I woke up this morning in a hotel room in San Francisco. A brief work trip, one in which I won’t be able to do much except eat, sleep, work and have meetings. Work trips are different now – of course the tasks at hand must be focused on and work is at the forefront. I find myself working as hard as ever. I’m not sure if it’s because of the economy or just the thrill of the chase. Probably both. I know I’m as nervous as anyone with all the layoffs going on and whatnot. Anyone who tells you any different is probably lying.
On the flip side, I want nothing more than to be home and be with my kids and wife, particularly on this day, a historic day. It’s days like today when you want to experience historic events with the people you love and not be marooned in a city 3,100 miles from home. But I do enjoy coming here and I enjoy seeing my co-workers out west. And I can’t say I don’t enjoy the weather – when I woke up this morning, it was to clear skies and sun, temps about 65 degrees. I mean, really. It’s January?
So I woke up and opened my hotel room windows and down below me was a place called the Moscone Center (I think it’s some kind of conference center) and in front of the center there’s a small “town green” style patch of grass – where people were already gathering to watch the inauguration. How cool. Something tells me that that hadn’t happened before for an inaugration ceremony. I ended up at work by about 8:15am pacific time, in time to catch the oaths and speeches in our CEO’s office. The positive energy today in geenral was pretty pronounced. The happiness around the office was divine. It was just a good day.
And I miss my wife and kids.
By the way, the jury is in – it’s going to be an IPhone. I was still wavering until I went into the Verizon Wireless store after work today and tried to fiddle with TWO Blackberry Storms, neither of which would work properly. Sad that I’m going to have to say goodbye to Verizon, but it looks like that’s the way it’s going to come down.
Addendum: I just flipped on the TV (11:09pm eastern) and Mary J. Blige was introduced at some concert on TV, she came out and yelled “no more segregation!” Now, I like to think I’m pretty aware of what goes on in this country, but I’m not aware of any segregation. Of course, the scar of racism will probably never go away, unfortunately, but segregation? Did I miss something there?