petting Pool. It was awful, in that everything by the Home Depot exhibit was that Home Depot bucket orange. The huge wall of fish was pretty cool though.

Made me miss Monterey and the otters.

So, why print and wrap? I am beginning to love this hotel for the very comfortable couch on which I am currently trying to finish up my powerpoint (and procrastinating by writing this) and that they have free printing. Yes, free printing, you upload your document to the web, send it and go downstairs and type in the pin they give you and voila, your document arrives. TH has a proposal due tomorrow and it has been a save for sure. In the past, we have actually purchased a printer -it is cheaper than most business centers.

Wrapping -- TH noticed we had no bathrobes - defective. I called today and they sent up two nice plush ones. Brand new as well. I had to call to make sure we had not crossed our signals and paid for two new ones instead of getting old ones.

Anyways, I still am not impressed by Atlanta, but the little perks are making it tolerable.

p.s B - Tomorrow at 4:45, I'll be vamoosing to DeKalb for sure. :)

nm

Hotlanta

I've been here for about 11 hours and I haven't left the hotel. Sad, but true. I have been holed up in the club lounge or in my suite (sorry, not monarch like) working my fingers off revising a bunch of data and though still not very happy, I'm more confident in my estimates...

Error propogation can be nasty if unchecked.

So, that leads me with a few thoughts.

One, why fly half way across the country to give a paper in a meeting with people who already know what you are doing and all you are seeing is the inside of the hotel room while you are working on work that you could be doing much easier at home.

Why do people build atrium hotels? They are awful sound vortexes and just plain hideous.

Is it okay to just go to your day of meetings and spend part of the day before your meeting doing something fun like visiting the Dekalb farmer's market and visiting the Aquarium?

Oh well, time to sign off from the Crown Suite on the 15th floor of the Hyatt Regency in Atlanta. Sorry kids, no pool table but a pretty decent living room that we've currently turned into proposal and number crunching central.

Dinner with our fearless leader tomorrow. Very exciting! Team building! One Organization! Sis Boom Rah!

nm

dare to be crazy

Hellebores, January 2006.

That is so me, I have abandoned my normal nubuck look in the dansko clog for a more razmatazz shiny version. Next you'll see me wearing rhinestones, no doubt about it.

Above is a picture of a hellebore that I took in the garden today between two squalls. The weather was nice for the seven minutes I got to do something fun today. I just got back from the office and am waiting for my tshirts to dry before I pack them.

Don't get too excited for me, I think those going to see my Atlanta will be amazed at my breadth of wardrobe excitement. I'm taking one skirt and one pair of slacks, that way they can keep on guessing what I'll be wearing.

nm