Ack, I’ve been attacked by the latest “eight things you may not know about me” meme (thanks, Kevin–and I will make you sorry you asked!). OK, here goes:

1. This fall, I learned how to knit, and before I knew it I became a total knit-wit. I’ve become a regular at the WoolPack, and my entire family got scarves for Christmas, mainly because I’m not good enough at it yet to do anything more complicated (Larc, yours and the boys’ are coming, I promise). By next year, I hope to have graduated to socks.

2. I have a case of severe puppy envy. Every time I see a puppy, I have an overwhelming desire to get one of my own. But I resist the urge for now, wanting to give my Augie dog all our love and attention throughout the rest of his old age (he hates puppies for some reason). Repeat after me: They only stay cute little pups for a couple of months before they turn into teething terrors…

3. When I was little, I wanted to be a cowgirl. I had the boots and the fringed outfit and everything, just waiting for my pony to show up in suburban Connecticut.

4. Alternatively, since the cowpony and accompanying dogies never thundered down our street, I wanted to be the first female jockey to win the Kentucky Derby. It must have been slightly disturbing to my parents to have a little kid who collected racing forms, though.

5. I am an Internet junky. Oh, you already knew that??

6. While I am an Internet junky, I am a neophyte when it comes to cellphones. I have to bring the instruction booklet with me when I’m on the road so I can figure out how to set it to vibration and take a picture, etc. How embarrassing to forget the booklet and have to ask someone at a conference how to turn my phone off!

7. I read all the time, mostly thrillers and mysteries and airport books (I’d like to say I only read business books by Harvard Press, or the literary crème de la creme, but that would be a lie. I love a ripping plot and lots of twists and turns). I read while I brush my teeth, while I walk around, while I watch TV, all the time. If I run out of books, I get the shakes. Really.

8. I would rather do without than settle for less than exactly what I want. Which explains why, 15 years after we bought our house, we still don’t have curtains on our bedroom windows. And why I had to paint our living room five times before hitting on just the right shade of red. And yet, if someone gives me something, even if I hate it I’ll use it/wear it. Humans are nothing if not a bundle of contradictions, eh?

OK, now it’s your turn. I’ll tag
Rob Everton
Jennifer Collins
Anne Taylor-Vaisey

This summer I fell in love with Alaska, so when I found great nonstops from Boston to Seattle and back on Alaska Air, I had to give it a try. (Plus, I loved their spoof site, though it looks like they’ve taken it down since the last time I was there. Any airline with a sense of humor is OK in my book.) While I sit here in the airport waiting for my flight home, my impressions are uniformly good. Clean, newish plane with nice leather seats, actual legroom in coach, nice flight attendants, individual DVD players with nine movies plus TV shows etc. (though the $10 price tag is a bit high). And they even offered hot food (for sale, but still) on the way out here.

So the other AA gets a big thumbs up from me. Next time I come to Seattle (and there will be a next time, hopefully soon!), I’m turning to Alaska Air first. Unless, of course, my flight home turns out to be a disaster…

Update: Four hours into the flight home and I’m still loving it. And I remembered what cinched the deal for me on the way out: They played “Box of Rain” by the Grateful Dead as we taxied up to the gate and waited to deplane. Gotta love an airline that plays my tunes!

Update: Now that I’m home, I can say it was fabulous from wings-up to touch-down. But I guess my experience isn’t everyone’s: Mike’s bad AA experience.

Having too much time sitting around an airport can be a dangerous thing. It makes me ponder things I never normally would think about, such as:

You know when you’re swimming and run into a school of fish, how they all sense your presence and turn as one entity to get out of your way? Well, walking around the airport this morning as it gets more and more crowded, the school of people seems to move along in relative harmony. Until, as happens regularly, someone stops dead with no warning, or takes a sharp left. We don’t sense it and move around them. Oh no. There is a whole chain reaction of near collisions and “excuse me”s and dirty looks and rolled eyes. Once upon a millennium, we must have had that “avoid the obstacle” instinct. Where did it go?

Why is it that a Scottie pin I would normally never buy for my Scottie-obsessed friend is just so darned cute when it costs $10 more at the airport? I never impulse buy except at airports, where I can’t resist. Hence the recent purchase of “designated driver” coasters that I just had to have (I have to upload a picture of these. I love them for some bizarre, likely airport-crazed reason).

One of the best feelings I’ve gotten in a while I got this morning when, after purchasing a decaf skinny latte grande with one of my Starbucks gift cards (thank you, Hawaii!), I had another gift card left over along with some bucks left on the first one. So I gave them to the woman behind me in line. You’d swear she won the lottery, she was so excited about it. But her excitement was a way bigger gift to me than that free-to-me $6 or so was to her. So thanks, unknown lady in line!

Where did all the Wifi go? I could have sworn Seattle was supposed to have one of the best WiFi-enabled airports, but I can’t find a hotspot to save my life. And, not being able to go online, I can’t look up where they’re supposed to be on that Web site that lists airport WiFi hotspots. I can’t even lookup where that Web site might be without WiFi. Oh the irony. I guess I could pay the $5 bucks or whatever to use the Internet-enabled computer the aiport so kindly offers, but it’s a matter of principle…

Never give a writer too much downtime in an airport, or you’ll end up getting inundated with dumb posts like this one!

I forgot to mention it, but PCMA had several announcements at the press conference on Monday, particularly about the record attendance (more than 3,400, unaudited) and about the numerous green initiatives they undertook this year. here’s my writeup if you want to know more about the official stuff.

I love this convention center. I know it’s not the most environmentally friendly, having been built before anyone cared about being green, but the sense of light and connection to the city around it—including great views from most of the common areas—go a long way in my book. Now if they could just get some windows in the meeting rooms…

PCMA got a record number of students coming to the show this year, and they are an impressive bunch. I met one young woman yesterday who was taking 18 credit hours this semester while holding down a full-time job that includes managing 20 contractors. And she owns her own condo. At 23. I won’t even tell you what I was doing at 23, but let’s just say my parents weren’t crowing about me at the time the way I hope her parents are. But, seeing as the poor thing had 20 text messages and about the same number of voice mails over the course of the one session we were in together, I can’t help but agree with the Aliens Among Us/Generation Next speaker who said we were raising a generation of type A++ stress puppies. I may not have been accomplishing much in my early years, but I think I had a whole lot more fun than she seemed to be having.

Overall, the students just blew me away with their professionalism (every single one was dressed better than I was, too). One young man we met at the reception last night was the smoothest networker I’d ever met. And their focus is on this business. These kids aren’t falling into the profession the way so many of us older folks did. They are focused, driven, and ready to shake up the meeting/hospitality world. I can’t wait to see what they accomplish!

The people in Seattle are the best! I know Southerners are supposed to be the most hospitable, but every single person I met from Seattle, from the bus drivers to the convention center greeters to the front desk folks at the Hilton to, well, everyone, were open and lovely and seemed genuinely glad to have us here. Particularly, the women who were doing the directing at the convention center just made my day. I can’t say enough good things about them.