Friday Five

Ah, one of life's little pleasures - opening my laptop and changing it to Pacific time. Great indication that I'm (finally) going home. And that's what I'm doing as we speak (or I write and you read (or I wrote and you read)).

Another Houston week. Karin and I connected through Houston and I just left there. I've now reached the point where I'm meeting and leaving my wife in airports with no trip home. There just seems to be something wrong about that.

This week was a bit of a step in the right direction for me - I finally started working out a little. M-T-W saw me doing 30 minutes on the stair machine (about the only decent thing they had in the hotel). It's about time I finally just stop talking about losing the pot belly and returning to just one chin. Granted, I've done this a handful of times before - hopefully I can slay my vampires* and actually get it done.

Two travel notes for the week:

1 - The class was a late addition to my schedule after I had already purchased my ticket from LGA to SAN, connecting through IAH (Houston - Bush I). I went to Continental to see what the cost would be to just abandon the IAH-SAN leg. $500! Tell you what, I'll just get off the plane and we'll call it good. Sheesh.

2 - When I landed (I had gone straight from Houston to New York and back to Houston) I needed to do laundry. Sure enough, the hotel was out of detergent. Ok - off to Walmart (sorry, Mom) to buy the smallest thing of detergent I could find. $5 later I'm back with a 20 load bottle (their smallest). I toss in my laundry (yes, in just one huge load - I'm a guy), and then into the dryer. Come to find out the dryer lacks one feature that's important in dryers - the ability to make something dry. Off to the front desk to complain. They hook me up with someone from housekeeping who tossed my clothes in their dryer. I came back downstairs to find out that she actually took it upon herself to even fold my clothes. Turned out a $5 had come out from one of my pants pockets. I gave it to her as a "thank you".

My five this week will the little facts about myself that I don't think I've done in the past. I'm not connected to the Internet at the moment as I'm at 37,000 feet. If there's a duplicate, forgive me.

1. I generally don't swear. It's not that it offends me, it's simply that I feel I have a large enough lexicon that I can communicate my thoughts without going blue. That's not to say I don't let a few fly.
2. My perfect wardrobe would contain nothing but short sleeve shirts, shorts, jeans and suits. I love to dress up and I love to be comfortable and basically nothing in between. I hate doing polo shirts and khakis. But when you travel it's much easier dealing with wash and wear. And while I do wish I was more fashion conscious, at some point practicality trumps fashion. (And to the one person who I'm thinking of that disagrees, trust me - it does.)
3. I tend to have very vivid dreams. Sometimes to the point where I can't quite remember later if it was real or a dream.
4. I wanted to be a cop as a kid, into my late teens. Needless to say that shifted. There's a small part of me that would love to go to law school and study to become a lawyer dealing with law as it relates to IT. Alas, that would require many years. And becoming a lawyer.
5. There are still moments when I think having a kid would be a nifty idea. And then the reality sets in of having to sign up for a lifetime commitment. I think to some degree I'd be a good father (and Karin would make a great mother). But come 2 months in and the baby is screaming its fool head off at 3a and I'd be on the first flight to anywhere never to be seen again.

* - This is a reference to a [title of show] song Die, Vampire, Die. A vampire is any person, thing or thought that gets in the way of you and what you want to accomplish.