"Here I am, stuck in the middle..."--Stealers Wheel

I am back. And still gainfully employed. (Suckers.*) The conference was okay. Just okay.

On the plus side:

• The rental car had XM/Sirius radio. Comedy channels! They have comedy channels! Yay!
  
• Even though the temperature was only getting up to the 50s and 60s while I was there, it was better than the 12 degrees at home. Of course, now that I'm back, it's a balmy 85 degrees down there.
  
• Palm trees. I like palm trees. If I say to you it "looks like a picture postcard", you think palm trees. They're tall and thin. They sway. They're green. Sort of like Lindsay Lohan on Sunday morning. Pretty.
• I'm an aisle gal. And I had an aisle seat until I switched flights in order to give the folks at the airport time to de-ice the wings. Call me crazy but I prefer my plane served "neat." When I got on the plane heading to the conference, there was an enormous man in the aisle seat, a reasonably sized person in the window seat, and me--stuck in the middle. The guy in the aisle seat was so big that he had put the armrest up because he simply wouldn't have fit with it down. So he was taking up 1.33 seats, leaving me .67 seat. He wasn't being a jerk. He was just being. So, why is this on the plus list? Because, before we took off, the flight attendant offered him a free upgrade to First Class. I hopped into that aisle seat faster than you could say "upright and locked position." Plus, had all three seats of the row to myself on the way back.

On the neither plus nor minus side:

• While there, I stayed at a Radisson. They are very proud of their Sleep Number beds. Not sure why. I adjusted the number up, I adjusted it down. It didn't make a bit of difference to me. Have you tried this? What am I missing? What's the big deal? I couldn't even find the slot for the quarter.**

And on the minus side:

• My talk would have hit the scales at solidly boring if I could have merely stood up there and clicked the mouse for the PowerPoint slides with one hand and flipped my notes with the other hand. But, since the microphone wasn't working properly when it was clipped to me, I had to hold it. So, I ran out of hands, making the talk a painful mix of boring AND inept juggling. Special. Well, at least it gave them something to focus on besides what I was saying.

* My employers, not you.

** Remember those vibrating beds of years ago that operated on quarters? Now, that's something to brag about in a hotel flyer.