I'm Baaack! (Updated)

Hey Everybody,

Did you miss me? I didn't think so. Anyway, I shall update all my faithful readers with my exciting week. It's probably going to be a long one, so just sit right back and I'll tell you a tale, a tale of fateful trip....

Wednesday

Alright, so Wednesday morning I catch our limo bus to the Philladelphia airport with my supervisor, his supervisor and another co-worker. Our trip to the airport was fairly uneventful. Once at the airport we got our e-tickets and headed through security. Where my suprevisor realized that he had forgot his license, lucky for him he had an expired one still in his wallet and that airport security could care less if your license was expired or not. So our plane ride to Houstan was uneventful. We were scattered throughtout the plane so I decided to spend most of the trip either napping or reading, so it seemed to go by rather quickly.

At the Houston airport we had two limos waiting to pick us up and take us to the hotel, which was about an hour away. I have to say the area where our company was located in Houston was actually fairly nice, and the hotel was fairly close to our building. We had about two hours to kill before our dinner with several of the Houstan group members that are working on our project. So my supervisor decided to buy me a beer at the hotel bar and we just waited in the lobby for our pick-up.

I have to say that my group is actually a good group. They are all very laid back, but very intellegent and motivated people. It's a quality that you don't tend to find in Chemists, and I'm really glad to be working for them. My supervisor is an especially great guy, because he pretty much leaves me to my own devices and doesn't try to micro-manage me. Which is great because I don't respond very well to micro-management.

So, next we were off to a fancy steak place in Houstan, where I got to meet several members of our Houston team, and enjoy a good meal. I had Filet Mignon, and it was pretty good, almost as good as the beef I can get back home, but nothing beats Alberta beef. :)

After dinner it was back to the hotel, for some much needed rest. It had been a long day and I was exhausted. However, I had difficulties sleeping, and I really didn't get much sleep that night.

Thursday

Woke up around 7:00 and got ready for my long day. Our schedule had us going to various places and meeting various people working on the same project as us throughout the day, followed up with a dinner and a show. We weren't going to be back to our hotel room until 11:00 that evening.

So, first on the agenda was a continental breakfast in the Auxilliary Bridge (got to love science geeks) followed by a video conference meeting with the rest of the princeton crew as our monthly project working group meeting. Here we discuss all the relevant discoveries made in the last month. There was definately some interesting data reported.

After, our meeting it was off to check out some of the labs and meet more of the people. It was definately nice to put a face to the name of several of the people that you've been in contact with. The little screen that you see them on during video conferences just doesn't do them justice. The labs in Houston were very nice.

Then it was off to lunch, Thursday is our Company wide lunch meeting where everyone from the company attends. Today's speaker was my supervisors, supervisor, confusing eh? Anyway, the cafeteria was fantastic and the food was good. We definately need a cafeteria in Princeton, I guess we just need to get 100 more employees. :) Anway, the talk was good and then we went and saw a few more labs and met a few more people. I met so many people I can't even remember all there names.

We had a short break and then it was off to dinner at an English Pub, in downtown Houston. The food was O.K. but not great, and they shoved us upstairs in a Private room. Which would have been O.K., but there was an answering machine upstairs that people kept calling and we could hear all these messages being left. It was very loud and annoying. So, at one point my supervisor and the director of our project went over and disconnected the whole thing. The funny thing was, that about 15 minutes later some guy came upstairs and started fiddling around with it trying to figure out what was wrong with it. That was our cue to leave. :)

After dinner we went to see a Broadway play called "Moving Out". Basically it was a musical play set to Billy Joel Idol songs. It was actually very good, and I rather enjoyed it. I probably wouldn't pay 100's of dollars to see it, but it was entertaining.

Then we loaded back up in the bus and headed back to the hotel, where I got some much needed rest.

Friday

The flight back from Houstan was fairly painful. When I finally boarded the plane, the seat I was assigned to was occupied, by a small child who was with his mother and brother. It turns out that the family of four had two seats and two seats, and I was supposed to be beside them. Oh Joy! I have nothing against children, I just don't want to listen to them scream while I'm stuck in an enclosed space with nowhere to go, thousands of miles up in the air. Anyway, I waited beside my co-worker, hoping that nobody showed up for the seats beside her. I kept monitoring the time and watched the minutes tick by as nobody was showing up. The flight was supposed to leave at 10:25, and I was almost home free but at the last second an older couple boarded the plane and I had to move. Damn, so close but yet so far. Anyway, I let the mother sit with the two children and I sat with the father.

