In my hotel room in Philly in front of the mirror.
In a weak moment of last year I somehow agreed to speak to the MIT Alumni Club in Philadelphia. Not that I do not usually very much enjoy such events, but I am usually that busy that it really always comes at a moment where I should be doing something else. And as usual even knowing long before I was not really prepared for it and it gets worse, when the day came bad weather hit the east coast and now I am sitting at Logan waiting for my departure. The 12:00 flight is leaving now at around 14:15 and the 12:30 is scheduled for 14:40… I am not even standby on the 12:00 flight and on a huge list for the 12:30 flight that is supposed to leave soon afterwards. The plane of the 12:00 flight is already at the gate. If the captain gives permission (assuming Philadelphia is open enough) we might be boarding soon….
It turns out all went perfectly well. The captain gave permission, there were spots even beyond the standby list and I got out on the first flight pretty much at the time of my original flight and I arrived at 15:58 in Philadelphia, even a few minutes before planned. Once arrived I figured that the Marriot and the Renaissance Hotels are not the same and that nobody had made a reservation. I had assumed the Wilkens (my hosts) had done it and they assumed I had taken care of the reservation myself as I did for the flight. Anyway, of course there was room and I am sitting here, using the expensive network and will soon take a shower and review my talk to be ready for tonight. I think it will be fun.
The talk went very well, I had a ton of questions and only few people blinking with sleepy eyes. It was fun and time and again the lesson is, you need to do this more often.