Press Record.

So I survived the ordeal in NYC. The moral of this story, don't book hotels and flights 24 hours before your trip. It's expensive and a direct is impossible.
My considerably unglamerous week went something like this.
Work up at about 4am on Thursday morning to make my Flight + "you're-going to-USA-so-we-get-to unpack-all-your-stuff" customs. The concept of a mini-portable hard drive seemed to freak these people right out, and caused a bit of a scary moment when I thought my docs were going to be confiscated. A bit of fast-talking and forced pre-caffeinated friendiness got me happily through customs and on my way. I grabbed all my crap and dumped it on the floor, out of the clutches of any possibly mind-changing gadget-grabbers. This process lint-a-fied my MEC fleecy and the duration of the flights it looked something like a dusty Q-Tip.
I made it to my stop over in Atlanta...freaking GA. My Sales traveling companion documented my tech-geekery and added to his Powerpoint extravaganza while I gorged on breakfast foods and a my first coffee of the day.
Flight to Newark was uneventful reading the first half of A Scanner Darkly before sleep beat coffee and I started getting groggy. Coffee 2 and 3 staved off sleep, but resulted in some sort of strange sinus revolt.
By the time we hit the ground it was around 4:30pm and I was in full head-cold mode.
Went for dinner/lunch at the Pennsylvania Hotel restaurant, and phoned work for some last minute updates. The Hotel's computers were down, and there was a flood of people trying to check in, resulting in a chaos normally associated with a candy factory field day for the behaviourally challenged. Our graciously inept check in lady sorted us surprisingly well just as I had fully resigned myself to sleeping @ Penn Station (across the street)
Hit K-Mart for sinus stuff and chaecked out Macy's while I waited for the PM side of the carton to kick in. Macy's in short is the Bay, only nicer with lower ceilings and bit of the sprawling chaos of Honest Ed's thown in. Very cool stuff.
I checked out Penn Station and Madison Square Gardens simply because it was across the street and I had hoped I'd spy a scalper for the Bravery/Depeche Mode concert that started in about an hour. I sadly found none, and decided that my medication induced vertigo would probably best be dealt with behind the doors of my "modestly" sized hotel room. I flipped on Jon Stewart, called for a 5:45AM wake up, looked over my notes and set the tv timer. ZZZzzzz.
The R.. presentations went ok, BAAAD connectivity in the boardroom made for some clever fill-in moments but the Sales/Tech back to back worked out really well.
During the latter part of the presentation I had a chance to tend to my email, which sent word that my return flight had been cancelled.
I flew home via Cincinnati with a 2 hour layover. A quick bite and a boozydrink got us within a few minutes of boarding. I edited a mix for Stefan's X-Mas party on my laptop and tried not to think about how uncomfortable my shoes were.
Hit the Corporate X-Mas party and de-briefed the CEO who seemed pretty impressed.
All in all it was as rewarding as it was ludicrous.
Here's to another year of Chaos.
-P. Danger