Day 1 of this trade show is over. I've been back in my room with my shoes off since just before 10pm. Not that this Day 1 is any big accomplishment. It's the easiest of the 3 days of this show.

Much of the day I spent flying from San Jose to Austin. The flight was uneventful, though it did fall a bit behind schedule. Then I hit some afternoon ( Read more... )

The other day I wrote about how the unglamorous reality of business travel is cookie-cutter office park hotels, chain restaurant food, and long days that preclude going out for nightlife. See Dullsville in Austin, TX and I'm busy. Well, the reality is that occasionally it's not like that. I had one such brief occasion on Thursday night when a few ( Read more... )

"Oh, you get to travel for business," I hear a lot. "You're so lucky ( Read more... )

I'm headed off to Austin for a few days on business. We're doing some technical training oriented around a new product the company launched a few months ago. It would have been nice to have this training a few months ago but the company's been trying to do everything on a very fast schedule. That's resulted in a "Still building the aircraft after ( Read more... )

When I visited the Alamo in Texas a few days ago I thought a lot about how to frame what happened there in terms of a larger history. The popular story is about American heroes choosing death over defeat and the enemy's brutality making "Remember the Alamo!" a powerful rallying cry for independence. But independence from what, and why? The way ( Read more... )

San Antonio Travelog #7
Back home - Mon, 28 May 2023, 8pmLast night we called an audible on our trip to San Antonio. We decided to leave earlier today, rebooking to a flight departing at 12:10pm instead of our originally planned 7:10pm. That meant no more sightseeing today... but that was okay with us because we'd really maximized our time Saturday ( Read more... )

San Antonio Travelog #6
The Pearl - Sun, 28 May 2023, 7pm

What goes up must come down. As we went up the San Antonio River along the Riverwalk earlier today, so must we go back downriver to get home. Along the way I spotted something interesting.... One of the passenger ferries that plies this part of the river had just entered a lock. I've seen ( Read more... )

San Antonio Travelog #5
The Pearl - Sun, 28 May 2023, 6pm

After visiting the Alamo this morning we were ready for lunch. Again we ate Tex-Mex food, this time at a promising looking restaurant next to our hotel. Again like yesterday, it was good. And again like yesterday it left us feeling so full, overstuffed really, even though we thought we ate ( Read more... )

San Antonio Travelog #4
The Alamo - Sun, 28 May 2023, 12pm

This morning we went to see the Alamo. You didn't think we traveled to San Antonio just to cruise the Riverwalk and would... forget the Alamo, did you?


( Read more... )

San Antonio Travelog #3
On the Riverwalk - Sat, 27 May 2023, 5pm

After a somewhat leisurely morning after a really late arrival last night ( we didn't get to bed until after 2am) we called a ride to head downtown to the Holiday Inn Riverwalk. We're staying here for the next two nights. Fortunately they had a room ready for us when we arrived just ( Read more... )