I’ve come to understand failure in a very new way today. In a way that is hard to truly grasp and even harder to change. Perhaps we die not by the single blow but from a thousand cuts yet all we remember is that last one, that last little cut and say, “how, how is it that I was brought down by such a little cut…?”  Yet we had forgotten the thousand cuts before that one. I never before believed in fate, but there is much to our lives that is destined from what has come before it. TO change our fate though we must see the bigger picture. We must not think that healing the last cut will stop the bleeding when in reality it was the first cut that did us in. But can we really change our fate? Do we really have that choice? Why is it then that even when we know the answer it is so still so hard to change…

What am I studying? Is it bad if I say, “I don’t know?” You spend all this time, all this energy, all this thinking into thinking that you are thinking but are you really? We’d like to think we’re aren’t machines… Some days your work is so clear, so important, so real… and then there are days when it, and I, am nothing. As one professor put it, “Phd students know just enough to host a cocktail party.”  Too true…. so unbelievably truth. Maybe I will fail… would that really be so bad? Would it really be all that bad to admit that I am not that good? That I am a fake?

This is a common theme among Phd students, and I imagine many others as well. For if you lose your merit, what are you left with? What is it that you have achieved? Is our work but an illusion? We fight to climbing to the top of a mountain- a mountain that does not actually exist. And the less there is to gain, the taller that mountain is to climb.  And when we fall, we fall long and hard. We hit the ground and are awakened only to realize that it was but a myth. Why then? Why do we do it? Why to we fall again and again yet continue to get back up and climb the mountain once again? Is this not the definition of insanity? Why do we do it?

Portland is a “weird” place… and I think they like this stigma. I’m currently sitting in a “weird” cafe (has food, coffee/tea, computers/internet lounge, pool tables, video games, and is very eclectic in its art work). I walked by a building that said, “Keep Portland Weird.” I can’t say that this “weirdness” goes for the broader Portland region, mostly the downtown. Beaverton and Hillsboro (west of city, major corporations headed out that way) is suburbia and rather, well, sub-urban. I still have much to explore so I may change my position and views, or more likely, they will be broadened to include a wider range of persona’s. Thus far I have only seen the area in limited doses and scope. Time to walk…

These “observations” are in no way value judgments. Nor am I stating that I dislike it. To contrary, I find the downtown quite colorful and exciting. It has “culture” and not some generic branding that can overtake certain suburbs

La Siesta has returned… my body is basically requiring me to take a nap every day sometime between 12:30 and 2:30… just 20 minutes but it has to be done. I don’t seem to have much choice in the matter either.

Week 1 of data collection for the dissertation has gone very well. There is almost too much stuff to observe. I’m living the 5 to 9… I wake up at 5am, work for a couple hours at home on research papers, etc., around 7am I head to the office to do “real work”, this lasts until anywhere between 4 and 6, at that point I head home, eat some dinner, and do a little more non-real-work work until 9pm which is when I crash and go to bed. Nice, eh. Actually, it’s all been quite fun. Here are two suggestions on data collection based on experience thus far…

1) I spent almost the entire day Saturday writing up my notes for the week. Need to change this. Will need to take an hour at the end of each real-work day to write up my notes from the day. I have about 15 pages of typed notes from week 1 alone.

2) Know what you are looking at. Are you making general observations about more permanent fixtures in the environment (e.g. org culture, facilities, IT) or are you examining process? For each, it is important to identify ownership, as in level of analysis. Is this an org thing, group thing, individual thing? When observing process, at what level are you recording? The meeting as a whole, the conversation between two people, etc…. Be consistent. Keep records. Remember, academia is not about finding the right answer, it’s about justifying whatever answer you come up with.

Let’s talk about one of the more important items in relocating… finding the right grocery store. Think about it. You need to eat every day. Actually, we tend to eat multiple times a day. Therefore, findings the right places to obtain food is important.

