Lanyards and The Fall of Axiom

Lanyards; are given as a form of identification at the congresses I travel to. They are much more than just a fancy piece of vinyl that is held at the neck, they are more like badges of honor. Something you receive for spending hours in airports, cramped in coach seats, waiting in line to be strip searched by TSA, and not to mention the ridiculous work hours while under the influence of jet lag. In airport bars, you can make strangers into friends within an hour but you’ll forget who they were in minutes. Traveling for work is a twisted love story of random events and sterno-heated chicken kabobs. A never-ending tale of fatigue-driven lunacy and time zone lobotomy.

Dull moments can last forever or never happen – at the same time. The hotel staff is the ghost of service; always moving tables, setting up food dispensaries, and distributing linens – they are often seen but rarely present. The pungency of taxi drivers, the sounds of the street philosophers, and the sights of community college barmaids all play a part in this act; a perpetual sequel to a play that has yet to be written. The immune system is always under siege and the feeling of being “almost sick” is often standard procedure within these grounds.

It’s not romantic, polished, or divine. You are never in a place it’s more of a state of mind. Keeping the brain true to the task at hand while dealing with fatigue, hotel nutrition and a hangover can be a challenge but after a while, it all goes numb. Thursdays are Mondays, Fridays are Tuesdays and today will happen sometime tomorrow. Try waking up in a cold sweat because you're late for the meeting only to find out it’s 3am because your mind thinks it’s still in another time zone. After the panic subsides you toss and turn trying to get back into a hold of sleep only to be awakened again by environment unfamiliarity and the adultery happening next door. Hotels are only familiar due to repetition, the smells and paid smiles are often the same. Bad air fresheners’ and stale cold air being pumped through the vents are just part of this element. The rest is made up of controlled situations with uncontrollable circumstances.

The experience of the traveler is feeling out of place, and that’s the core of why I’m here. It’s something you look forward to as much as you want it to end, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Until Next time.

what's in the box?

Orlando Florida, what can you say? My lungs feel like a moist towelette. I think my room is temperature controlled by a swamp cooler and a gigantic Italian armpit. You cannot purchase chewing gum anywhere in the Disney World properties. It’s banned, like a steak sandwich in India. I had two beers in the makeshift bar that was in a hallway next to a really loud fountain and an unassuming triangle.

There are a lot of people wandering the halls, and most of them are on their phones or reading text messages. This leads to an interesting phenomenon; no one is looking where they are walking. I have witnessed several collisions with unsuspecting structures baring pylons and hotel staff. We had a rogue squirrel run into the hotel and attempted to enter one of our highly sensitive meetings; fortunately for us our security team (which are ex-secret servicemen) was able to corner the squirrel and force him back outside.

When scheduling a shuttle for transportation to the airport (on the web) there is a line for gratuity. So, they want you to tip before you even get “serviced”. What is that all about? Speaking of awesome, we paid $3200 for an internet line in our meeting room with speeds that peak at about 512Kb, that’s less than half the speed of the slowest DSL service. It took 12 seconds for that Google page to show up. It cost $8 dollars to use the gym that looks more like a Salvation Army break room. That's $8 per visit.

They have a lifeguard that’s armed with a megaphone, she really likes using the siren and yelling at people who look like they’re having too much fun. She is sitting on a highchair about 5 feet above the water and overlooks a knee-deep pool that’s about 15 feet long. It looks completely ridiculous because it is.

Disney employs “undercover” trash collectors. They look like tourists but carry a hidden trash bag, whenever there is paper or something unmentionable on the ground they pick it up at speeds far too fast for modern equipment to calculate. It’s equally impressive as it is disturbing. I still have three more days of this socialist menopause.

Until next time.

Under the Impression

At another hotel, working at another congress. Maybe it’s the lack of sleep or maybe it’s a prolonged exposure to consciousness. Whatever the case the mind is being offered information from the senses that really don’t add up. I feel like a misguided missile of reality, a grenade that suddenly became a boomerang to the unsuspected origin of deployment. There sounds what seems to be a giant dishwasher in the ceiling. My thoughts gather like those pilled stones you find near some beaches that someone wearing a tinfoil hat had stacked previously. That was a lot of work to stack those very small piles of pebbles in line – most of them form some sort of geometric design. The mysterious wonder of people comes in all kinds of shapes, flavors, and semi-glossed laminated coupons.

