BEA, day 1: New York, New York

Today was a day of transitions.

In the morning, I watched with a great deal of emotion as Scott graduated from middle school. The year ahead will hit him with many challenges, but I know he's up to them. As I've said, I'm very proud of him.

We then had a quick family lunch, after which I headed to the airport for a physical transition from Raleigh to New York City.

My travel experience bordered on miraculous. I arrived only 90 minutes before flight time on a Friday, but I breezed through check-in, barely waited at security, and was at my gate 15 minutes after my arrival at the airport.

If you don't fly much, this chain of events may seem trivial or commonplace, but, trust me, you don't get this lucky often.

I bought bandwidth, which was fast and simple, and I was able to finish a lot of email work. Our plane arrived late, so the cleaning didn't start until 3:02--and we were due to depart at 3:15. No problem today: boarding commenced at 3:13, we were airborne by 3:25, and we arrived in La Guardia 20 minutes early. My luggage awaited me when I made it downstairs to baggage claim; that never happens! The cab line was full of cabs and devoid of people, so I got into the first one, and its air conditioning worked! Sure, the ride took about an hour, but, hey, it's Friday rush hour in New York.

My room awaited me, and though small in typical New York fashion it is also clean and quite nice.

I worked until I went to dinner with my publisher for the Jon & Lobo books, Toni Weisskopf. We ate a lovely meal at The Capitol Grille, then strolled through the more beautiful than ever Grand Central Station on our way back to the hotel.

After dinner, I took a walk around the area just to soak up the energy of New York at night. Here's a photo of the hotel at night, with cars whizzing by, as they do at all hours in New York.

And now I'm settled in to write.

I can't recall a travel day this smooth. Amazing.