GoPro Spirit of Saint Louis

All signs are go, after a much delayed launch count. My crap has been moved, travel is booked and except for an Act of God, I shall descend upon Seattle next week. Unlike my trip last year this one seems to be all business. One of my trusty younger colleagues has rung up a twelve day schedule of twelve-hour days. At least I’ll be richer after the fact, if I survive. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to spend as much time with Jay and Carl under this regimen, but I will make an effort to do a dinner with them and then there is après.

I have been pushing rope for more than a month now and all too often it has been a goat rope. The difference between this trip and last year’s is that last time I was pretty much a JAFO (Just-Another-F-ing-Observer), this time it is my show. I can proudly claim though that I haven’t yet and likely won’t do a lick of work to pull this stunt off, but a lot of other people have, sometimes an unbelievable number of them.

One of my biggest struggles has been moving crap for Point A to Point B. I understand that moving this stuff across the country, especially during this tougher than normal winter can be difficult. I can’t understand why it has been so difficult to move some of this crap across the street. It really wasn’t a logistical issue. It was just a matter of egos.

I spent most of last week ping-ponging back-and-forth between one individual and the next. I eventually got a consensus built and all systems seemed a go, when out of left-field someone threw a flag. Swallowing my frustration, I began retracing my goat rope route, only to be met at the first knot with, “You can tell [so-and-so] to kiss-my-ass!” She then immediately apologized to me for swearing. On my way off to tell so-and-so, I overheard her talking to her assistant about me, “He always takes these things so well.” I felt so totally Dilbert at that moment.