I eventually make it to bed at a reasonable hour on Sunday night. The alarm goes off at
4:25am to start the week. Why does it go off so early? Three reasons:
1) I wanted to get up and run before work (bad back or not)
2) I wanted to convert over to East Coast time for the business trip
3) I wanted to make it to TRW for a couple of hours before I go to the airport.
At 10am on Monday morning I am boarding a plane for Chicago and eventually on towards Fort Wayne, Indiana. I am to visit the previously-mentioned company that wanted their $45 million for more work. The second leg of the flight between Chicago and Fort Wayne is on a small plane that holds about 40 people - the kind that you actually walk out on the tarmac and climb stairs to board. We arrive at Fort Wayne airport to the massive 8 gate airport (but the tightest security of any airport that I have been through).
I'm driving to the hotel via Internet directions and they take me through an almost central part of Fort Wayne. I start getting very depressed. The houses, beat-up trucks, cigarette stores, alcohol stores, and gun stores remind me of Flint, Michigan where I grew up (and left as soon as feasible). Do people really live in these places?
I have trouble finding the Howard Johnson hotel because it has changed ownership three times in the last year (including once in the three says since my reservation was made) and has a "Days In" sign out front.
The Tuesday meeting is reasonable and an additional teleconference and side meeting are even more productive. TRW, as the big winner of the NPOESS contract, presents their outline for the future. The company that wanted the $45 million is still upset that we don't intend to give them the money. But we tell them that we will give them some money when they perform the needed cost/benefit study for a number of design options. Finally I am headed back for the Fort Wayne airport.
As unbelieveable as it may be, I am ecstatic to arrive in Chicago. It only takes me a few minutes of walking through the Chicago airport to feel at home amongst the african americans, latinos/as, jews, asians, punkers, and alternativos. I am so disgusted with the entire lack of diversity of the Fort Wayne population.
I make conversation with the cutest ChiChi who sits next to me in the emergency aisle on the way to Los Angeles from Chicago. I cannot picture what nationality she is - I'm guessing native american indian - until the conversation comes around to her telling me that she is Japanese. We talk about UCLA, where she is going to school, car batteries, languages, career choices, and other things.
After landing in Los Angeles and catching a shuttle bus, a train, and my own truck, I am in bed just after midnight. When the alarm goes off at 4:20 am on Wednesday morning I face my fifth consecutive 20 hour day.