Birmingham before Albuquerque

6/9/2011 6:00am
It's 6:00am at the Birmingham "International" Airport. In about one hour I'll be taking off for Dallas, a one hour lay-over and a connecting flight to New Mexico. After that its really anybody's guess. I got this job after my old job ended. The engineer I was working with felt bad that I was about to be prematurely unemployed and asked a customer of his if he needed help. There was a phone interview, two other detail oriented conversations, an email offer and a ticket purchase. The whole ordeal only took about 3 weeks. I barely had time to say my goodbyes and get everything packed. In fact I imagine there are things I forgot in both cases. However, here I am.
        Now I realize that I don't exactly look like a business traveler right now in my multicolored fedora, trail shoes and slightly-more fashionable-then-engineering-allows T-shirt but I'm very surprised. I'm surrounded by people and the only ones that look like they are traveling for work are the mafioso looking old men 50 feet from me and one guy wearing an Auburn polo. He's probably having to relocate after losing his job at the tractor plant. Sad story really but the economy's rough and his degree sucks. Other then the previously described stiffs there's a May/December romance sitting across from me next to a college student working on the largest cross stitch I've ever seen. The hipster next to me, complete with prerequisite Mac Book, hasn't looked up once. Probably doing something terrible self-important. Like judging people... or blogging. There's also a lot of parents with their kids which makes sense I guess if the alternative is turning the youth of America on our most precious tourist destinations to do their worst but I don't remember traveling much when I was their age. I think the first time I ever flew on a plane was my freshman year of high school. After that there's a bunch of people that are totally nondescript: College Guy with an Afro, guy in NASA shirt, bunch of guys in khakis, old married couples. Actually the Afro guy probably deserved more of a write-up but he's gone now.
        That's probably more information then any of ya'll wanted but I have nothing else to do and I've been telling myself I'd do an entry before I got to New Mexico. Ok, that's all I got right now. If you've made it this far thanks. I'll miss all of you but I'll come back. Never fear. Until later.

Madison