Geography & Rib Eye

An Old Market Arcade view.

As desperately as Omaha clung to each and every passenger at the airport, I have managed to escape to Atlanta. The trip home was a bit of a mess as my 6:30 p.m. flight was delayed an hour... you know, just because. Add to that a classic Midwest storm system and it seemed I would never leave Nebraska. Luckily, we taxied and took off around 8:30 p.m. as lightning struck.

It's a building. It's kind of interesting.

Interestingly, the TSA's decision on allowing flights to leave OMA was the result of sending a "test flight" up. On that test flight was my poor, unfortunate colleague (his flight was 3 hours late, forcing him to miss his connecting flight, and then to also miss the last connecting flight of the day in Utah to California.) They took off and were not struck down by lightning, so the rest of the flights were cleared for takeoff. Sheesh. The folks on my flight all agreed we were glad not to have been the first off the ground.


Omaha is a small city; about 400,000 people live there. It has the persnickety landscaping and evenly-spaced, evenly-aged trees I associate with Midwestern cities and sensibilities. It is exceptionally clean and exceptionally desolate, even at 5 p.m on a Monday. I tried to imagine it a 150 years ago as a bustling center of old-timey trade, but the surroundings of concrete and semi-modern (but never daring) architecture made it hard to conjure up thoughts of anything other than "Everybody must be at the mall."


The "smoking section" of my hotel.

My hotel was located near the "famous" Old Market and I did some solo window shopping down there, enjoying the arcades (an arched or covered passageway, usually with shops on each side, not a video den.) The area is very nice... but... perhaps there is some strange deformity in my nature. It was simply too clean and seemed somehow lacking for it. No crazy folks wandering around, just middleaged businessmen in polo shirts and khakis, soccer moms and a smattering of children. No litter, no posters, no street performers or hucksters. No flaws and therefor no personality. But perhaps I was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.


In desperation, I found a cozy pub at the bottom of the street called Mr. Toad's. The door was hard to open and I gave up on the entrance and was about to walk around the corner when a kind woman explained, "You have to push hard." I did and was rewarded with a dark and wooded bar filled with old-timey schwag and smoke; bliss. I downed a fair number of Kansas City wheat beers with lemon. I'm generally not a fan of beer that needs the support of fruit, but I figured, "What the hell. I'm in fucking Omaha."


Mr. Toad... not pictured. But there's my friendly waitress (from my beloved Minnesota, of course.)

I made friends with the waitress (a recent grad who majored in marketing and who loves to travel) and pretended to watch the Yankees get trampled by Detroit. I proceeded to get just enough drunk to decide I shouldn't drink anymore (this is the new me, kids, the one who has a serious responsibility not to show up hungover to work).


Because it was time for drunken shopping! When all else fails, I have learned to bust out the credit card. Luckily, I stumbled onto a very sweet, indie record store with a staggering collection of music. I scored David Bowie's early record "Hunky Dory," perhaps my favorite album of his. It is the soundtrack of my freshman year and it was stolen in New Orleans. I'm listening to it even as I write. I also got the Dropkick Murphy's "Live on St. Patrick's Day" and Cat Stevens' "Tea for the Tillerman." Why yes, I do have eclectic tastes.

The name of the shop? Homer's. I think.

Then I stumbled on a great shop - one of those stationary/funky/fun places that carries Hello Kitty and Anne Taintor and Archie McPhee delights and Devil Duckies and the Jesus Christ action figure. I picked up a fantastic ashtray:



On the advice of a sweet old couple (who used to live in Norwalk, Conn.), I dragged my colleague to dinner at the Flat Iron. It was swanky and delicious. We were both drawn to the rib eye with gnocci. The medium steak was velvety and juicy (would you expect any less in Omaha?) but the gnocci had been assaulted with a garlic press and I was forced to give them a proper burial under the remnants of my steak.

That is about the extent of what I got to see of Omaha. And the whole time I was there I had no idea where I actually was -- my understanding of the middle section of U.S. geography is paltry and embarrassing. Somehow, I thought we were just a bit to the west of Georgia. I was very wrong.

It's actually right under South Dakota! Who knew? (Probably the folks in Nebraska.)



Storm Clouds gathering at the airport... look at the villainous bastards!


Flights
Going: Delayed 90 minutes with notice before I'd even left for the airport.
Coming: Delayed 2 hours with a few Hail Marys uttered at takeoff.


Bags
Heavy gear case (becoming a thorn in my side due to it's one-track roll), laptop backpack, purse and new overnight rolling bag. Great improvement from the shoulder bag, but hauling two rolling bags is not so easy either. I'll have to continue to think about this one.

