San Francisco!

Yep, another work trip. This time to California, where I got to stay at The Palace Hotel. Nice place, but my room smelled like decades of cigarette smoke that will never quite dissapate. I can't complain too much though.

Travel was amusing again, watching people in the airport and such. There was a page for "Mrs. Osama," who must have a hard time flying, the group of blondes headed to a wedding in San Francisco (overheard: "You two are like, Barack Obama and, like, his vice president"...because we don't know his name?), and my favorite, the increasingly urgent overhead paging for people who aren't where they're supposed to be. You can tell the people doing the paging get annoyed when they're holding a plane for 1 straggler who wandered into a gift shop or the bathroom and forgot that they were supposed to be on a plane. I can't say I blame them. Just once though I'd like them to get on the intercom and say what's really going through their heads:

"Mr. Doe, Mr. John Doe, please report to gate A28 for boarding."
"Mr. Doe, Mr. John Doe, your flight is ready to leave and we're all wondering what's keeping you. Please get to gate A28 if you would like to come along."
"Mr. Doe, Mr. John Doe, your wife told you not to eat burritos the night before a flight. Don't you wish you'd taken the pepto she offered you on the way out the door?"
"Hey, Mr. John Doe, screw this, we're out of here. And when you come up here all pissed that we didn't wait for you, I'm going to laugh in your face and revoke your frequent flier status. Neener neener."

But that won't happen.

Divorce

It's over. The marriage I fought hard for, the family I poured my heart into, the kids I loved as by own, the wife I adored and loved with every ounce of my existence...they're leaving my life.

I wish I could say what happened, but I'm still not sure where this went wrong. The bottom line is that at some point Stephanie decided she wasn't happy. She's not willing to work on figuring out why or making it better, so after 6 months of a downhill slide we're getting a divorce. I've already moved out of the house and tonight started the paperwork to make it official.

I felt I should say something here, since this blog was started in response to the wonderful new relationship I'd discovered. Now that it's ending the blog will continue. This space will not become negative and I will not stoop to attacks on Stephanie. Yes, there is anger, sadness, heartbreak, confusion, and everything else you would expect in a divorce, but I will not speak of it beyond this post. This is not the place for that. This is my blog, and I choose happiness. For the members of Steph's family who read this, thank you for including me in your family for a brief just-over-2-years. Feel free to visit the blog if you feel like it. I'll be moving on with my life the best that I can. I tried, I did my best, and in the end it just didn't work out. What more can I ask of myself?

Why does nothing ever turn out like it should?
Well, what the heck, I went and did my best
And, by God, I really tasted something swell
And for a moment, why, I even touched the sky
And at least I left some stories they can tell, I did