TGIF

I swear, this has been one of the most challenging re-entry weeks I've had returning from a trip... The jetlag was bad, and the whole job thing on top of that hasn't made it any easier. I'm hoping to get a little more back to normal this weekend. On my agenda:

• Finish unpacking (yes, there is still some to be done)
• Put away laundry (I washed all the trip clothes, just haven't gotten them put away yet)
• Finish trip "notes" (I think I left off on the 22nd, so only 2.5 more days to cover)
• Finish trip photo highlights set on Flickr
  
• Prep for my class (the term starts on Tuesday for me)
• Alumni event (at my alma mater on Sunday)
• Clean out office (we now have furniture to set me up with a home office, just need to get the disaster area of a room cleaned out)

Uh-huh. Umm, looking at that list, I'll be really happy if I can get half of it done. Yeesh. When do I get to go on vacation again??

Job Changes While Jetlagged

I walked into the office yesterday morning mostly awake, but with that jetlaggy haze not too far off the horizon, and was immediately called into a meeting. I never even turned on my computer.

The long and short of it is that my job description has changed somewhat dramatically, as have my working conditions. It's all for the good, especially in the long run, and it's still gonna take some adjustment.

First off, the job is more targetted now. Before, I was doing a little bit of everything - kind of like a virtual juggling act - and not really delving into any one of them too deeply. Now I'm doing one thing (the thing that's actually in my title, so that finally matches), and since it's the thing I liked best, I'm really happy with that.

Second, I'll be working from home, only going into the office a couple times a month for meetings and/or as needed. This is the more major immediate change, as it's the physical one, and as this is only day 1.5 of me being a telecommuter, I'm still not sure how it's all going to play out. The good news is that I'm doing my laundry while I'm working! This first month is a test, to see how it all goes, so I'm reserving judgment for now.

In the long run, as I said, I think it's all positive. In the short run, it's such a different situation than what I left - not to mention what I expected to return to - that I'm still sorting it all out in my head. I'll tell you, though, that the cats are really enjoying having me here during the day, which counts for something in my book.

Almost Home...

There are times when I look up at the clock after being on this here computer-thingie and am shocked and amazed at how many hours I've managed to fritter away without realizing it. Of course, I'm often a little mortified at how much time I spend online. But at this very moment, I'm so very thankful for the time-waster I could hug it. (But I'm in public, so I'll refrain.)

I'm sitting in the Atlanta airport awaiting my connecting flight home, in the midst of a four-plus hour layover which feels even longer because I'm exhuasted. I'm looking forward to being in my own bed tonight after a week's worth of not sleeping through the night, but otherwise I'd much prefer to be hanging around in Europe another month or two!

It was a fabulous trip, and I've got most of the diary in a kind of "shorthand" form and will be transferring them into blog posts eventually - I'm not sure yet if I'll be back-dating them to their appropriate date of occurence or what, we'll see. At any rate, I'm back - mostly - and will be blogging again regularly soon.

Oh, and here's a little tidbit - yesterday alone produced over 600 pictures, so some serious editing is required before the Flickr feed is really share-able, but I'll get to it at some point...

Ciao, tutti!

Alrighty then, I'm off to Europe tomorrow (too freaking early, of course), so posts here might be sporadic as I can find unsecured wireless connections along the way. I'll be keeping track of our adventures, so eventually I'll get them all up here for your reading pleasure. In the meantime, have a great couple of weeks!

It serves me right...

So, back when I first saw this product advertised on television, I mocked it mercilessly. The ads were stupid, but beyond that, I couldn't imagine how on earth the doggone thing would be useful.

Well, cut to the present day, when toothpaste can be a lethal weapon on an airplane, and the thought of going for nearly two days without brushing my teeth is less than appealing. I've been to three stores in the last two days looking for them now, however (tail between legs and all), and they're nowhere to be found. Apparently I wasn't the only one who thought they seemed idiotic in the first place. The gal at the last store said that they'd had a ton of people in lately asking for them - all travelers - and would be getting some in next week.

For my next trip, then, I'll be well-prepared.

Now, I have a request - would someone please invent hand lotion in a wet-wipe form? That would make my in-flight travel kit complete once again, and potential-weapon free. And isn't that what we all want?

Girl Travels World

My BootsnAll colleague, Court, is off traveling for the months of September and October. She just left this past Saturday, and will be blogging about her trip on her own little corner of the web, Girl Travels World. I'm already enjoying reading about her escapades.

Even though she won't be back in the States until October, I'll be seeing Court before the end of September - she and her boyfriend will be in Salzburg at the same time we'll be there, all for the Road Cycling World Championships!

