The return of dada

I'm back from the west, and not a moment too soon. This working on weekends is a drag, particularly when it entails cross-country flights on budget airlines and seatmates who are only 5'8" but insist on sitting as if they are 6'6".

On the plus side, on Friday night I got to catch up with two guys I grew up with who now live in Los Angeles. It was good to see them, and we had some terrific sushi. Also, who knew you could get Sapporo in this size?

And for some strange reason, the nice people at the Hilton gave me an executive level room. Which meant that I spent two nights in a hotel room roughly the size of the first floor of our house.

Still, it was work. And while I like the people I work with (mostly), I don't want to see them in the gym, at breakfast, or really anywhere at all between Friday at 5 and Monday at 9. This holds especially true for sitting next to me on the plane.

So it goes; I'm on the hook for two more weekends after this, and obviously, it could be worse, but I am a jealous guarder of my personal time.

In fact, I work with a lot of overachievers --- people who can't go the weekend without checking work e-mail or coming in to the office for a few hours on a Saturday.

And here I confess that I have always found people with the capacity to work all the time to be somewhat foreign, in the most literal sense of the word. I look on them in the way that the ancient Incas must have looked on the first of Pizarro's men --- with a combination of wonder and disdain.

I understand they are committed, but I can't quite figure out where on earth they're coming from.

Or, for that matter, what the deal is with the flags and swords...