Lucky No. 13

I've just realized I'm in room 313. I noticed yesterday that the room next door is 315 and I'm supposedly in 311. But it's just now at 6:10 a.m. that it has dawned on me that it's this old superstition which has razzle-dazzled my room's real number.

Funny that in this day and age, with all the scientific discoveries and religious proclamations and whatnot that people should still be afraid of a silly little pairing of 1 and 3. Personally, I've always considered 13 to be a lucky number simply because it is such a psychological underdog. And Friday the 13th has never harmed me. But maybe that makes me superstitious, too.

Omaha-ha

The Magnolia.... a little bit of "The Shining" right here in Nebraska. But in a good way.

To Jim: If Omaha is the Paris of the Midwest, I'm never going to France.



I'm staying here. It's lovely, but completely smoke-free, which means it is completely suck-full. Sigh. This is why I meant to quit.
More to come...

Bienvenida Y Miami

I had the pleasure of mixing business with... er... pleasure this week. I left for Miami early Tuesday morning, driving myself down to the airport at the height of rush-hour traffic. Really, once I got to the bypass it wasn't too bad.

I was quite excited to park in the premium lot for this trip. Now that I have a brand-new car, I intend to stay in covered parking for short trips. So, obviously, when I arrived at 8 a.m. the lot was full. As usual, I had to schlep all my baggage across the desert known as Economy Parking. I call it a desert because there is no shade whatsoever and even at 8 a.m. it was already in the high 80s in Atlanta. ("That's what happens when you build a city only 50 miles from the sun.")

A funky little shop on Lincoln in South Beach.

But the upside: My first medallion upgrade! I went gold after my last flight to New York for vacation. This also meant I could use the expedited security line. I was pretty bleary-eyed still and suffering heat stroke I'm sure, so I walked almost all the way to the regular security line before remembering my newly acquired air-istocrat status. So... I walked back. No way I was missing out on the chance to find out how the high-falutin' folk live.


Now, when I travel for business I usually don't have to go directly to work on arrival. Most often I check into my hotel, have a couple hours to settle and then head over to do system tests for the next day's demo. So, I don't travel in a business suit. Jeans, cargo pants, skirts, linen trousers... my goal is comfort. In other words, I never look like a business traveler, but more like a college student on vacation. So, of course the security woman at the Fancy Elite Pants line had to give my paperwork a real once-over.

Sucker-photographed! I surprised Chris and Jen with my mad digital skills. They found my camera use embarassing. Tourist!

But no matter, gold card in hand I entered the magical land of Premium Service... and entered into the same line with everybody traveling coach. The difference is I got there a bit faster and my line was a bit shorter. In the end, it took as long as it ever has - peak flight time and all. I guess it's also because there's so much riffraff in the Fancy Elite Pants club these days.

But back to my magical upgrade status! I knew before even arriving at the airport that I would be flying first class to Miami - Delta automatically enters you for upgrade status when you are silver, but you are behind the golds and platinums so I never got moved on up. But as a gold, I was golden. Cushy, roomy leather seats, plenty of leg room, bottles of water waiting on our out-sized armrests, drinks while the peons are boarding... the works.

Thinking of you, Maisy. These aren't shoes, btw, they're "art."

So, the very first thing I did when getting to my window seat was knock over the two bottles of water on the armrest. My neighbor was pretty friendly about it, but I was immediately reminded that people like me (clumsy? riff-raff? newsies?) don't really fit in this world. Anyway, I refused a beverage from the flight attendant and jokingly told my neighbor I couldn't be held responsible for what might happen if I had a drink without a cap. Har, har, har.

Sweet, sweet hotel action.

And then... I promptly passed out. Yes, I was on 4 hours of sleep, having tossed and turned the night before, and I was just wiped out. So I missed the snack and whatever other perks were involved. (I suspect manicures, dancing girls and free money.)

The Miami airport was fine. Not remarkable, though here I am remarking. Orlando is a bit more flashy. I got my bags and a cab to my hotel on Biscayne Bay. (World's Least Talkative Cabbie drove me. Really. He said NOTHING to me the entire 20-minute ride. Shame, really, I like the talkers.) The hotel... nice. Really nice. We're talking multiple valets and doormen who pounce as soon as you pull up. Right on the water and balconies all around.

Marino's Miata. Note the trunk space issue.

So, I went up and relaxed. I was still feeling a little laggy so I ordered some room service and took a nap while waiting for my friend Chris to get off work. I also sat on the balcony enjoying the view and the ocean breeze. It's hot in Miami, but at least they have the water.

