Hello from 37,000 feet!

Hello world from who-knows-how-many-thousand feet! I’m currently on a plane on my way to Denver and then New Orleans. I’m attending the RESNA conference as part of my training to assist with some wheelchair standards balloting and other administrative/secretariat work with my office job. [note- I found out later that we were flying around 37,000 feet]

I was so incredibly nervous. This morning Jeff woke up at 5:00am to go to the gym, and I figured I’d sleep till almost 6, but I couldn’t go back to sleep. (Which is a bummer because I couldn’t get to sleep last night until midnight or later.) So I got up, did my hair and finished packing my bags. Jeff got home, we ate breakfast, said goodbye and headed to work.

Around 10:00am I started getting major butterflies. It was the weirdest feeling. My stomach felt like it was being vacuumed out. My boss and I were planning on leaving the office at 11:30, but didn’t get out until noon, and so then I was really worried we’d miss our flight or be late or something. But since he’s in a wheelchair (and he flies all the time & knows all of the stewardesses and check-in people) we bought lunch and made it into our seats in only a few minutes. (And they upgraded me from my crappy seat at the back of the plane to sit in the third row with extra legroom so that we could sit together and go over work.)

I haven’t been on a plane since my honeymoon. And honestly I don’t remember much of those flights except for looking out over parts of Mexico that were very odd landscapes of desert and weird bushes and swamps. I know that some people don’t like flying, but I thought takeoff was kind of fun. I like the feeling of being pushed into my chair – it makes me feel like I’m a racecar driver or something. My favorite part is looking down on everything. You get to see clouds from above, blue skies below you, the layouts of cities and towns, and the amazing formations of mountains, valleys, & waterways. It’s so beautiful from up here. I imagine this is only a sliver of the kind of view God has of earth.

My rough butterflies have gone, but I’m still nervous. The farthest east I’ve ever been is around Colorado. I’m going all the way to New Orleans?!? Is that considered east or south? I’m very excited to see and experience a different city’s culture and I’m stoked to eat Creole and Cajun food, but I’m nervous about the work part of the trip. I have meetings all day Tues, Wed, and then Thurs, I’m meeting with tons of people through RESNA’s organization. I know some, but not nearly enough to fully comprehend what is gong to be going on during the meetings. But I’m hopeful I’ll be able to pick it up quickly and learn the lingo and such.

My boss and I spent the first part of this plan ride working on things for the meeting and the office. Then he said he wanted to take a short nap. I would love to take one, but I can’t sleep with people all around me, so I figured I’d take out my computer and work on some stuff… then I realize that while I did manage to back up 100 gb of pictures I’d been putting off for months, I forgot to copy the pictures I’m yet to edit onto my computer off of my external hard drive so that I could work on them on my plane rides. Oops!

Hopefully there’ll be somewhere I can plug in my hard drive during my layover and I can transfer some pictures over to work on during the next flight. If not I’ll just keep writing blogs or something and make sure I copy them for my plane trip home on Thursday.

Oooh! Turbulence! No joke I’m looking out the window at eye-level clouds! When I was little I told myself that when I was older I would take a flight or something, capture a cloud in a jar and bring it home with me so I’d always have a cloud to look at. ;] If only that were actually possible.

In other news Jeff and I upgraded to iPhones last Friday. I am so glad we did too. I’ve been using a piece of junk phone for the past couple years and another crappy phone before that and so on. I love being able to check my email and…
---
Sorry, I got cut off on the previous entry while on the airplane . It was time to turn off electronics so I had to shut down my computer. Its now Wednesday night (technically Thurs early morning here in New Orleans). I’ve been super busy the last couple days with standards meetings. Tomorrow is my last day, and I’m spending the morning in some paper and poster presentations and then heading back home!