Albuquerque

I spent last week in Albuquerque for the Association of State Floodplain Managers annual conference. It was a good conference, but it wasn't too exciting. I guess this is the first conference I've gone to where I didn't know anyone and there was no binge drinking (for me anyway)! There was the obligatory get-know-you-chit-chat with too many people to count, and it left me wishing I had a dollar for every time someone asked me why my employer gave a rat's ass (paraphrasing here) about floodplains. However, once I explained what I do, they usually said something like "I had no idea. That's pretty cool". I was a recluse most nights, but that's okay, because I needed to study for my Certified Floodplain Manager exam, which I took yesterday....hopefully I passed. It was tricky in a way that I couldn't figure out if they were trying to trick you into giving a wrong answer or if the questions were just badly written.

After the exam yesterday, I had a few hours to kill so I walked up Route 66 (Central Avenue) and looked at some shops. Then I sat outside a Starbucks and read while watching the entire Albuquerque police department prepare for President Bush's arrival (right across the street from where the conference had been). There were so many police cars parked on the street next to the Hyatt, it looked like a hostage situation was taking place. When I got to the airport and was waiting for my flight, Air Force One taxied right past me. It took me about as long to get back to Washington last night as it does to get to most destinations in Europe. Our plane was late arriving in Albuquerque, and by the time we got on the plane, it was time for President Bush to leave again, and they shut down the airport for 30 minutes or so. I consequently missed my connection in Denver, but got onto the next flight to Washington. Would you believe this was the first time I've ever missed a connection? Pretty good record for someone who's done so much traveling. I got home at 3:30AM, slightly more than 12 hours after arriving at the Albuquerque airport. Today, I feel hung over, which is sad because I didn't have anything to drink yesterday--I'm starting to feel my age!



Our house is still a wreck from having the hardwood floors installed (pictures)--Zach and I both left town right after they finished, so there's been no time for clean-up. I'm not feeling much like tackling that right now. In fact, I don't think I'm even going to put my luggage away, since we're leaving for Germany on Wednesday night.

The Folly of Wearing Cuffed Pants and Pointy Shoes

I thought I would recount a little adventure I had today. It's fairly mundane, as far as adventures go, so I thought I'd liven it up with a pictorial essay:


Here I am in the nice, industrial concrete stairwell. If I take the stairs to the candy machine, I'll burn off all the calories in the Hershey Bar I'm about to buy, right?
Don't look now, but your pointy shoe has caught in your only-slightly-out-of-date cuffed pants! Oh, and you're still 3 steps away from the landing--this is about to get unpleasant!
This looks very bad for our heroine...but what's this?!?!
Stephanie's mom would be so proud that her constant worrying about head and spinal cord injuries has rubbed off--Stephanie uses handrails regularly and with gusto! In an act of quick thinking, our heroine uses her right hand to push herself farther into the air to gain more time....
A well-placed Arabesque adds style and gets feet positioned for the landing.
And stick the landing!

I escaped with only a small bruise to my right hand, a spot of temporary back pain from landing flat-footed in 3-inch heels, and a brief episode of tachycardia. A (female) coworker had a similar cuffed pants/stairwell incident a few months back, however she was not as fleet-of-foot and actually hurt her knees pretty bad when she didn't stick the landing. We could blame it on the stairwell, but we both know that it was the cuffed pants!