In Seattle

Wow -- what a week. Left Madrid on Wed AM. The hotel at 8 AM; the city at noon. Made it to my connecting plane etc no problem -- which was as I was worried about making a tight connection in Chicago. But an hour and a half into the flight the pilot announced one of the two compasses had malfunctioned and he had to divert to Kansas City because he could not land in Seattle because the weather was bad. So we went to KC. They did not have the part - and could not get it till 8 PM (we landed at about 5:30). But then they decided to give our flight an incoming plane and our plane would go back to Chicago. So they loaded us about 6:45 and took off at about 7:15. Arrived at 8:50 Seattle time (was scheduled to arrive at 6:10). Needless to say I was totally exhausted - and when I got there had to drive downtown. Oh well hope this is it for bad luck and that going home tomorrow night will be smooth. Staying at the Fairmont, which is really nice (if Maggie would read my blog she would like the photos -- though I made a mess of the nice chair -- but cleaned it up and using to watch Gray's anatomy and write on my blog).

I love my GPS -- no way I could have driven downtown and to our meeting this morning without it. I managed to do my presentation somewhat coherently and Carl (my boss) seemed pleased. Had a nice dinner with him tonight -- it is going to be hard to be away for 3 weeks -- trying to catch up and making sure things don't fall through the cracks -- but I am so looking forward to Africa. Carl is such a nice man -- a person could not have a nicer boss. I wish I was that nice -- but I am not. I try to be -- but like all humans fail sometimes.

I have to do another briefing tomorrow. I wish I could catch an earlier flight but it just does not look like I will make it. Will have to catch the red eye. I have to brief NASA's program aside from our own. Hope I can do it. In do get to go in late so I should have a good nights sleep. My red eye flight leaves at 10:30 -- I guess it could be worse ...... Can't wait to see Sydney. I want to go to Africa (saw Gabon in survivor!) but I will miss Sydney :-( I wish I could take him everywhere .....