Vacation - Post-Wrap

Vacation sucks: No really. You take a couple of weeks away from the drag, away from everything, you don't worry about how you're going to pay the bills, you don't worry about creating a company, you don't worry about people calling you for whatever 1000s of reasons that they have. You don't worry about negotiating prices, pay, manufacturing time. Then you come back and BAM! Life hits you like one of those giant mining trucks.

The six people that more or less form my immediate family spent a week in Maine forgetting all of the above objectionable things under a haze of clear Maine air, ever present French and American wine, and too many local beers to count. Many a lobster was sacrificed to our pursuit of relaxation pleasure. We also learned something very important, apparently saltwater crabs can not touch freshwater. According to the 17-year old vendor of one of those typical Maine shacks that sell seafood, the slightest touch to freshwater would cause our crabs to "instantly die" INSTANTLY.

After a week in ME, I traveled through Boston (once again, great job to all of the people who designed the Big Dig - it shouldn't take 50 minutes to get across Boston on a Sunday afternoon) and down to the NY Metro area. Then back up to upstate NY and back to Boston. 1900 miles in 14 days, and most of those were done in 3 or 4 days of driving. Anyone in the market for an SUV - don't even bother with the Saturn Vue. GM wanted to be able to get an AWD, V6 SUV to market at $20K and they did! It turns out that there is cheaper plastic than is used in injection molded Walmart-esque toys. A normal brand-new vehicle should not shake under average braking. Then again, no one has accused GM of making "normal brand-new vehicles."

My vacation ended with a bang - before I even left Beantown. I arrive at the airport a full 3 hours early because I figured that security and everything would be terrible since Boston was one of those airports that was going to be targeted by those English terrorists. Great, I'm on time - after driving the 260 miles from my parents' house to Logan, that was relief in itself. Drop of said POS at Hertz, get to the terminal. Check the screens. AF321, scheduled departure BOS at 7:50pm is being announced at 12:50am. Ugh. After dealing with screaming Frenchmen and 40,000 American students waiting in line, I arrive at the dumbest of all the check-in agents in the world (for the record he was Bostonian with a vague Irish or English accent). He doesn't know anything, but we ain't going to leave on time. If I want real information I need to wait in that other line, yeah that one, the really long one that hasn't moved for the last hour. Anyway, I check my bags in, get my boarding coupons, get told for the 100th time that I can't bring any liquids on the plane and leave. First stop - the bar. Ok, I needed to eat more than I needed to drink, but both were welcome reliefs. The first highlight of the entire day was that the food was really good (qualifier: for an airport). Full of food and beer, I go to the "other" line to see if Air France owes me any money (of course not). Now I only have 6 hours left to wait. I forgot to ask the AF reps to comp me wifi internet connection and I wasn't going to wait in line again, so I killed the rest of the time drinking, reading, and watching the Simpsons on DVD. Finally this ends, we get on the plane and we leave. Woo-hoo.

In Boston, they booked me on a plane to Bordeaux that was due to leave 1 hour after we arrived at CDG. I figured I would miss it. Anyway we arrive, I get off the plane, clear passport control quickly and run through the terminals to the departure terminal for my new plane. Clear security quickly. I glanced at the TVs just before the security and my plane is still boarding...is there hope? will I maybe get one break? Run up to the gate, there's still a couple of AF agents there. YES!..."Bonjour monsieur, the doors are now closed, your baggage has been removed from the plane." Irony: The doors were still open. But nothing was getting me on that plane. Ah, no problem, AF has lots of flights to Bordeaux everyday...they advertise something like 20 per day. Another line, another unsmiling "Customer Service so-and-so." Next plane. 6:45pm. It's now 2:10 local. Most of the flights from Bordeaux go through Orly, the other airport. Ugh. I'm too exhausted to even care.

Anyway, I finally arrive home at 9pm local (30 hours after I left), without my bags.

WELCOME BACK TO REALITY.

Of course, all the work that I managed to ignore for the previous 2 weeks was now waiting for me. Vacation was great, I am so happy to have been able to spend a week with my wife, my parents, my sister and her significant other. No phone, no internet - it was great. I can't wait until the next one. I guess I can delude myself by saying without the realities of life, vacation wouldn't be as sweet.