“I’m as surprised as anyone,” has been my constant refrain. As explanations go, it’s about as unsatisfying as you’d expect it to be, but perhaps that’s a mere consequence of its fundamental truth. The surprise, of course, is that my time here in Denver is, abruptly, at an end. As of tomorrow, Georgetown, ME will be my new home. Until September, anyway.
Before I ramble on, some logistical information: I will not have any internet access at all during the day (I’ll be driving, remember?), and may or may not have it at night (the Bluetooth on my laptop is broken, so if the best hotel I can find at 2 AM doesn’t have wifi I’ll be SOL). Phone, therefore, will be your only means of contacting me. I’d prefer that you use my Grand Central number – 617.395.5685 – but if you have problems with it as one of my friends did today – you can try my cell at 617.320.9757. Given how loud the music will amost certainly be playing, I will probably miss your call. Messages, therefore, are a good idea. If you are calling about something that demands web access, you have officially failed the intelligence test posed by the first sentence of this paragraph. As an alternative, I highly suggest you contact one of my colleagues instead.
Apart from the business stuff, if you’re really, really bored at work, you should be able to indirectly track my progress across this great (and really flat) land of ours via Flickr and Twitter. It probably goes without saying, but blogging will be seriously light. Oh, and if some really serious news breaks – tech or otherwise – someone do me a favor and call me. Otherwise it’s not likely I’ll hear about it until Saturday.
Back to the rambling: I shouldn’t have been so surprised that the date snuck up on me. I was, after all, solely responsible for all the planning required. And then there were the various drinks and lunches and dinners. But, really, I didn’t. And yet here we are. Migration Eve.
For those of you that can’t fathom why one would voluntarily choose to spend a good portion of the year away from their home – or at least what legally constitutes their home – I will not be able to explain it to you. Beyond the obvious attractions of the Maine coast (which are many), or the friends and family based in that region (also many), I’m slowly coming to believe that the practice is more subtly beneficial than I’d realized.
My prolonged absences, paradoxically, seem to enhance my appreciation for Denver and what it has to offer. Just as my considerably longer absences do for Maine. This appetite for change is not, I’d argue, some genetic artifact of my Irish ancestry, but rather a desire to leverage fully the opportunities that are available. As the grandson of a shipbuilder, and a one-time laborer and construction worker myself, I realize more than some just how lucky I am to have the ability to do this. I’d feel bad, honestly, if I did not take advantage of this while I can. That, in large part, is why I just logged 4400 miles on JetBlue in the last 24 hours, and am poised to tack on another 2200 by car over the next two plus days.
Az, for those of you that are concerned, came through the ordeal more or less unscathed. She pitched a minor fit in her carrier about a half hour before we touched down in Boston, chewing up my arm pretty good (she’s much more comfortable if I keep one of my arms in there next to her), but apart from that was well behaved (for her). True, she was more or less three sheets to the wind with the mild sedative I was given by Denver’s Best Veterinarian, Cassie Todd, but still – three hours is a long time to be cooped up in a tiny carrier.
After getting to Maine, I crashed from about 8 till 1, then hopped right back in my rental and high tailed it to Boston. The good news was that I made it down there in time to meet a friend for a drink near Fenway; the bad news was that there was both a monsoon and tornado warnings. Eventually, however, we did get out of Logan and now I’m back in Denver furiously trying to get everything ready for tomorrow. Apart from packing and two stops (a Cingular store and Twist and Shout), the Volvo and I will be rolling more or less as soon as I get up.
I’ll resurface next Tuesday (will be at the NXT conference Monday), and if I don’t talk to you before then, enjoy your respective weekends.
– sog
P.S. Yes, I have both my registration and proof of insurance. No more repeats of last year.
