New York, New York

I'll be heading up to New York tomorrow. I think it's been almost 6 months since my last visit there (maybe September?), so it's definitely been a while. I got out of a mid-February conference I usually attend (and I'm still happy about that since they got snowed in that week!). I'll be staying at one of my favorites - the W Hotel on Lexington. The conference I'm at is down at the Grand Hyatt, but that's an easy walk. Now that the weather has cleared up, I'm looking forward to the drive up mid-day tomorrow with the top down . The drive back on Thursday night might be less pleasant with some rain in the forecast, but it's always easier driving home.

And going home Thursday is really the sad part. For the first time in 6 years, I'll miss my son's birthday. To make things worse, his mom has to work late that day too, which means the whole thing will be a big confusing shuffle. I missed the morning of his birthday last year as I was coming home from this conference via a meeting in Jersey City, but was home by dinner time. I'll be leaving NY after dinner this trip, so might not see him at all. Next year I'll have to send a proxy to this conference. I had a chance to go to Seattle instead to spend Tuesday at Redmond and that would have probably gotten me home in time for his big day, but I really didn't want to fly across the country and back for a single day of meetings. Of course, I'll be calling into a couple of those meetings from my hotel room Tuesday evening anyway. Sometimes there's just no escape - but it sucks worse when you let down the people around you.