Altitude: Sea Level Speed: Sitting down. Temperature: 74 degrees Fahrenheit (Originally Posted 2.26.08)

On the ground update …

So the last few hours of my flight. Yeah, never really got back to work. I found games – games! – on the little in-flight entertainment thingy, so I played some little game where I was a tiny penguin who had to find diamonds without having rocks fall on me or getting blown up by dynamite.

Also, I saw the California Speedway out the window of the plane. You know you watched too much NASCAR rain delay programming over the weekend when you find yourself looking out the window of your plane and actually recognizing the mountain you're seeing down below! Sure enough, there was the speedway right near the foot of the mountain, except it looked like a quarter mile track from up in the sky. Totally cleared out, too. Not a sign that NASCAR's two premier series had been racing there less than 24 hours ago.

Then we landed 45 minutes early (in what appeared to be a Howard Johnson circa 1979 – holy cow. You want to talk about a brown paisley carpet and an old hotel smell. Good lord. Even the hip, beautiful, young, wealthy people deplaning from my Virgin America flying nightclub couldn't help that place!) Then my luggage arrived to the baggage claim before I did. Then I walked out the door, and there was a line of cabs all waiting just for me. Seriously, not a single other person there. I got to the hotel at exactly the time my flight was supposed to touch down.

So now I'm at the Ritz Carlton in Marina del Rey, sitting on my bed (which is a good one -- we'll figure out this back thing yet!) with the sliding door wide open, and the marina to my immediate right, and snowy mountain tops off in the distance to my left. I'll tell you though, I've gained an immediate understanding of why so many rich people get so far out of touch with reality. I don't think I've ever been treated in my entire life as well as I've been treated in the last two hours. Fifteen people had welcomed me and offered to do things for me before I was ten feet in the door. Within two minutes, a member of the welcome committee had armed me with a really tasty orange-pomegranite drink of some kind. Some guy took my bag shortly after I entered the building and then magically reappeared with it pretty much as soon as I set foot in my room, and then he gave me a *tour* of the room and offered to go down the hall and get me ice. The room service guy brought me the remote control and spun the TV toward me in case I wanted to watch while I ate ...

So what I need to do is kick back and get over my guilt complex about being treated so nicely! Ugghhhhh!!! I got out of the non-profit world because I was tired of being poor, but this is like so-o-o far at the other end of the spectrum that I don't even know what to do with myself! It's nice though! And I'm enjoying it.

If only it weren't for these pesky meetings I've got to go to!