On the road again: Portland, day 5

I love the smell of airports in the very early morning. It smells like victory.

No, that’s not right. I’m lying to you. I shouldn’t do that. Let’s try this again.

I hate airports in the very early morning. Panic, frustration, and desperation fill the air. Night owls glare in angry resentment at morning larks who vibrate with their "oh, happy day" energy. The larks shake their head in disappointment at the pitiful condition of the owls. Some of us--never me, of course, never me--contemplate them all with a killer’s gaze and wonder, sometimes aloud under their breath, if the airport might not be a lovely place were all the people suddenly to die in a firestorm of automatic weapons fire. Never me, of course; I wouldn’t think such things, but I know others do, I can see it in their eyes.

Portland airport presented such a scene this morning when we entered it at the entirely too early hour of 6:20 a.m. A 5:15 a.m. wake-up call after a 2:00 a.m. lights out had begun my morning joy, the hotel clerk who called me clearly relishing his role as torturer. He continued in that capacity as he screwed up my check-out process and failed to deliver on the manager’s earlier claim of a painless exit from the hotel. If I had a list, this clerk would be on it--but of course, I don’t, and if anyone in the Portland area finds the body of a white male, blond, thinning hair, wearing a Heathman Hotel uniform and a ragged scrawl in blood on his shirt that says, “Wake this up, asshole!” well, I know nothing about that.

After work in the airport, courtesy of PDX’s free bandwidth, something every airport should offer, my day actually brightened a bit because my first class upgrades came through. I wrote a reasonable chunk of Overthrowing Heaven on the two planes, and in general the flights went well. I didn’t have time in ORD to download email, but my iPhone let me know that when I landed, a giant steaming lump of it would be waiting for me.

Digesting that lump has consumed much of my evening and a considerable amount of what I'd hoped would be sleep time.

Ah, I love business travel.