kansas

Business travel is interesting. Not that the travel itself is in any way exciting or fun. It is interesting in how much some folks like to actually do it. I am starting to sense that, for some people, business travel is this big esteem-booster. There is almost a tribal connection that people feel when they see other people waiting for a plane scrolling through their blackberry in business attire. Transcendence!!

I guess people feel important during business travel. I feel silly. First, I know that whatever I am doing could be done through a couple of emails and a conference call, yet the realities of business mandate that I shake some people’s hands, eat a few overpriced meals, and sleep by myself in an antiseptic hotel. Some people enjoy this experience. I would prefer my wife and child, but alas…

This week takes me to Kansas. Of all of the states, Kansas seems to be the one state that is dead-set on feuding with me. As a student of history, that should not surprise me.

Some of the reasons that Kansas and I are not friends:

- the band named Kansas was not great

- the last time I was in Kansas, I puked on a co-worker's lawn after a bad steak

- my wife does not live in Kansas

- the last time I was in Kansas, I missed three flights and nearly got stuck in the glorified hallway that is the Wichita airport

- my daughter does not live in Kansas

- Kansas started the Civil War

- the Holiday Inn Express in El Dorado, Kansas happens to be in El Dorado

- the band named Kansas was not great (this is worth mentioning twice)

Thought you should know.