tbaroundtheworld

There really isn't much to report from what was a normal working in the hotel "salon" kind of day but there were two tiny moments worth mentioning. About mid-morning, one of the group using the next meeting room over dropped by to tell us to quiet down a bit. We were presenting and doing using our best projecting voices and apparently it was distracting to them. Ah well, so it goes in sharing public spaces. Lunch time came around and it was reported that ours was ready out in the hallway. I went out and and always eschewed looking at the food, I just got in line and loaded up my plate. It was traditional southwestern fare - chicken and beef fajitas, red salsa, a nice pineapple mango salsa, sour cream and tortillas. Being in the middle of a re-Atkins-ization, I passed on the tortilla and went for the piece of cheesecake, figuring it was best to use my carb allowance wisely. Food gathered I returned to the room and began stuffing it in my face, only to have my enjoyment di...

This time, I'm in Phoenix. Getting here was mostly uneventful aside from the two hour delay in getting on my one hour flight. Things like this make me grateful for the Internet and the ability to check flight status before leaving for the airport. Of course the disclaimer suggests that a four hour delay is no reason to stay home and wait, as the plane could leave on time leaving you wondering what the purpose of checking the flight status really is. So you wed the ancient with the modern and call customer service and verify that you really do have an extra couple of hours to sit around your house with your feet resting on your luggage. In any event, it's better than hanging out at the airport. An officious large man came into the waiting area and made a lot of noise telling the gate agent that his announcements were garbled. Why this mattered, I was not sure since there were all of 15 people waiting for the plane two of which had made an attempt to board the flight to Dallas th...

My original plan had been to abandon my lovely wife to her work at the fairgrounds and go out exploring. A couple of local attractions had grabbed my eye when I did a "what the heck is there to do in Jackson" search on Google before leaving. The result yielded two items I could not pass up - The Natchez Trace Parkway and Indian Mounds. The Trace is the ancient pathway across the southeast, used for millennia by Native Americans and the subsequent waves of invaders from the Spanish to the French to the early residents of the United States seeking their fortunes in the "west." Today it's a quite beautiful road that spans the entire state of Mississippi from the northeast to the southwest, terminating at Natchez on the grand river that provides the name for the state. It's been on my list ever since I read of the mysterious death of Meriwether Lewis in an inn along its route following his return to regular life from his epic exploration of the western half of t...

Well here I am again on the road albeit this time in a far less exotic place, Jackson, Mississippi. My first time in the Magnolia State, assuming of course that this is actually the Magnolia State. Adding to today's short list of firsts is this blog, done for the first time on my WiFi connected iTouch. I have to say, the pain I am developing in the back of my right wrist from typing 1 letter at a time may very well be the last time for this first, since it a true pain to get it done like this. Heck, even two thumb typing with my Blackberry beats this, as bad as that is. But I will perservere for the moment, at least until I can stand the muscle burn no more. The trip over was long on tedium and short on eventful tales and thankfully duration. The most interesting events were the guys on my rows whom were righteously in the wrong seats. I actually get tired of people defending their inability to read their tickets, but these two rolled over so easily that they hardly merit a mention...

It took Ferdinand Magellan's crew more than three years to circumnavigate the globe. He didn't make it, having been killed in the Philippines by angry locals. Of the 260 men who left Spain in 1519, 18 returned in 1522 with the sole remaining ship. A ghost ship, they considered it. It took me 17 days to do the same trip, with only three days of actual travel. Magellan's men suffered from starvation, disease, violence and mutiny. I suffered one day of food poisoning, confusing gates in Germany, smelly fellow travelers and the indifference of the US airline industry. The only violence I encountered came on my last leg when a young man with a shaved head told me he was entitled to board our Southwest flight before me because his number was 32 and mine was 35. I told him to go right ahead, he said "I will" and I'm sure he felt triumphant as he walked down the gangway and ended up sitting right across from me. I saw some wonderful things looking out the window, most...