Business Travel

May 28, 2007

I'm leaving tomorrow for Denver, where I'll be until Sunday. It's a business trip. The Association of Genetic Technologists is holding their annual meeting there. I am the editor of The Journal of the Association of Genetic Technologists, and as such, get paid to be there and the price of that is basically to sit through the board meeting on Wednesday, attend various technical meetings, and otherwise get wined and dined and meet up with old friends.

It don't suck.

Still, I'm always of two minds about this sort of thing. Because of the timing, I can't take the kids out of school, so they're not going with me. In the last year I have been on business trips (writing related) to Baltimore, Washington DC, Tampa, and now Denver. I also flew to Austin for my nephew's wedding. I used to hate travel, but now I enjoy it. Probably because someone else is paying the way and also because my kids are older and I don't feel particularly guilty about leaving them at home with my wife, who is taking time off from work for it. I also have a different mindset now than I used to have, and I look at these at adventures rather than chores. I took my family with me to DC and we had a blast.

It's probably a good antidote for a job that keeps you behind a computer screen most of the time. I've started to really enjoy visiting other cities (especially on other people's dime). Nice hotels are, well, nice, and they're typically in areas where there's lot of things to do and plenty of good restaurants to eat at. Baltimore was fun. We were right on the Inner Harbor, and there was an aquarium, a submarine, water taxis, restaurants, shopping, and historical sites and marinas, all within walking distance. The Mall in DC was a short Metro ride from our hotel in Alexandria, and Tampa, well, Tampa was Tampa in February. What can I say? It was 80 degrees in Tampa and 15 degrees in Michigan.

So anyway, I'll try to stay in touch and post on what's going on in Denver.

Now, what to read on the 3-hour plane flight. Hmmm....

Cheers,

Mark