If it’s Wednesday, I must be in the Admiral’s Club at O’Hare again. It’s more fun to be writing these notes on the way home than in the other direction.

My three-hour meeting ended only five minutes late, which I consider to be an amazing feat of leadership — not by me, I must add. I nearly didn’t make it on time — I took advantage of being at IBM Somers to visit the secretaries who support my group. They’re in a different building, and the inside passage between the two buildings takes about 15 minutes to traverse. After saying “hi”, I had only 10 minutes before my meeting. Fortunately, I had set a GPS waypoint at the entrance of the building in which the meeting was being held, and this let me figure out how to get there via the outside route, which is far faster. (If you’ve never been to IBM Somers, you haven’t missed much; I’m sure it’s architecturally distinguished and worthwhile, but as a user, it leaves much to be desired. There are four buildings, each with a pyramidal top, scattered on the site, along with the “Central Service Building”. Buildings 1 and 2 form a cluster, as do 3 and 4; each cluster is connected to the Central Service Building by a long and tedious passage.)

After the meeting, I had enough time to actually eat lunch en route to the airport at a nearby pizza place (Palermo Pizza, suggested by my trusty GPS) and still arrive in time to be checked in just as my flight was called for boarding.

Weather in Chicago meant that we were held on the runway in White Plains for about a half-hour, but once more, I have an amazingly leisurely connection (scheduled for more than 2-1/2 hours), and so I didn’t mind. And the plane was not full; I traded for a window seat and played with my GPS on the way. If it had only been clear, I would have known what I was looking at, but since there was an overcast under us almost all the way, I’ll have to take it on faith that the GPS was telling the truth.

The meeting was worthwhile showing up for; it was clear to me that trying to participate on the phone would have been very difficult and I’m sure I would have lost interest about 20 minutes in. While electronic means of communication are wonderful, sometimes there’s no substitute for face-to-face communication.

This update comes to you from the Admiral’s Club at O’Hare Airport, and I guess it’s good to know just how far away I am from home.

For a change, I have a leisurely connection at O’Hare (scheduled at 2 hours, but we arrived 30 minutes late), and so I was able to stay in my seat and let the passengers with tight connections leave the plane ahead of me. Having had that courtesy extended to me two weeks ago, I was happy to comply with the request. As usual, not everyone was willing to wait; I’m not sure what the attraction of sitting in an airport is, but some people just can’t wait.

Diane tells me that winter’s arrived at home — she said it rained earlier today. I guess if school’s already started, rain isn’t completely unreasonable to expect, even if it is still August.

2571 Miles at a Bearing of 280 Degrees

My flight arrived early and wasn’t completely full (both are amazing but true facts), and I had an easy drive to my hotel. Then a very long walk to my room — unfortunately, my GPS doesn’t work inside the hotel, so I don’t know how far, but I should remember to log it as an aerobic workout next time I’m at the Y!

Also amazing but true: only 5 e-mails awaited me. And two of them were spam. I could stay online and see if more mail arrives, or I could do the smart thing and call it an evening. ‘Night!