Well, I made it here safe in one piece! The flight was thankfully uneventful... meaning it didn't plummet to the earth and then explode on impact. So I had that going for me. My master plan of taking a red-eye out and having a relatively empty plane was crushed into a billion little pieces though. The earlier flight had been cancelled, so they filled our plane with some of the refugees from that flight. So yeah, the plane was filled to the brim. And adding insult to injury, I was assigned the middle seat of a row... oh the thrill and joy of that. I loathe sitting in that seat. But I resolved to simply sleep for the entire flight... snoring be damned! I think sleeping has two advantages for those of us that aren't exactly crazy about flying in the first place... a) the flight is over before you even realize it... or b) if the plane does plummet to the earth and explode on impact, you won't realize that either! Win-win!

I think part of the reason my boss likes sending me to these shows... aside from the fact that he gets to avoid a place like Hades Atlanta in August. But he also knows that I'm not going to take advantage of the situation. My illustrious predecessor had a nasty habit of "forgetting her luggage" and had to use the company card to buy clothing. I kid you not, she did it twice. Yeah, she got fired. Anyway... I'm really aware that it's not my money I'm spending and so I do everything I can to spend the bare bones minimum. I try to book cheap flights, cheap hotels, I eat cheap... and I know that my boss is appreciative of that. And most of the time I've had pretty decent luck in finding hotels inexpensively. Apparently the law of averages have finally caught with to me.

This really is... by far the worst hotel I've ever stayed at. I should be fair I suppose... they're in the process of remodeling, but walking to my room after getting in yesterday, I was stepping around paint buckets, drop cloths and just various remodeling debris in the hallways. The floor I'm on is a wreck. Seriously. I can see what they're doing... they're trying to rehabilitate this place and turn it into something nice. And in time, it might be nice. It's a small hotel made of red brick, it only has 4 floors and it's simple. With the work they're doing, it will probably be a decent place to stay. But it just ain't there yet. And it's never going to be the Ritz or the Four Seasons and I doubt it will ever cater to a high-end business crowd... though it looks like that's the way they're trying to go with it.

But it could be worse... I mean, it does have four walls a decent bed, a kick-butt air conditioner and decent water pressure in the shower, so it's all good. But there are little things they lack... things like a helpful staff, a wake-up call service or even room service... the little detail things. But hey, it's a place to sleep and it's a brisk 20 minute walk over to the convention center for work, so it's all good.

Yesterday was very cool... I arrived at the hotel at about 8 in the morning and since I knew that I couldn't check in that early, I asked them to stow my bags. I figured I'd get my booth set up and get on with my playtime. Well, the first part of the plan went off without a hitch... but they hadn't carpeted my booth yet, so I couldn't get it set up. No biggie. I just skipped that step and proceeded to figure out the rail system they have here and made my way out to the Oakland Cemetery. Let me tell you, that place is friggin' huge. It sits on 48 acres of land and I walked all of it and then some. It does sit in a part of town that I didn't feel particularly safe in though... it looked like a pretty rough part of town, so I was glad that I was in and out before nightfall. It was just plain awesome. Really incredible place. I'll tell ya'll more about it and post some peeeectures later.

After the cemetery, I took the rail back and decided to explore the area I'm staying in a bit more. This area, as I'd mentioned before is undergoing a revitalization project. Lots of high-end condos going up and lofts seem to be really, really popular right about now. You can't turn around without smacking into a sign advertising lofts for sale. I am finally understanding that "historical district" means run down, beat up, gnarly old buildings in a part of town you could totally die in. It's a shame... most of the buildings in this area are those old red brick buildings... which I absolutely love the look of. So they're refurbishing a lot of these buildings and dropping in high-end boutiques, art galleries and things like that. Like the hotel I'm staying in, it's a work in progress. But I can see why they want to do it... with the Georgia Dome, Phillips Arena, the convention center and all of that sort of ritzy downtown area all within spitting distance, they want to make this area into a nice place for people to come spend money.

But yeah... whenever I'm in a new place and out adventuring, I suffer from the "oh, what's over there?" disease. And so I walk everywhere and take it all in. Well, as I was cruising around, I stumbled into the part of this place that hasn't be... revitalized yet. Yikes. They better get that reviatlizing committee out there on the double. It needs a little help... okay, a lot of help. But it's got a lot of those red brick buildings too, so it could totally be rehabilitated. Once they figure out how to get the large, scary guys to relocate.

So after walking around for the better part of 6 hours yesterday, my dogs were seriously barking and because I wanted to get away from said large, scary guys, I hoofed it back to the hotel to check in. Luckily, there is a restaurant in the same parking lot, so after cleaning up, I grabbed my book and headed over for dinner and then I was in for the night.

Today, after sleeping in a bit (which was niiiiice), headed back to the convention center to find that they still had not carpeted my booth. So I marched up to the show offices, put on my best smiley face and asked if I could get that done so I could get my booth set up. The lady told me they might be able to get to it in an hour or so. So as I sat in my un-carpeted booth for about 10 minutes, doing my level best to not be overly impatient... I wasn't winning at that. So I decided to apply the restaurant theory... in restaurants, it seems like whenever you go to the restroom, you come back and VOILA your food is magically there. So off I strolled over to the Starbucks in the center and when I came back with my liquid crack to find that VOILA my booth was now carpeted. Try it... it seriously works.

