“Traveling Solo!”

After RailsConf in June '06, Corinne said she was never going to another technical conference with me. I was too busy during the conference to pay much attention to her or spend much time with her. We never went anywhere or saw anything: I only left the hotel to pick up some supplies at local stores, and once to pick up pizza with Greg.

She was bored out of her mind, and was quite serious: no more travel with Seth to technical conferences.

Then I was offered a chance to work at the Bare Bones booth at MacWorld SF (which starts Tuesday). Yes, that's right, I'm almost certain to be the tallest and most unlikely booth-babe in MacWorld history!

Months had passed since RailsConf. The bad memories had subsided. "Ooh! San Francisco!" took their place. She wanted to go. I remembered the frustration (and reminded her), but frankly… I love having her by my side and didn't put up much of an argument.

We got tickets for the both of us.

Then Mike & Shannon — and the unborn baby — came into our lives. Work has been pretty good for the last few months, but it's not like we're rich (we couldn't have afforded this trip as a vacation, for example). With a bigger family to care for, the cost of (her) tooling around the city all week started to weigh on our minds. Last night she announced that she didn't think she should go.

For me, that came out of nowhere. I wasn't expecting it. I argued that it was too late for that, and that she'd change her mind again by morning.

Over the next 20 hours or so, we did what we also do when we disagree: we both switched sides. Repeatedly. (Note that this is not the best way to solve a disagreement!)

We tried to compromise by switching her return trip to Wednesday instead of Saturday, but it wasn't an option.

Now I'm sitting here in a hotel near the Providence airport, by myself. I used to travel alone all the time (I ate United's "Mileage Plus" program for breakfast) when I consulted for RR Donnelley, but I haven't gone solo since we married in 1997.

So the lonely giant goes off to San Francisco, mateless, and will miss his little lady every step of the way. If you see him on the streets of the big city, listen closely and you'll hear him mumbling. "It's only a week. It's only a week."

On the other hand… not having her with me means there will be nobody to stop me from buying (for her, of course) the brand new G6 iPod Phone iTV Pro. Or whatever they're going to call it. :-D