I think that giant dishwasher is on its drying cycle. Am I the only one who hears it? There is a large white dry-erase board to the right of my table, when did it show up? I haven’t noticed it until I realized it was there. Just like a mattress store or Carlface McGee. No one ever expects that guy. This meeting room seems to be breathing like a cheap lava lamp. The fax machine feels distant, it must be thinking of a symbiotic relationship and a navy blue can opener equipped with 26 medium-sized easy-grip handles. Sure it’s complicated but who's doing the math? Lunch is being served, maybe I should eat before Dubious the Perudo Master decides to throw the switch and exacerbate my sandwich.

Lunch just came back from it. Is it me or does eating alone in a really large meeting hall seem a bit odd. I was sitting at a table amongst 47 other white-sheeted eight-foot round tables complete with the cloth napkin apparatus. There were three waiters in black suites standing eerily still. Almost elbow to elbow in an exaggerated Disney’esk perfectly animated posture. In the corner of my eye, I noticed one waiter standing alone. About 34 feet, 8 inches from the others, he however was not still, constantly shifting his weight from one leg to the other as if he was impatiently waiting for nothing to happen. His movement was slow and rhythmic, you could almost set your watch to him. So I did, but he was the wrong time – stupid Grandfather Clock pendulum impersonator. I was sitting in the middle of this empty room and the hotel had these small speakers on very tall poles playing inappropriately fast jazz. You know that kind of jazz that jumps into your skin and slaps around like a hyperactive cool handkerchief stuck between a warm back and a hot sweater. Yes, it was almost near comfortable.

The fatigue is settling in as the day is near to end.

Until Next Time.

Let me run it bayou again.

New Orleans, where do I start. Ah yes, how about here. It was pretty chilly when we got here, around 36 degrees and the wind was blowing. My light jacket was there for ascetics – it really wasn’t built to be a weather deterrent. At least the thought was there. The hotel was nice, the staff was friendly and the rooms were what you’d expect at a business-orientated establishment.

The hotel had some power issues in our conference room, the “engineers” were trying to figure out why only part of the room had power. Well, one bright fellow saw a large plug (220 volts to the 110-volt converter) in the wall which happened to be powering all my networking equipment, and apparently thought that if he unplugged it and plugged it back in magically it would somehow solve the power issue. Before I could pronounce the “F” in DON’T he pulled the socket and all you could hear was the faint “clicks” of the equipment powering off followed by the cooling fans spinning to a stop. I slowly inhaled and created a handmade fist. Standing straight up and still as a metal piece of mysterious art deco I glared at the “engineer” – he looked back at me holding the pin of the “oops grenade”. I wasn’t quite sure how to express my displeasure, all I got out was, “No.” He slowly grabbed his walkie-talkie clicked the transmitter creped it up to his face while keeping eye contact, then said “Where’s the food for the Poydras meeting room, they need beer and wine too – lot’s of it!” Placed his transmitter back on his shoulder and quietly walked out of the room. Being a fan of uncomfortably surreal moments I was impressed by how he made his get-a-way. Nonetheless, I had to make the call to his supervisor. Thankfully the equipment survived the spontaneous shutdown, they found out about the power issue and we were back in business. It’s been three days now and I still have not seen that “engineer”. Now I wonder if I can disable the motion sensor in this room. Every four minutes the lights turn off if they don’t sense any motion. So, I either flail my arms like a bird or get up and walk around a bit until the lights turn on. It’s one of the more frustrating exercises I’ve ever experienced.



Until Next Time.