After getting my booth up, I took another walk through Centennial Park and over to the Georgia Aquarium, where I spent the balance of the day. It was very awesome and totally amazing. I had a really great time over there. I'll have to write more about that later and post some peeeeectures from the day as well!

The weather has been super odd... it's been relatively pleasant one minute to "OHMYGODMYSKINISMELTING" the next... totally schizoid weather. I did start having flashbacks as I walked around the cemetery though... all of the sudden these clouds rolled in and everything got real dark, real quick. But no rain... they rolled out as fast as they came in. The weather has been strange though... walking to the convention center this morning, I could literally feel the humidity coming on... the air just got... thick... for lack of a better word. But by the time I was done getting my booth up, it was back to... not exactly pleasant, but no horrible either. And it's just sort of alternated all day. Some of the folks around here were saying that they're expecting Hurricane Fay to throw some rainy weather up this way later this week... so we'll see.

Anyway... the grind starts tomorrow and it's rolling up on 1 a.m here, so I should get a little shut eye. I hope ya'll are having a good week and I'll start catching up with you all tomorrow when I get "home" from "work."

Sorry I've been incommunicado the last couple of days... I've been running around like a madman, trying to get myself organized because in a few short hours, I'll be winging off to the city of Atlanta. I booked a red-eye flight hoping against all hope that the plane would be virtually empty at such a late hour. No such luck. Drats. Looks like a fairly full flight. Apparently I wasn't the only one with that brilliant idea. Oh well. I'm armed with an iPod that's loaded and charged, a new book of crosswords and a couple of novels, so I'll be able to tune out and cruise around java-world for a while.

The forecast is calling for temps in the high-80's with the possibility of thunderstorms beginning on Tuesday. That would make the weather just about the same as the last time I was down there... humid as all get out, but with amazing storms rolling through. Rather, I thought their storms were amazing once I realized I wasn't about to get run down by a tornado whilst out traipsing around one of the local Civil War battlefields. We just don't get the same kind of storms out here that they get out there... the lightning out there looks like it's about to come down and impale you and the thunder is loud enough to make your head explode.

I arranged my schedule so that I'll arrive first thing tomorrow morning (6 a.m.). I'll have to kill a couple of hours, so I'll probably stow my bags at the hotel and then cruise around, maybe have breakfast or something. Then I'll be able to get over to the convention center, get my booth set up, get back to the hotel to check in and then spend the rest of the day here. This place is immense and supposed to be just amazing, so I'm going to spend a good amount of time picking my way through the Civil War section of the cemetery, snapping some pictures and just taking it all in. It probably won't take me all day to cruise through there, so I may have to find something else to amuse myself with for the rest of the day. I'm staying in an area called Castelberry Hill which is a historic district within the city that they've been apparently been revitalizing, so I'll probably wander around there for a bit once I get done with the cemetery. On Tuesday, I'm planning on spending some time here. That should be a lot of fun as well. I'm looking forward to bumping around the aquarium. The sister-unit and a friend went and they enjoyed it quite a bit and the pictures were pretty great. So I figure I'll go give it a look-see.

The slog starts Wednesday though... Four 10-hour show days. Oh joy. Y'know, these show trips would be so much better if I didn't have to... y'know... work the shows. Ehhhh... it isn't going to be that bad. I actually enjoy working the shows. The only show days I dread are the last days of the shows as the convention centers turn into ghost towns and the time just draaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaags ass. Instead of staying one more night though once the show ends, I'm packing up and catching a late flight home. The sister-unit's birthday is Sunday and I've got something cooking.

So... that's how my week is going to go, in a nutshell. I'll be posting some peeeeectures as I go, so ya'll can see what I'm seeing and doing. There is apparently something wrong with my laptop though... for whatever reason, I can't access any of my email accounts. It will take me to the login page, let me login and then it just does nothing... it just sits there like it's about to open my inbox without ever actually opening my inbox. What makes it really weird though is that I can access any other website like normal. So unless something miraculous happens, I may not be able to respond to personal emails for a bit, though I can apparently still post to my journal. Weird stuff. And being a techno-tard, I just can't figure it out. So I'm sorry that I'm tardy with a few emails, but I will catch up with you guys soon. Just bear with me.

Well, I have to finish up and get ready for my chariot shall be here soon enough. Anybody care to lay a wager on whether or not I get pulled out of line by the TSA at the airport? Seems to happen every bloody time! Seriously! I guess there must be some huge segment of radical German/Japanese terrorists that I don't know about. Damn that racial profiling!!!!

So I hope that everybody has a fantastic week. Like I said, I'll still be on LJ, so I'll be able to at least stay in touch this way. Be good boys and girls.

Oh! And before I go, here is your "Wonder of Nature" moment...

The USGS has remote motion sensor video cameras stationed in Glacier National Park in Montana. Here is a clip that was picked up of a wolf interacting with a mama grizzly and her little grizzlettes... it looks like the wolf wants to play with the grizlettes, but mama is apparently having nothing to do with it... Awesome clip. Enjoy!!!