On MIT, flying and a general feeling of sadness...

I'm writing this post from my hotel room in Boston. This is my first trip to "Beantown" and I have to say, so far I'm really not impressed. It's a very overwhelming city. Driving here is all bridges and tunnels and ramps and...roundabouts. Yeah, that was a new one for me too. My hotel is a dive and it's in a really crappy part of town. Picture Matt Damon's neighborhood in Good Will Hunting or if you prefer a different frame of reference...Sean Penn's house in Mystic River. It's a freaking Sheraton which I've always thought were nice, but I'm actually afraid to walk out to my car after dark here. I'm switching to the Doubletree tomorrow.

My training class is in Cambridge, right next to the MIT campus and as I was driving back to my hotel tonight I saw all these people walking around the campus...some students, some professors and I was struck by the fact that I was quite possibly in the presence of some of the smartest people in the world. That's a little intimidating if you think about it...

When I was flying into Boston, I was looking out the window of the plane and listening to Andrew Peterson and I was overcome with this feeling of melancholy. I'm not sure if it was the music, or that I was feeling sad about leaving my family for this trip, or maybe that the move to Atlanta is starting to hit home now. (I've been too busy to be homesick so far...it's starting to catch up with me though.) Anyway, I took some pictures out of the airplane with my Treo. I didn't think they were going to turn out but these actually aren't bad. When we pulled through the clouds, the sky was a kind of blue I'd only dreamt of. I've heard of people describing something as so beautiful that it made them feel sad, but this was the first time I'd ever experienced it for myself.