Not so good to be on the road back home again

And with this, Dr. Nerd is once again back in the good old US of A. We have a few more comical misadventures to talk about, but very little in the way of technical trauma that actually inspired this site. We'll be getting back to that stuff as soon as I'm over the jetlag. In the mean time, I offer you more amusement at the pathetic nature of my life.

Had a nice dinner Tuesday with the bossman, guy who heads our affiliate in this country and guy's girlfriend. The vodkas, three beers and a couple of glasses of wine took the edge off nicely, but I wasn't blitzed enough to say no to the suggestion that affiliate guy's girlfriend (who has a daughter 3 years younger than me) call a friend of hers to come by...whenever I'm ready to "get back out there,"I'd like any re-start to be with someone closer to my age. So I'm now loaded, walking from the restaurant back to the hotel to do some more work before my flight (because everything's more fun after a couple of drinks).

Left for the airport with bossman, who had a 7:30 flight (mine was at 10:30) at 5:15, after no sleep, just starting to sober up. I sat in the front of the airport for about an hour and a half, because it was too early to even check in. After a while, I was surrounded by a large group of hicks who I was sure would be on my flight, because 12 hours on a plane isn't good enough by itself. You need 50 people with horrible redneck accents talking about the weird people in the funny hats they had seen on their 'cation and all the good food they "ated" on the trip.

Needing to kill time and not quite ready to try a foreign McDonalds, I hit up Duty Free to try and grab some local wine for myself so I can start building a bar for my upcoming apartment (figure it will class up the joint if I have my wine cellar next to the giant Beavis & Butthead poster). I also had a shopping list from several of my colleagues who wanted various beauty products from a local company. I got everything on my list, including the wine and other crap and went to check out. Showed the beastly cashier my boarding pass and she refused to sell me any of the stuff...apparently my airline doesn't allow liquids over a certain size, even on direct flights. After about 5 minutes of arguing (which seemed like an hour) over how "face mud," "sea salt" and "derma exfoliator" were not really liquid, I gave up sensing that she was about to call the cops on the disgruntled, crazy American.

Tired, angry at my failure to procure the requested schwag from the trip and a little disgruntled, I grabbed a coffee, took a seat and cranked my ipod until we boarded. Got on the plane and there was an asswipe in my seat, trying to rearrange all the cosmetic products he bought at the duty free shop (still trying to figure out how the terrorist looking guy is allowed to buy stuff that they won't sell to the dude who looks like he's about to snap). I politely asked him to rearrange his shit elsewhere, since I wanted to sit down and watched as he moved to the middle seat in my row. Took my seat and thanked the lord above when he then took his own seat, a few rows away (resisted the urge to ask him why the F he needed to do this so far from his assigned seat, but I thought better of it as I didn't think I'd have the patience for the inevitable, incoherent answer). As the plane started to fill, I was still alone in my row (mercifully).

A family of wildabeasts took the seats in front of me, and an extended family (mom, dad, 2 kids and grandparents) had the 2 rows behind me. It should be noted that I had the pleasure of watching and hearing the mother wildabeast in front of me devour 2 big Macs while we were waiting in line at the gate for final bag search before boarding. Upon taking her seat, she whipped out what appeared to be a shopping back from McDonalds with another couple of burgers, fries and various other artery cloggers.

At that point, I was joined by my seat mate, a cute hippie-ish girl from Vermont who I had seen in duty free buying a carton of clove cigarettes and some candy. She was, by far, the best looking girl on the flight and although not really my type, it could have been infinitely worse. Hippie girl realized the carnage that was going on in front of us and shoots me a disgusted look. I take this as an invitation for dialog and make a quick, dumb joke about vegetarianism. She laughed, we started talking about the Dave Matthews Band, the new Counting Crows album and whatever else I could think of that would appeal to her outside of my strict capitalist tendencies. We had an empty seat between us and, about an hour in, she asked if I'd mind her stretching out a little. Made a crack about being willing to sit on the floor if she wanted to take all 3, and her birkenstocked feet were up. Conversation kept going when I was hit with one of the foulest odors I've come across in a while (thankfully, not her feet). We realized, almost simultaneously, that someone in the group behind us (the ~85 year old grandfather, 2.5 year old daughter or 1.5 year old son) had made a mess in their diaper. In a moment of school-age playfulness, she said we should both guess who did it...unfortunately, we were both wrong (it was the daughter). The 12 hours really flew by, with a couple of naps, some of the most awful food known to mankind and an accidental kick to the groin while she was sleeping. As we were getting closer, I took out my laptop to check a document and found out she wasn't a dog person (I have a pic of my 2 soon-to-be ex pugs as my wallpaper). Not that anything would have happened (or that I'd have wanted anything to happen), but tech screwed me again. If nothing else, it was refreshing to see that I could have a conversation with an attractive female.

Coming soon - more tech horror stories and less about my pathetic luck with women.

Finally, one of my readers has requested a name change. Not wanting to bow to public opinion too quickly, I'd like to see what others think. Post a comment on whether or not you like DNTTC (if you don't alternate suggestions would be most appreciated). For those of you who work with me and know my alter ego, feel free to just IM me.