I've updated the page of upcoming events - adding a couple of links and another event (Nashville TN in October).  When I get a link with details for the Nashville event, I'll update the page again.  Lots of travel coming up in the next couple of months. 

Travel can be fun, but it is also tiring and can push the limits of patience sometimes :)  This last week was a case in point.  I started out on the road Monday evening - heading down to Dallas.  There were some serious storms in the Dallas area on Monday - enough that American Airlines was canceling flight after flight.  That was OK because I was traveling on USAIR - until USAIR said they would be delaying my flight by many hours.  Resigned to being stuck at the airport for a while, I sat down and started to do some work - fortunately I did not leave the gate area because a few minutes later - they un-delayed my flight.  That is something that never happens -- it was delayed by 2 hours and we left about 15 minutes after the original delay announcement.  I was glad I didn't leave the area - I would have easily missed the flight otherwise.  Dallas and Phoenix were pretty uneventful travel wise - did a full day seminar in both locations. 

Wednesday night was a heavy travel night though - after finishing in Phoenix at 4:30, I had to fly to LAX and from there take a red-eye to Philadelphia, where I was speaking the next morning at 9am.  We landed early in Philadelphia (good news), but a plane was at our gate (bad news), so we arrived on time after sitting on the tarmac for a long time.  Going to the car rental - the driver dropped me off and said my name would be on the board, but of course it wasn't - and at 6am - there was no one around. 

Finally I get a car, drive to the hotel and ask for my room (which was paid for the night before by someone staying at the hotel).  The clerk says "we were oversold last night - we have no rooms" - which doesn't sit very well with me (since we actually paid for the room, with a credit card).  How can there not be a room when we actually checked in and paid for it?  Anyway - eventually they conceded that there might be a mixup and got me a room - on the 15th floor (the top of the building).  I got a shower, changed, did my talk.  After the talk - as some of us are standing around doing some questions and answers - every light in the building goes off, total darkness (not a good thing since we had just started the day and had 3 more hours to go, with about 200 people).  The lights came back on - but went off again shortly thereafter.  A transformer blew out nearby - no power.  And now it was near 11am, checkout time - the time when my key would cease functioning, and my luggage, computer and such were in the room - on the 15th floor, without any elevators.  I found a security guard to walk up with me - so they could let me in - and that was when I realized that my room actually has no windows (it was a 'theme room', all of the rooms on the 15th floor where - my rooms theme was "Pirates", the strangest hotel room I've had to date).  No power, no lights, no windows - but they did give me one of those green glowing sticks.  Made it hard to pack :)

Ahh, it is stuff like that that makes traveling interesting...  You just have to roll with it though, if you got overly upset at all of this stuff - you would spend all of your time traveling upset.  I've written about what I call "travel mode" before  - a necessary state of mind for anyone that travels :)