It's a Music Meme

...that works like this:

You reply to this post and I give you a letter of the alphabet. Then you find 10 songs from your music collection that start with said letter and put them on your blog (with these or similar instructions). And, to be fair, I've modified the meme everso slightly - to include the words "from your music collection" - because I think that makes it more interesting.

VJ at Tales of Slow Brave Athena gave me the letter L, so I ended up imposing a few other rules on myself. Specifically, I didn't include any songs that began with the word "love," because that's too durned easy. I also didn't want more than one song by any one artist. Finally, although I've got a ton of Italian songs beginning with "l" (it's an article, after all), I chose to eliminate those. So, with all my rules imposed, it was still hard to get it down to ten. Nevertheless, here's my list:

1. L.A. Woman - The Doors
2. Labor Day - Goodness
3. Landed - Ben Folds
4. Laser Show - Fountains of Wayne
5. Lay Your Hands on Me - Bon Jovi
6. Leaving So Soon? - Keane
7. Left Hand Suzuki Method - Gorillaz
8. Lemon Meringue - Poe
9. Like a Tattoo - Sade
10. Loaded Sister - My Regrets

Steamy Visitor

In the midst of trip prep on Friday night, I heard the far-off whistle of the steam train that occasionally makes its way near our house. I grabbed the camera and ran out to join the growing flock of steam train fans, and managed to get a few decent pictures. Most of them turned out too dark (it was dusk), but I lightened them and - voila! - there's a train in there!

Shopping is Hard Work

Toni and I had a shopping day planned for today, and I knew it was going to be a long day... I'm amazed I didn't crash midway through, running on very little sleep and with higher heat being predicted than I prefer, but we were having so much fun that I guess I was distracted from my fatigue until we were done.

We started the day at the farmer's market, where I didn't buy a thing (except donuts, of course), because I'm leaving so soon. Our main errand at the market today was to bring peach ice cream samples to the folks at the stand where we buy the peaches! They enjoyed the samples, and one of the gals was even caught feeding one of the customers. Very cute. I think I convinced another one of them to get an ice cream maker, too.

After that, it was shopping, shopping and more shopping - with a break for lunch with Toni's cousins. It was mostly for Toni, and I think she got pretty much everything she was in the market for. I got the things I was in the market for, and a bunch of stuff I wasn't... But which are fabulous, of course, and which I had to have. And yes, most of those things were shoes. What did you expect?

And now I'm exhausted, and am going to bed. Tomorrow I'll fawn over my spoils some more, finding space for them in my overstuffed closet and vowing to purge unused items when we return from Europe with, as you might guess, even more clothing and shoe goodies. Well, that's the plan, anyway. And boy, do I hope things go according to plan.

Hands-Free on the Autobahn

Chris called me Friday morning (well, morning my time) en route from Friedrichshafen back to Munich after his afternoon at EuroBike... While going 140km/hr on the Autobahn. Thank goodness for the speakerphone on his mobile.

Perceptive Travel Magazine: Sept/Oct Issue

I've gotten the email updates about Perceptive Travel since they started, but have never gotten 'round to letting anyone else know about it... Until now. The Sept/Oct issue is online now, and according to the email I got:

We travel to New Zealand just to see some bras hanging on a fence, get lost in Italy trying to investigate the legend of a flying saint, see dinosaur tracks in Turkmenistan, look for elusive monkeys on a Vietnamese Island, and do some winery touring and late-night eating in Argentina.

Darfur: Sudanese Government Rejects U.N. Peacekeeping Force Amid Growing Violence

From today's American Progress Report:

Darfur: Sudanese Government Rejects U.N. Peacekeeping Force Amid Growing Violence -- Yesterday, the U.N. Security Council voted 12-0 -- with Russian, China, and Qatar abstaining -- to approve "a long-sought resolution that would place an expanded peacekeeping force in Sudan's troubled Darfur region under U.N. authority, even as the government appeared to have begun a new offensive against rebel forces. The new U.N. mandate would take effect only with Sudan's consent, and its president, Lt. Gen. Omar Hassan al-Bashir, immediately rejected it." "The Sudanese people will not consent to any resolution that will violate its sovereignty," the Sudanese government responded. The push for peacekeeping forces comes after a signed peace agreement in May has turned out not to be "worth the paper it's printed on." "There have been more raids, more rapes, and more people displaced from their homes -- and violence has only gotten worse since the deal was signed a few months ago." In fact, the peace deal "appears to have rekindled" the fighting. "The Darfur Peace Agreement is allowing the government to resume the war," John Prendergast of the nonprofit International Crisis Group said. "This is a grotesque abuse of the intentions of those who crafted the peace deal back in May." (To learn what your member of Congress has done to end genocide in Darfur, go to DarfurScores.org.)