Met up with Chris and his girlfriend for a night on South Beach (home of all those poor dieters). I had to get to work by 8 a.m. and they are both school teachers; it was an early night. I fell in love with Miami on Tuesday night - the atmosphere, the people, the tiny dogs and the art deco, the palm trees. It's a swinging city with lots of style and character (and characters). We had some drinks, toured an art gallery/studio and invaded a Swatch store (they still exist!?).

Casa de Marino.

All in all, it was a short look but a lovely look. I'm grateful to Chris and Jen for showing me around.

The next day was all work and I won't bore you with that, other than to mention the major technical difficulties I experienced. After my last successful trip, it was a real nightmare. But I handled it and even walked away with kudos from co-workers and the audience for how I handled all the (out of my control) problems.

After getting back to the hotel where I had stored my suitcase, I changed in the lobby bathroom, hoping the employees wouldn't throw me out for acting like a bag lady. They didn't. I called Chris up and told him I had a little time to kill before the flight home; he insisted I see his house. He called me 5 minutes later: "Say, how many bags do you have?" He drives a Mazda Miata and was worried my luggage wouldn't fit. It did, with one of my bags on my lap.

Convertible top down, we zipped to the casa de Marino in Miami Shores (there are no shores here, I hear). He whipped up a couple rum and cokes and we toured the fantastic digs. He's really living the good life down there, pool and jacuzzi included. We sat by the pool and I dipped my legs in the water and we talked about life and art (he's making headway on a stylized comic of his own) and how we should visit each other more.

And then, all too soon, it was time to go to the airport. It was only as I was handing my bags to the check-in guy that I realized I was tipsy. I hadn't eaten in 7 hours and the 2 rum and cokes were now making their presence known. I briefly worried I could get bumped off my flight just for rum on my breath. But that's just craziness picked up from watching Airline.

The flight was delayed by about 15 minutes because the flight attendants' arriving flight was delayed. Flight, flight, flight. No first class fun this time. But I did have a spacer seat between myself and my neighbor (a very handsome young businessman who was far too business-y for me: iPod, Blackberry, full suit, book on leadership skills... really). Flying out of Miami, I could see a thunderstorm about half an hour away - a huge cloud which burst with artillery-shell shocks of light every second or so. It was the first time I'd seen a storm from the air and it was quite beautiful. Nearby was the little brother of that electrical giant; he was half the size and zipping and zapping only half as often, trying to keep up.

I was dozing but this time managed to score a snack and a drink - very good as I wasn't feeling particularly groovy. In fact, by the time I landed in Atlanta (late) I was feeling pretty lousy. Shaky, dizzy and weak. I tried to take it easy on the long walk across the desert from the terminal to my car, but I still had to stop twice to rest. Loaded up the car (now I'm not only using the cargo nets, I'm also rocking the tie-downs in my Matrix!) and drove home. A long, traffic-filled drive, which is odd for 10:45 on a Wednesday night. Got in, ate a bowl of cereal and CRASHED, leaving all bags unpacked and all beer untouched.

All in all, it was a great trip. I can't wait to visit Chris in Miami for real. I'm really glad I went for work because otherwise I wouldn't have discovered this city is so charming.

(P.S. Not every entry will be a blow-by-blow. I still need to find my rhythm.)

(P.P.S. Mystery illness diagnosis: Eat-Something-itis Idioticus)


Flights
Going: On time. First class and sleepy.
Coming: Delayed. Excellent storm view, slight turbulence.

Bags
Heavy-duty demo gear suitcase, overnight shoulder bag, laptop backpack and purse. (I learned a lesson: A shoulder bag is the solo traveler's enemy. It's cumbersome, particularly when you have a second, roller suitcase. And my shoulder/back hurt. I'll be buying a small, rolling overnight bag this weekend for my next trip.)

The First Step

I promised quite a few folks that when I embarked on my new career as a traveling professional, I would create a blog just for my experiences on the road.

After four months on the job, here is that blog space. Hey, I've been busy!

I've learned a lot about being a frequent flyer in such a short time; and why not, I've already gone gold with my SkyMiles plan. I have earned more than 56,000 miles for travel. I myself have flown 50,914 miles as of today. Wow.

I have been to Denmark four times, to Orlando, New York City, Boston and Charlotte, N.C. And there is a lot more to come.

I'll be discussing all manner of travel-related issues: the good, the bad and the surly. Please join me on my travels for insight on life as a paid traveler post-9/11 as well as the quick and lonely view business travel provides of far-off (and not-so-far-off) lands.