Over Diagnosis Syndrome and the Antidepressant Happy America

It seems that these days there is a “syndrome” for everything that could be wrong with us. I view it as an excuse for our shortcomings and lack of personal responsibility. Why is it no one’s fault anymore? If I don’t practice my golf swing and my game is horrible does that mean I have GPAD (golf performance anxiety disorder)? Typically I treat GPAD with some eloquently chosen vulgarity followed by several beers; it seems to work for most flare ups. Where did all these disorders come from? If we put a name of a disorder on every fault does that one feel better? Its like a built in isopathic mechanism that leads to abandoning ownership of ones inability to take the steps to improve the situation. Don’t we need to place some responsibility on ourselves and take control of our own lives instead of raising our hands in the air proclaiming immunity to our own actions? To put simply; bad beginnings usually equate to bad results. There are plenty of people with disorders that truly need help however I think there are a lot more people who proclaim their affliction and diagnose themselves by means of a convincing daytime talk show and or a stylish pharmaceutical ad campaign. It’s so much easier to blame your tardiness to morning traffic then to admit you actually got up too late. One my favorite tag lines for a diet pill commercial is “it’s not your fault that you are fat”. Just think about that one for awhile. There has never been a time that we have had access to antidepressants with such high efficacy then now. So why is it that we have more depression cases reported per capita in history? Over 190 million prescriptions for antidepressants filled in 2007 alone. Ever wonder what we did before anti-depressants? It’s called, dealing with it (life). I’m off to the driving range - with my mini-keg, Until Next Time.

force feedback

Just another day at LAX; waiting in line to get screened and pushed through the metal arch of the detecting kind. After showing my ID to the impressively bored TSA agent I noticed there were about a dozen preteen girls that must have been part of some sort of cheerleading squad. Either that or they were really enthusiastic about almost everything shiny while wearing eerily identical attire. I knew I had to make it to the “Arch” before they did or the wait would be extended to a point of a gnome-crafted treadmill. Besides, I’ll be stuck with the Bluetooth Texan and his over-caffeinated aviophobia wife – that much longer. They were entertaining at first but then the annoyance helicopter landed. It was time; I was released to go to my gate free of pink ponytails and suspended hyperactive neurosis - free at last…to wait in another line. The flight was smooth, but a little turbulent during the approach, I was thinking maybe the plane is afraid of landing. Then the mind wandered off probably due to the astounding nutrition two bags of peanuts and a shot of ginger ale bring. What if a plane was afraid to fly, how horrible would that be? So, it started to make sense – I think turbulence is caused when a plane realizes he or she is flying and then freaks out.

After stretching a bit I placed on the headphones leaned back all 4 1/2 degrees (thanks coach) and fell fast asleep. I had yet another onslaught of crazy dreams and subconsciously created worlds that swirled visions and mattress sale propaganda throughout my head. My own snoring woke me up like a fart in church – I quickly looked around like a prairie dog as if exaggerating my awareness would soften the unorganized embarrassment. Ahhh alas, maybe no one heard, what time is it? Oh great, we are not even off the tarmac. The stewardess seemed too happy to be alive, she smiled showing her outrageously white, perfectly squared Chiclet teeth. I could almost see an anime rogue glimmer spin-off her smile into the sky making a metallic high pitch sound that echoed through the plane's cabin. I can’t recall last time I was that startled and entertained at the same time.

We landed safely in New Orleans. For now I thought the adventure was behind me; I had NO idea what was going to happen next.

Until Next Time.

- d

bacon needs no salesmen, bacon sells bacon

Currently enjoying the weather in fun filled Orlando, Florida. (ahh geez did I say that?) Last night was the first time I saw it rain.. UP. This place is ridiculous.. Crazed children cranked up on sugar and the ever present Disney euphoric effect. Kids running and screaming like an open nerve attached to a fire hydrant. Complete candied coated chaos mixed with family orientated techno music makes this part of Disneyworld a never ending conveyer belt of childhood evanescence. We are in the Disney bubble; 35 miles away from normality and average consumer products. If the hotel doesn't have it you're not getting it. The hotels are surrounded by water which is outlined by a wooden boardwalk full of cotton candy, hired street magicians and arcades. Amongst the building facades and imitation sea life there lays a hidden Mecca. By way of complete accident I found it, a real brewery. So there I stood in a gasp, in fact I had to ask if they actually brew beer or was this another one of Disney's evil tricks. When the hostess confirmed; yes in fact they do serve the beer they brew I responded like a child on Christmas morning.. who got everything they wished for. So I guess the sign in front was right, " Disneyworld, where wishes come true". It's about that time; people meeting and talking; confirming, coughing, grunting, an occasional secret handshake combined with broken wind, and some guy who whispers the word "etcetera" in the background. So, it's about that time. Work waits with a patient grin.