Areas of Unrest

2 September 2001 - Greetings From Upstate New York

QOTD: "Few of us are obliged to circumnavigate precipices, but we all have to take a chance at the dental chair." - Mark Twain

Reading: Tim Severin, Crusader

Listening to: top 40 radio at a Kinko's in Saratoga Springs, New York

This is quick because I'm paying by the minute to write it. The short version is that I spent the week toiling away, reviewing documents and going to one day of useful meetings and one day of dog and pony show. At least the meetings I had to get up for the 6:20 a.m. flight for were the useful ones.

Friday featured a comfortable flight to D.C. thanks to a business class upgrade, followed by far too many hours at Dulles. The weather was not cooperating and the flight to Albany that I was booked on was cancelled somewhere in between my getting off the first plane and over to the other terminal. I ended up getting standby on the later flight, instead of having to wait until Saturday morning, so there are some benefits to all the miles I rack up between LAX and Denver. Then the rental car clerk gave me incorrect directions to my hotel, so it took me 45 minutes to drive less than a quarter of a mile. But all's well that ends well.

Yesterday, I did the Albany Volksmarch, checking off another capital. After the walk, I drove to Old Chatham and the Shaker Museum. Today's feature was a trip to Cooperstown, which is wonderful and, to paraphrase Steve Rushin, you should drop everything and go there right now and don't worry - I'll wait for you to finish reading this. I also managed to purchase a copy of the CD of the musical "The Curse of the Bambino." The rental car, alas, has no CD player, so I won't hear it until tomorrow night.

Now I'm in Saratoga Springs where I will do a walk tomorrow and check out the National Museum of Dance if it's open and browse overpriced shops and so on, before flying home. Overall, this trip has been a pretty nice birthday present for myself.