Back in the Saddle Again?

So, oddly enough, this post becomes Day 1 - Australian Open 2008.  I wasn't expecting to ever go to another event in 2007, only to be surprised to attend here in 2008.  Since I don't talk about work as much as possible, I won't go into details.  The net of it is that yes I am back doing event venues and today is the travel day (or three, more on that later) heading to Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.  There is no easy way to prepare for this flight.  I leave my house today at 9:45 AM and won't depart LAX for Melbourne until 11:30 PM PST (that means it is 2:30 AM my time already) to land in Melbourne Saturday morning AEDT (Australian Eastern Daylight Time.)

This year is a different experience for me.  I haven't posted in quite some time, so even if you were a regular reader, you might not know.  Colleen and I are expecting!  Yes, we finally managed to get one right and we're having a baby.  We don't yet know the sex, but we have heard the heartbeat three times now and seen it on Ultrasound twice.  Our third ultrasound should be the one to tell the sex of the baby, and we both want to know.  Of course, that one scheduled while I will be in Australia!!!  I am hoping that Colleen will wait until she can at least call me so we can find out "together."   I am very excited and worried about becoming a father.

I had to take a cab this time to the airport.  Colleen had training that got moved to today and she couldn't drive me to the airport.  That made the goodbye even harder.  She's expecting, we're nervous, and I am flying to Australia.  We had to say goodbye as she drove to work. :-(  Taking a cab makes me nervous about the baby.  We've got a really poor support structure here in Holly Springs.  I didn't have a single friend I could hit up for a ride to the airport (BJ did offer to let me come over there as Colleen dropped me off on her way to work, but I didn't want him to have to host me for the 2 hours until we went to the airport) and neither did she.  I hope we get some of these things worked out before the baby gets here. ;-)

The total flight is 23 hours in the air.  I have to 3.5 hour flights to get to LA, then a 16 hour flight to Melbourne.  Throw in a couple of 4 hour layovers, as well as crossing the International Dateline, and time becomes surreal to the traveler.

Anyway, I wanted to post this brief one just before taking off.  I'll be posting again daily as I can.

Cheers!