"Blogging San Francisco, Final Entry..."
We are home.

Frankly, I'm a little amazed at that fact considering how the flights panned out yesterday, but I'll get to that in a bit.

As my last post indicates, on Friday, I felt like my brain was about to crack open. Conferences like this bring up a lot of conflicting emotions in me. There's a lot of insecurity when I run into old friends who just got jobs where they are making $10,000 more a year than I am or who have book contracts already or whatever. Then there's basic contentment when I realize how lucky I have it when I hear about the dramas and traumas other people have at their jobs, and while I have typically ordinary crap to deal with at mine, it's ordinary, so I feel pretty good. Then, I run into others who ask about my work and who get really excited when I tell them about recent projects, so I feel like I'm really onto something. In five minutes, I really run the emotional gamut, and this happens throughout the conference. This makes me a bit more high maintenance than usual, and Da Man did not rush to disagree with me on that point.

So, I missed the blogging SIG because I hit about 3:30 in the afternoon and realized that I needed a break. I wandered around Comp USA looking at the latest trinkets I had no idea existed and then around Virgin. I love listening stations, and I love Virgin because they have the largest dance section I've ever seen in a store. If my legs had not been killing me, I would have jumped up and down when I found two listening stations dedicated entirely to trance. I love trance. I controlled my spending (having already spent more than enough on books), but I loved putting on the headphones and immersing myself in the beats and rhythms for a while.

Saturday, I wanted to spend with Da Man, doing what he wanted since we'd been apart for awhile. We tried to ride the cable cars, but they were broken and not running anywhere in the city. Still it was neat to see the cables and realize that they work by grasping onto a cable that's underground (I never knew that, never thought about how they ran).

And then we traveled up to Chinatown. I'm amazed that it's located in the middle of the city but is so different from every other part of it. The roads were much smaller, only one lane wide. And there were, of course, shops and people everywhere. We had lunch at Empress of China, which was recommended to us by someone else from Hartford at the conference. It's on the sixth floor of their building with a great view of Coit Tower and Chinatown itself. We got the last table by the window. That was fun. While we did not order the flaming quail, we did see it served to someone at the table next to us.

Still, we were ready to get home. We always spend the last day of a trip ready to get home. We had no problem getting to the airport, where we had breakfast with my mentor. I was nervous, though, because we had a twenty-nine minute layover in Cleveland. When I scheduled the flight, it was an hour, but they called in February to announce the change. And they consider that a "legal layover," so there was nothing to do about it.

You know where this is going, don't you?

We left San Francisco late, and we ended up having to circle the airport for some reason I still do not know. We stood up to leave the plane at the moment our other flight was to leave. We were not worried because if we had to circle, then everything must be running late. Then we saw the woman at gate who had the connecting flights on her list. She seemed concerned, and told us, "I was told to send everyone but Providence onto their gate, but I don't know." I started running, with my backpack and shoulder bag on. Of course, our connection was in a different terminal. But I ran and reached the gate. They said they were waiting for us, and Da Man came up a minute or so after me. As we boarded the plane, the pilot said, "We're now closing the door since it appears all of our connecting flights have arrived." I was huffing and puffing and sweating, so I doubt anyone thought we were leisurely strolling from the gate. And amazingly, our bags were transferred, too. Da Man told me on the plane that he knows I told him about the time change, but he forgot that this was the last flight of the night and that we would have had to stay in a hotel if we'd missed it. Then, he understood why I'd been so concerned.

But we made it, and we're home. We picked up Auggie from the kennel a few hours ago, and she's lying behind my desk chair now. Da Man leaves tomorrow for his school, but I'm in denial about that.

For now, we are home.
- posted by Nels @ 4:37 PM | | | Link |