I ended up watching the movie "Elektra" on the flight. It was O.K., nothing fantastic and defiantely something I would never get to watch with my wife. She thinks that Jennifer Garner is very unattractive. Anyway, there was only a little bit of screaming that I had to endure, in the middle of the movie one of the children decided to throw a fit and the father had to get up and take them to the bathroom. Ahh, the joys of being a parent. :) Other than that the flight was fairly uneventful.

Oh, I forgot to mention that I picked up my wife a pink cowboy hat and pink scarf and the Houstan airport. She'll probably never wear the pink cowboy hat, but it did look good on her. I'm sure it will end up on one of the many stuffed animals we have. :) Saturday is our anniversary and I really didn't have any time to get her anything special, so this will have to do.

So, the wife and dog picked me up at work after finally arriving back home. The dog was happy to see me, but not overly excited. I guess I wasn't gone for long enough to warrent extreme excitment. My wife wasn't feeling well still. It seems that a few days ago she tried out this new lotion and it seemed to react badly with her and even days later she seemed to be suffering the effects of the reaction. Anyway, apparently she did get a lot of writing done on thursday and that's a good thing.

So at home, my wife made dinner, and I helped out by putting dishes away, getting out pots, etc. We had a simple meal, and just spent the rest of the evening, hanging out, watching t.v., chatting and playing on the computer. We actually ended up going to bed fairly early for a Friday evening, I was exhausted from my trip. We read for a bit, and then put Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone on and started watching it.

The funny thing about Harry Potter is that the first time that we had ever had sex together was when Harry Potter was playing. Basically almost anytime we've watched the movie it's ended up in us engaging in some sort of sexual activity. So, I have to say the first Harry Potter movie is one of my all time favorites. :)

Anyway, we started flirting and fooling around and one thing led to another and well, you know...

I have to run, so I'll fill you in on the rest of the details later. :)

Saturday

It was our anniversary, we should have done something special, but we didn't. My wife still wasn't feeling well and really had no desire to go out anywhere. So instead, we stayed home all day and I catered to her every desire. I picked up lunch and dinner for us, I walked the dog, I got her drinks and snacks and rubbed her feet. We didn't do anything special on our anniversary but we spent the day together and it was good. In just a few more weeks she'll be gone for six weeks and we'll have to manage not seeing each other every day. It's kind of a strange thing that's looming in the near future. She's starting to get nervous about the course, but I keep telling her that she'll do fine.

Actually some interesting news, one of the stories that my wife submitted to an anthology (collection of short stories and novellas) passed the first round of rejections. This week or the next should be when she finds out if it's rejeceted or not. It's always good to make it through the first pass. My fingers are crossed, it would be a big break to her to have something published. :)

Sunday

Well Sunday is work out day and it had been far too long since our last work out day so there was no way around this one. First thing in the morning we tidied up the house, washed the floors, vaccumed and all that fun stuff and then headed off to the gym to play squash. Squash was fun, right up until the point in game two where my wife beaned me in the head with the squash ball. Man did that hurt. She was so sorry, it was a complete accident. She even promised me wild sex later that night to make up for it. She ended up winning that game, surprise, surprise. :) Weights were a different story, I just wanted to get them over with. I had no desire to be there any longer than I needed to. We didn't quite finish our weight routine, my wife was exhausted and I was starving because I hadn't eaten anything all day.

So, we went out for lunch with our friends at the usual spot. We had a good lunch and a chat, and then went shopping for a specific item, and after looking at several different locations and not finding what we were looking for, we headed back home. We stopped and picked up some fruit on the way back and by the time we got back home it was already 7:00 PM, my how the time flew by.

Anyway, we spent the rest of the evening hanging out together again, playing on the computer and watching cheesy Sci-Fi movies. My wifes face was still a little swollen and she wasn't feeling great. Her earlier promises of wild sex, never came to furition, but that's okay, we were both pretty tired and for once, she seemed to have a good nights sleep.