Preview Of Next Year
Soooo...we finally got home about 1 on Monday afternoon. i'd gotten a little sleep on the plane - not that much - so i wasn't as tired as Matt who'd been up and twitching all night. So he went off to bed and i went through the mail. i had ordered a bit of naughtiness off of ebay before we left and it had come in. So i snuck down to the post office and picked up my package. Then i had to come back and start thinking about getting packed for the week ahead. It was kind of strange that it had been a month-and-a-half, but that time had gone both fast and slow and it was time to get back into the swing again.
i wanted to stay up as late as i could to get back on a proper sleep schedule. However, i wouldn't stay up too late as i had to get up at 3...3:30 to catch a 5:30 flight to NJ to start my new project. i had to take a United/Continental flight to Newark instead of my usual Delta. They had us on a 3-across Embraer which is a rather small, uncomfortable plane for such a long flight and my tailbone let me know it. But i was pretty tired, so i was able to sleep a bit. Everyone complains about Newark, but it was a fairly easy airport to get out of. The gates are all on pods and so all together with no long walks. A jump on the AirTrain and one stop to the Hertz garage and boom, i was on the road. And that's where the fun began! Driving in NJ is insane and there is no easy way to get from one place to the other. A GPS is definitely in order! But i got to the office and started getting settled in. As before, i they had taken me early so they wouldn't lose me to another project. But that makes it both simple to ease into and a bit boring. That evening, i made my way to the Sheraton Meadowlands which was easier to get to than i was led to believe.
There was nothing to eat around there, the hotel was like an island. i settled for the hotel restaurant. Then i had to deal with the reality of my situation - i had forgotten my CPAP at home. Matt had even woken up and saw me out the door. But i was so used to not taking it with me as i had always left it either at the hotel or in my office. So i propped myself up on pillows and settled in for a fitful night's sleep. The bottle of wine helped a bit.
The Club Room on the 21st floor offered a nice view of sunrise over Manhattan in the distance. Pretty cool. Obviously, the shot below is a mash-up of the two shots above.
They have an OK pool on the third floor. The deck outside also lets you see the lights of Manhattan. But the rooms here are dark and there is no MSNBC on the cable so that i can watch my radical news programs. Plus, the Daily Show doesn't come on until 11pm...that's when i usually go to bed. i'll have to get used to living in the EST.
By Thursday, i was getting the hang of the place and the area. There were a lot of folks i knew from earlier projects which is one reason i chose this project. i will soon get used to getting around this area. Plus, it gets dark so damned early! *sigh*
i had booked the late flight home as i wasn't sure how early i could leave the office and wanted to have plenty of time to find my way back the first time. i stopped at a highway rest stop for gas as it wasn't any more expensive than off-highway stations. i'd forgotten that they have pump jockeys here in NJ still - it's against the law to pump your own gas. i had a hot dog, too, as i wasn't sure what my food options would be and that was the least bad choice. Getting back to the airport and the everything was fairly simple, even if i did take the wrong branch of the NJ Turnpike. i'll have to get used to that bit. But when i did get there, i was disappointed to find that the agreement between United/Continental and AMEX had ended at the end of September, so i couldn't get into the President's Club. To add insult to injury, my flight was delayed an additional two hours on top of the couple of hours that i was already waiting. At least it wasn't just mine, but all of them due to some band of weather to the south that was hosing up take-off and landing angles. But everyone was taking it fairly well and we all shared the power tower to charge our phones and laptops. We finally took off sometime after midnight and i got to the taxi stand at Lambert at 3am. It took another half-hour to get a cab and it was quarter after 4 when i slid into bed with Matt. i wasn't going to be online for work at 8.
