This time next week…I’ll probably be drunk. Well, not really. But it’s finally starting to hit me that at the end of this week, I will be in Austin for Southby. Included in that realization is that I really don’t have a lot of time to get done all of the stuff I need to get done before I disappear for a week. My “to do” list currently includes:
- Get a haircut.
- Find a travel charger/sync cable for my Palm.
- Reconfirm my air, hotel, and rental car bookings for Austin.
Pick up some new clothes and a new pair of brown casual shoes (to replace my old ones, which are worn out).- Run the score-match processes and select recipients for one of the scholarships I administer.
- Dig up historical data from the last two years for another one of my programs to assist the client with an audit.
- Prep my boss for a application review committee meeting that’ll be taking place in Sacramento on…yep, you guessed it, Friday.
- Finish producing the various materials for said meeting and FedEx them to the Sacramento office.
- Make sure that Performance Scoring Services is prepped for the application review committee meeting on the 17th – since I’m only getting back to work on…yep, you guessed it, the 17th.
- Get my father’s computer equipment connected to a router and bridged to their wireless network (attempt #2).
- Pack. (Duh.)
- Figure out how the hell I’m going to wake up at…oh dear Brak…4:30am…for a 7am flight on Friday.
(I actually got this done this weekend – I was a good little consumer…)
And that’s just the stuff I could remember off the top of my head. Admittedly, the timing for the trip isn’t the best, but…really, it’s not like there’s a better time of the year to be away, so I figured, what the hell.
A side note: I was at DSW looking for shoes earlier today (don’t laugh – they have a good selection of men’s shoes in wide widths – and I’ll take any bargain I can get), when I noticed a tag that I’d never seen before. “Security Friendly”. There was a picture of an airplane on the tag, but no explanation of what the hell it means – I mean, last time I checked, most airport security checkpoints make you take your shoes off and run them through the x-ray machine. So how, exactly, are these shoes any more “security friendly” than any other shoe?
Did they have laces? Were they easier to take on and off than other shoes? That’s all I could think of…
Nope, laces and everything. The only other thing I could think of was that there was no metal around the lace holes…maybe they won’t set off the metal detector? But still, you have to take your shoes off anyway, so…
not every airport MAKES you take off your shoes. newark “highly recommended” it. LA let me go thru. but my black shoes have set off the alarms before. then you’re subject to a full inspection. and that’s no fun….
“security friendly” usually means there is no metal shank in the sole. the idea being that you can wear them thru the metal detector and not set it off. not sure if it works, since most airports seem to require you take your shoes off these days.