Too many trips

I'm at an Atlanta midtown hotel without wireless, and since I went iPad only on this trip I won't be able to post without a trip to the lobby. 

My trip is in the service of the board of directors of the American Academy of Religion.  While I'm always happy to travel, get away, do important work, and spend time with my own thoughts, I'd just as soon not be on the road this weekend.  I miss my children, would like some downtime with them and with Noel, and won't be able to get out for fun in Atlanta anyway, given the short duration and heavy work schedule of the weekend.

And so begins my autumn of travel, not with a bang but with a relative whimper. In a month I'll be on my way to Tokyo (still hard to believe), then three weeks later off to Phoenix, and a month from that time to San Francisco.

Those are wonderful places and should be absolutely enchanting experiences, not to mention the great meetings and tremendous opportunity for me to contribute.  Each of them, however, means multiple days away from my family and long days in Airworld.  What I need to do is decide how I'm going to use that time to make progress toward my own goals.  The worst part about the grind of travel is the feeling that  life is on hold.  If I can't be with my family and students, if it's not yet time for me to learn from colleagues and share my work, then at least I decide how to utilize time that I so often covet -- concentrated time to think, work, write, and make.