Shabbir's Diary

Ah, travel.

It's becoming a routine occurence that I'm scheduled to get on a plane and it's oversold.  I'm offered a free ticket anywhere in the continental US, or a $300 flight voucher, if I'll just give up my seat.  The problem of course is that I always have somewhere to be.  It's never a good deal for me.  Would I sell time with my son or wife for $300 credit on a crappy airline?  Would I sacrifice the meetings I've stacked up with clients and colleagues for the same?  Nope.
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I finally had that angry "I hate tourists" moment that totally blew my Travel Zen.  I regained control but it took 10 minutes.  I was standing in the US Airways line and a long snake line of morons at the Orlando airport wouldn't walk up to any kiosk if someone was standing near it, despite the big "Welcome" on it.  I was on the phone with Sarah at the time, and I finally started directing traffic.  "Hey, that one looks available" I would shout, point, and stare at the first person in line.
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Ok, I was wrong.  Modest Mouse's "Missed The Boat" reminds me of the Shins, and I think is my favorite song on the new album, "We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank"

I've become obsessed with The Cat Empire.  They remind me of Madness and the Boomtown Rats back in the day.  Except the Cat Empire doesn't ever sing about anything important.  They're just a fun little lark, but I'll be damned if I didn't practically break out dancing on the DC Metro this morning.
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Did I mention that work with some of the nicest people in the world?  On Tuesday I came down with bronchitis.  By Thursday I lost my voice and could only speak in a whisper.  On Friday we had a meeting with four company advisors who are incredibly accomplished entrepreneurs and experts in our field.  It was inconceivable that these august advisors would fly in from all over the country and I wouldn't be there at the top of my game for this discussion.

I e-mailed out a plea for help to the DC office e-mail alias asking for cough drops.  I got cough drops, a bottle of cough syrup, and a cup of hot tea with honey, from three different people.

I work with the nicest people.

Up and down, up and down.

Just when I think my job is boring, it gets exciting again.

I listened to the new Macy Gray album, it hasn't really grown on my yet.  I'm really digging the Scissor Sisters though.  The new Modest Mouse is also not yet growing on me.

You can spend all your time making money
You can spend all your love making time

The Eagles should have written:

            You can spend all your time makin' money
            You can spend all your money making time

I get to go home tomorrow!  Granted, I arrive at 1:40am (technically Saturday), but home I will be.  For a week.

Why did Sheryl Crow allow the director to make her look like Marilyn Manson in this video for "If it makes you happy" ?  She looks terrible.  Incidently, this could be the song about what it's like being married to me.

"Bukowski" is my favorite Modest Mouse song.  It doesn't appear on anyone's top 10 list except Sarah's, but then that just shows what good taste she has.

I bought my son a tiny Tigger stuffed animal.  I'll carry it back to San Jose like it was a transplant organ.  I think he will love it.  The word "tiger" doesn't appear enough in his everyday vocabulary.  How can he warn us about an attack of man-eating tigers if we don't practice such a word?

These are the things I worry about when I'm in California.

...and then they bought us soup.

We had to hit the hospital for some tests for Moishe.  Nothing life threatening, but still the tests involved a trip to the OR, a camera and a tube stuck down our son's throat for 24 hours, and a day and a half in the hospital.

Suddenly Sarah's phone started ringing.  Our circle of friends came out and brought their own children, came and kept us company.  Another two of them called and said they were bringing us dinner, despite one of them still exhausted from a trip to SXSW.  (She's the A&R person for a record label, so the trip is a lot of work)

The company was really unexpected and really welcome.  They all flirted with Moishe and made him feel the center of attention.  He thrived on it and it certainly made the fact that he's toddling around with a bunch of wires taped into his nose and a CD walkman on his hip less traumatic. 

And then they bought us soup from Sapporo-Ya, the homemade ramen place in Japantown mall.  We all crowded into Moishe's hospital room and took over every flat space and ate noodles together.   Others who have been hospitalized told of the same story, with visitors for every lunch, and bags of groceries and movies showing up at your house upon being discharged from the hospital.

