If you hadn’t noticed, I travel frequently for work. Mostly, I go to Chicago and Houston, with occasional visits to San Francisco and New York. I have come to realize that traveling for work is not my favorite thing…

I used to think that I would *love* to travel around the country for work, but after now doing it regularly for over a year now, I have come to understand why most people would rather stay at the home office. I do adore seeing and knowing all the other women who work for our company because they are all wonderful and amazing people, but it’s the being away from home and not really having time to explore that gets me down. But because I do my best to stay as positive as I can, so as not to get too depressed on the road, I try to observe life and learn new things in the usually mundane details of life.

6 days ago I flew to Houston (and I’m still here) on Southwest. (I travel on Southwest a lot because they fly to almost all our locations which means I acquire free tickets very fast.) This time, I noticed that the Houston based flight attendants attempt to be funny while giving the flight safety announcements. I hadn’t realized before that it was specific to this route, but it’s true. The Houston based teams add in all kinds of silly jokes and “flare” to their announcements, which really doesn’t make me laugh. Especially since I’ve heard it before and they’re a little out of date. I mean seriously, you can’t make jokes about J-Lo’s jeans anymore. She’s not the “it girl” she once was. She’s producing a reality show about her own life for gosh sakes! I also noticed that it’s only the Houston based passengers that are laughing – the jaded Southern Californians don’t share in the fun as much.

Now, let me pause here for a moment and say that I have heard some very funny flight attendants, so I know this type of flight comedy can work, but usually it’s by the gay flight attendants between LAX and JFK. The Houston comedy, though, just bugs me…although, I suppose I’ll give them credit since I’m sure making those same announcements over and over again to a bunch of people who aren’t listening can get old. So, if the silly comedy keeps their work sane, then more power to them, just don’t mind me if my face is buried in a book.

The other thing I noticed on this trip is that all rental cars smell like smoke. What is this? I don’t even know that many smokers anymore…so the odds shouldn’t be that good. And it really sucks when you’re visiting a very warm and humid climate like Houston, because the smell is heightened when you first get in the car after it’s been sitting in the sun getting nice and warm. Mmm, warm cigarette smell sticking to my skin – that’s so not cool. I think they should rent non-smoking cars, just like they rent non-smoking hotel rooms…

And those are my notes from the road. Until I return…