Q's Month in Tennessee: Update 6

This will be the last "Q's Month in Tennessee" update.  Why?  BECAUSE I AM FINALLY HOME!  After a grueling stretch drive that saw me log 36.5 hours of work over the last two days, and one more postponement of my flight home, I have finally returned to California!

Needless to say, I am rather relieved.

Since the last update I do not have much new to share with you.  As you may have been able to tell from my first paragraph, I pretty much spent the last few days working.  So, let's reflect, bullet-points style!

~I was there for 31 days, which is a pretty darned long time to be away from home.  For the most part, it went by pretty quickly, and once I got into my routine, was pretty painless.  The last few days were brutal, both because of the volume of work, the hours spent in the office, and the fact that I wasn't even supposed to be there and had been asked to stay.  I was definitely ready to come home my entire last full week there, with Friday as that magical day.  To have them ask on Friday for me to stay the weekend was soul crushing.  But, alas, I have survived.

~Tennessee is actually kind of a pretty state.  At least the Eastern part of it is.  Its very green, and its very hilly, and when its clear enough, the Smoky Mountains provide a pretty backdrop...especially when you are on the river (see previous post).  The weather there is kind of ridiculous, though.  I saw blazing heat, cool and damp, and severe storms all in the same month.  And the humidity was just starting to ramp up as I was leaving.  Summers there could be brutal.

~Oak Ridge is an exceedingly boring town with not much going on.  I saw more of the inside of my hotel room than I really cared to.  Also, my hotel had its plusses and minuses.  The plus of having a full fridge, stove, and microwave when staying there for more than a month made up for the minus of having shit channel selection on the television, though.

~In the end, I'd prefer to not have to do that again.  I'd much rather work from here, and then maybe fly in to meet up with a proposal team the last week or whatever to pull everything together.  A month with no breaks is just too darn long to be away from home.

Now, my flights home this morning were fine, with the slight annoyance of getting to San Jose on time, but then sitting in the plane while it circled SJC three times, making us 15 minutes late.  My flight from Knoxville to Chicago offered a neat surprise, though.  It was a crystal clear day, and our flight path took us over Lake Michigan, right along the Chicago skyline.  I took some pictures...

That last picture is Wrigley.  Anyways, I thought that was a particularly gorgeous view of one of my favorite cities.

Glad to be home.  Expect I'll head back to my normal blogging schedule this coming Monday!

Cheers!