I’m in my office now, but yesterday I was in Ohio on a short business trip–drown four hours down on Monday night (well, down, over, and down some more), sat in a conference room all day Tuesday, and then four hours back home. If I were really organized, I’d have done my expense report by now, but instead the receipts are still sitting on my desk where I put them this morning.

My favorite part of the trip was driving around/through Akron on the way down. In the space of about half an hour I saw three imagination-tickling things. There was a big blimp in the sky–which one I do not know because it was getting dark and I since I was driving I couldn’t give it my full attention–and blimps are cool. (Though I evidently didn’t always think that; my mom tells the story of how I threw a fit rather than go for a ride in the Goodyear blimp when I was two, but since no one took any pictures and I don’t remember it, I wonder.) Then there was a Little Tykes Cozy Coupe crashed in the median of the freeway. I knew it had probably flown out of the back of a pickup, but that didn’t stop me from thinking about an out of control toddler weaving in and out of traffic before wrecking his or her bright orange plastic vehicle in the grass. Finally, I got a glimpse of a storefront with a big sign saying “Polkatorium” (which I may have hallucinated, because Google finds no matches for it, and if it’s not on Google, how can it exist?). What shenanigans must go on at the Polkatorium!

My least favorite part of the trip was getting off at the exit for the hotel–having negotiated about seven different construction zones on the–and finding the road completely shut down for construction in the direction I needed to go, with no obvious detour signs. Well, that was my least favorite part, until I managed to get to the hotel and had the desk clerk greet me with “Are you sure you want to stay here tonight?” Well, yes, that was the idea. As it turned out, they’d oversold their rooms, and I needed to get back in my car and drive to another hotel, where they’d pay for my room. Since I wasn’t paying for my room in the first place, this was less of a selling point than it might have been, but I didn’t really want to sleep in the laundry room or lobby of the first hotel, so I went. Three trips to the front desk and two tech support calls later, I managed to get my laptop connected to the internet–I bet it would have been easier at the nicer, more modern hotel I was supposed to be in.

My least favorite part of Tuesday was getting to the customer at 8:30, only to sit in the conference room until 11 waiting for the people we were there to meet with to get assembled. At least there were donuts. Since we got such a late start, we didn’t finish until 5, so my hope to stop a quilt shop or yarn shop in the area was squashed. Maybe next time, if there is a next time. Since I’m a programmer, I really should stay in the office more and write some code.