Home Again, Home Again

OK, yes. I blogged that I had not much of anything to say on Thursday so that I could do the "off to Baltimore" thing on Friday, knowing that I'd have all of about 8 available seconds in which to post... Trying to spread it all out, since I'm only 1/3 of the way through the month, you understand.

But now I've gone and come back, and there's lots to tell you about!! It's been a hell of a 36 hours, so I'm not sure I'll get to it all tonight, but... I'll try and hit the high points, and perhaps some of the rest will be fodder for another day. Mental exhaustion, or clever manipulation? You'll never know, now, will you...

The trip east was fairly unremarkable, except for the stop over in Newark, NJ for a couple of hours where I had lunch with my dad. I can now truthfully say that I have seen my father more recently than Pirate Alice has. It was wonderful to see him, although a bit disconcerting to realize he genuinely looks older in person now than the mental image of him in my mind. I think this is the first time he's seen me with visible gray in my hair too, though, so maybe it felt that way for him as well.

Since I had to lay out the cash for this trip (to be reimbursed later), I was striving for not much past "clean & comfortable" in the search for a motel near the test site in Baltimore. Certainly, I knew I wouldn't be getting a place of Shag Bag caliber. Well... I tried. It wasn't horrible, but I'm certainly not sorry that I only opted to stay the one night the boss would pay for. Fortunately, the best thing about the place was the restaurant, and I did, indeed, order the seafood platter, complete with crab cake. It wasn't quite as ultra-fabulous as the last one I had from a restaurant in Ocean City, but it was still pretty damn good.

The taxi ride to the test site this morning was... I think the words we used after stepping out of the car were "moderately harrowing." I could see the speedometer, dude was pushing 80 most of the way, and took every single cloverleaf going at least 65, easy. I'll give Homie the Cab Driver his props, though, he was a damn sight better than the fuckup who was supposed to pick us up to go back to the airport... but, that's another story for another day. Hee.

And, brief as the trip was, I arrived back home with a few very nice mementoes. Dad was kind enough to provide me with a CD of photos of the Denmark crew, complete with a few snaps of the new baby, born just a week and a half ago. As I was walking through BWI, I happened upon one of those fabulous little tech-gadget stores, so treated myself to a charger for my iPod, so's I don't have to lug my big ole tabletop clock/radio thingy with me on trips in order to recharge the damn thing. (Not that I WOULD lug it, but it's nice to not have to!) Since the only reading material I'd brought along was study books for last-minute exam cramming, I also got myself one of Jennifer Weiner's paperbacks to enjoy on the trip home... And, last but not least, for the price of getting home about an hour later than I originally would have, I now have in my possession a $350 voucher for future travel with the good folks at Continental Airlines, and tales of an interesting cab ride from Cleveland to Columbus. Not a bad haul for a one-day trip, eh?