Mid-West and Back

I apologize, that title is slightly misleading. I only got as far West as the gateway to the West. The infamous Arch in St Louis. It wasn't as onerous a journey as you might imagine. I flew there, on a plane. I did drive three hours to the airport though, I'd rather fly from Detroit than Toronto even though the drive takes twice as long. Despite the relatively simple journey the week was more of a challenge. Nothing really, but more than my typical week. For one, our company has resorted to requiring room-mates at meetings. That in of itself is a challenge, sharing a space with a co-worker while a neat bonding opportunity can also end in unmitigated disaster. I stayed with an individual that I know socially as well as professionally and have roomed with before so we both knew what were getting ourselves into. It was a big difference though, when one is used to being on one's own. We managed to navigate the experience with minimal difficulty, well at least I had minimal discomfort, I didn't really inquire how he slept. I overheard him using the term "jackhammer snoring" so I assume it wasn't all peaches and fresh rains.But nonetheless we persevered. The meeting was fairly grueling if not very informative. Hour long sessions piled back to back from 7am until 5pm followed by networking opportunities and then a hospitality suite. I myself had no interest in going off-site for entertainment. I took the opportunity to chat with colleagues south of the border and to enjoy the "free beer" in the hotel. All in all it was a good meeting and a fun trip. It left little time for personal social adventures though, and before you start thinking in a perverse sense, I am talking about meeting up with my sister and her fiance as it was his birthday when I was down there. It would have been nice to take them out for dinner but that wasn't in the cards. As it was my sleep suffered, I was averaging over seven restful hours before I left and dropped down to 5.5 hours over the course of the week. I am thinking I picked up a bug from being corralled in conference rooms with people for four days so I'm hoping I can get that average back up to combat that before the next round of meetings. The fun never ends.