So, I haven’t posted in a while, what with work insanity and depression, and the general AAAAAAAAAAAAAA of life.

(I really feel that possum meme, these days. Reeeeeally feel it.)

But this deserves documentation. So, let’s hear about Branch’s Adventures in Reaching Champaign Mutherfucking Illinois.

I thought this would go smoothly, is the thing. I reserved a seat on a plane big enough not to be going jugga-jugga-jugga the whole damn way, and (since this is the last “leadership” workshop I have to attend) used my travel points from the past year to bump up to first class. I also reserved (well in advance) cabs from actual, bonded and insured, professional cab services, at least one of which I’ve had excellent experiences with in the past.

Well, first off, that was exactly the service whose driver had sudden car trouble. But it’s fine, it’s fine, they’ll have another car to me only 15 minutes late. So I am picked up and dropped off in good order, and am hustling a little, because pre-boarding started about as my feet hit the pavement at the terminal. But it’s fine! First class, thankfully, lets you use the priority lane, and I get my bag checked and hustle for TSA Pre-check, and get through that fairly promptly.

Aaaaand I get hit with the random check. And then the whirly-invade-your-bodily-privacy machine gets snippy over the bra hardware in my racerback. Both the attendant and I paused to give the machine nearly identical looks of “fucking really?”, and then I was allowed to run for my gate. Made it with fifteen minutes until undocking! And I was immediately supplied with the water I hadn’t had the time to buy. Yay first class.

And then we launch. In heavy clouds. Moving from one sea-side city across to another sea-side city. If you fly much, you know that every single one of those is another strike against a smooth flight, so it was jugga-jugga-jugga the whole way after all.

At least I had a comfortable seat to be increasingly nauseated in.

So we get on the ground! I get my bag fairly promptly (and take a second to buy water and a Sprite, this time), and after only a very minimal comedy of errors, my driver and I connect and he loads me into quite a nice car.

And then, Chicago traffic. This element speaks for itself, I feel.

So by the time we were out of the city, my anti-nausea meds were still doing their job, but also hitting me with drowsiness, which is never fun in a moving vehicle. Eventually, I did give in and close my eyes, but the thing is, proprioception data that I do not initiate does really, really bad things to my inner ear these days. Which is to say, about halfway there, I started up and urgently informed the driver that he needed to stop, as I was about to hurl.

We almost made it. Fortunately, this hotel has laundry service.

Also fortunately, the car had that wonderful thing: heated passenger seats. So I used my handiwipes to wipe off as best as possible and loaded up again, and I turned on the seat warmer to stave off the core-temperature crash that always seems to follow tossing my cookies. Or my sun-chips, as the case may be.

(Sometimes it really helps to pay for the best, or at least to let the University pay for it on your behalf.)

And finally, we arrive at the hotel! It’s quite a nice hotel, something I can appreciate now I’m not violently ill. Best of all, they did, in fact, provide the ‘add on’ items I pre-ordered in a bit of a splurge to celebrate the end of this fucking set of workshops: a bottle of red and a plate of chocolate dipped strawberries.

So I have cranked up the heat and unpacked my things, and dinner tonight is going to be really quite good chocolate strawberries, to console me for such an absolute shit travel day.

Perhaps tomorrow, when I feel up to a cabernet, I shall call room service and request a bottle opener, since I was packing light and neglected to bring mine.

I have survived my first conference of the month! This one was actually pretty decent. Got in on Tuesday, spent Wednesday networking, caught a few sessions, holed up in my room Thursday with my travel video kit and my travel bar kit, presented today. And now I am back in DCA, and have had actually a quite good meal (yay for middle eastern food kiosks) and a not-utterly-pathetic drink.

National Harbor (apparently in the process of being re-branded from MGM National Harbor; I suspect it used to be a company town) is geared toward conferences and conventions. The convention center is actually really nice, and the “interior” rooms face a huge, glassed in atrium and have tiny slices of balconies overlooking the lounge and ‘park’ area, looking out over the river. It would even be a pretty nice vacation spot. The ‘town’ is about six square blocks and stuffed full of quite good restaurants and little shops. Also a Ferris wheel right on the river. Which I did not ride, but appreciated the pretty lights of, at night.

Presentation was well received, and my long-distance co-presenter zoomed in without interruption. (Message of my half: students need reliable network, hardware, and software all provided if they don’t have it already, here’s how.) Given it was morning of the last day, I was impressed we actually got a double-handful of attendees!

Also, Wednesday dinner featured five women all bonding over fanfic and paganism while the lone man hid behind his daiquiri. It was kind of hilarious, and I’m pretty sure at least three of them actually went to go read Avalanche right away.

I doubt the second conference will be this good. Oh well. One out of two is a solid score for the year.