I am overwhelmed.

Business travel zen: rule #1

A colleague who has work in Sacramento, Los Angeles, and Berekeley CA was my original inspiration for business travel zen. I sat him down and told him of my upcoming schedule where I would be splitting my time on each coast. "What advice can you give me Dan? You're obviously good at this."

He said the key to working in such an arrangement is to have your junk at both ends of the country. If you're carrying only a magazine and a laptop on the plane (and not a roller bag) you are a happy traveler. And when you get there if you've got your clothes and your toaster and your tv etc, you won't feel so bad about the time away.

I took this advice to heart and rented a DC apartment in a poker buddies house.

Last night I discovered everything he said was true. I slept in my own bed last with no fear that a drunken conventioneer had sex on my unwashed bedspread. I had a colleague come over and meet me at the house, and we sat in the dining room at the table. I ordered pizza. I sat in the living room while American Idol ws on and surfed the web.

I'm off to boston today but will return and sleep in the same bed, my bed, for two nights in a row and through the end of the week.

For me at least, everything is going to be fine.

Another day, another city...

I wake up in the ex-urbs of Chicago, I will go to sleep in Washington DC.

My business traveler zen is serving me well. I continue to fight an intestinal bug, miss my wife and son, and after arriving late to the airport, I was selected for extra special screening. I felt no stress, "this airport is full of planes, another one can be booked to washington soon, I'm sure."

I realize that "hurry" is an illusion.

The Zen of Business Travel

I am now standing in the longest security line that the TSA employees in the St. Louis airport have ever seen. I slept through my 4:50am alarm and missed my shower. For the rest of the week, I get on a plane bound for a new city every morning. I have some sort of intestinal bug. I miss my son and wife.

Wierdly, I pass the point of bitching about 18 hours ago. Now I jus go through the motions of my schedule, shaving in airports and doing what I do. People say I seem somewhat detached.

Yep.

...and in record time.

Although I took this photo [which is now missing, thanks Cingular] in rural minnesota, where Jill my anthropomorphised GPS unit sent me on the shortest route from Mayo clinic to St. Louis, I'm already sitting on my mom's back porch and smoking a cigar.

I'm not really quite sure how I did it in under 7 hours, but that appears to be a family record. I didn't even drive at the assumed 90 mph. Jill was just really good about taking me the shortest route and avoiding traffic.  Along the way she found shortcuts and asked me if I wanted to take them.  I said yes every time, but who knows why she suddenly found a shortcut halfway through my trip.

More new music

Sarah picked up the Rhapsody all you can eat $14.99/month service and made me a playlist on my way out of town and introduced me to a couple of new albums that you ought to check out.  I was familiar with the bands, but it was nice to have someone weed some specific tracks for me.

Scissor Sisters: Scissor Sisters
If you loved all the retro glam-rock in Velvet Goldmine, you ought to love the Scissor Sisters.  It's a weird cross between Lou Reed and Elton John with a little of Sly's funk sound mixed in.

Modest Mouse: Good News For People Who Love Bad News
I got into this album after Sarah put the track "Bukowski" on a playlist for me.

This is the most dangerous man in the hospital.

They found an infection in my mom and were giving her antibiotics by IV drip pumped by one of those electrical pumps. When the bag was empty the alarm sounded. None of the nurses could hear the alarm go off because this guy was running the vacuum cleaner. This was no big deal, he was done soon.

But I was so fascinated by this. Audible alerts are traditionally used for urgent information in user interfaces. Weird that it would be undone by so simple an interaction with a common appliance. I wonder if they use them in the ICU?

Leaving the mayo clinic

I'm at mayo trying to get my mom discharged and get her home. I notice that even well run hospitals are still entirely unpleasant places to be.

No matter what your age, you don't have as much time as you think. Don't waste your days.