I’ve visited four different grocery stores already and I have another one on the list to check out, as well as local farmers’ market types. Let’s review… QFC, is, uh, not so great but conveniently located. WholeFoods, is, uh, kinda out of the way, not too bad, only has overpriced produce (which didn’t even strike me as being that nice)… I guess people go there for the label, not the food itself. Haggard, is, well, for the price and larger size store it is a reasonable deal. I think it’s comparable to a Giant in PA. Zupan’s Market, is very high end stuff, very nice, pricey but worth the price if that is what you’re looking for and will occasionally be on my list. I need to find the farmers market and I have yet to try Fred Meyer. Overall, here are the scores: QFC = B- (only go because conveniently located up the street), Whole Food = Probably won’t go there again, not worth the drive, not worth the cost, if it were “conveniently located” it would get a better grade. Haggard = B+, it’s kind of on the way home from work, decent prices, decent value. Zupan’s = B, might go there again, probably not for a while. There is still no “Wegmans” out here (Wegmans = A).

What? You don’t agree?

Never before in my life have I experienced such a back-and-forth tumble between the highs and lows of travel. From canceled flights and sprints across terminals, to first class, booze and train rides, to a destination city that was not the destination.

Well, since we know I am not one to pass up dramatizing just a few of my life events, let us delay no further in telling this one… my move to Portland.

My flight was scheduled for 2:10pm (EST) Saturday with arrival into Portland expected at 8:30pm (PST). The weather wasn’t looking good in DC, which is where I was making my connection out of State College. Checked flight status for it first say “delayed” in bound flight by about 1.5hrs. Checked it again a little later with an update that the delay had been reduced to about 2 minutes. Nice, or so I had thought.

Arrive at airport an hour prior. Check bags. Gate personnel say plan is not too far behind and has actually left the gate. More decent news. Connecting flight was also reading as “on time.”

2pm rolls around. No plane.

3pm rolls around. No plane.

3:30 rolls around. No plane. Announcement, if you are on flight 6903 and you are making a connection in DC, please come to the front desk. My connecting flight was for 5:38. I hymned and haud for about 1 minute before leaving the security area to go back out to the front desk (This is state college. It only has 1 gate area. The security line is actually closed in between flights. You can show up 15 minutes before your flight if you are not checking bags and you’ll be just fine… I have 2 bags to be checked by the way).

I get in line at the front counter. I wait. I finally make it to the front. It is 4:00pm (EST). I look at the man. He looks at me. He gave me the look as if to say, you’ll probably be rescheduled for a flight in March… 2014.

Important note. I have orientation for my new position in Portland on Monday morning, 7:30am to be exact. I cannot miss this orientation because I cannot start work without going to orientation. The company I am with only conducts new hire orientations on the first and third Monday of each month. Well, the third Monday of this month is a holiday so if I were to miss orientation this Monday, I literally could not start until March 1^st.

Ok, back to the story, I’m at the counter. I have to get to Portland by Sunday or I am in the deepest pile of stinky dung you have ever seen. The person who got rescheduled just before me got moved over to another airline (US Airways… I was on United) with hopes to connect in Philly on her way to Seattle. BING! Light goes off. Me to guy at counter, if you could even get me to Seattle I will take it. Guy looks over at the attendant working US Airways (again, very small airport)… “How many seats do you have left on your next flight that leaves in 15 minutes!” Her reply, “none, no, wait, one.” I look at the guy and say BOOK IT.

So here I am. State College Airport. Trying to get to Portland by Sunday (I was beyond being worried about getting in Saturday night) and I am being rerouted to Seattle through Philly on the most notorious airline to ever exist… US Airways. The ironic part of all this is that I had specifically booked United to go to DC so I could (1) avoid bad winter weather in Detroit and (2) to avoid Philadelphia and US Airways.

I get rebooked. Move over 5 feet to the US Airways counter. Move my bags (2 checked bags… yeah, right, anyone who has flown through Philly knows that I will never see those bags again for at least a week). Ask if there are any nice seats (how silly of me to ask for nice seats when I am the last one on and probably just as lucky on my next flight to seattle).

Ok, so I fly through security (again) at Olympic speeds. I read the screen for the TSA guy because he’s going too slow. I board the plane. Not bad. My thoughts at the time were, not bad at all, I could make this, this could be fun.

It is now 4:20. Connecting flight departs at 5:55pm from Philly direct to Seattle. Everyone is on the plane and the doors are closed. Pilot… we have to get de-iced. Going to take an extra 20 minutes. Now I know that the flight to philly, while scheduled for an hour, can be done in 30 from push back to touch down. I’m not too worried. However, anxiety on the plane was at levels not often seen before on the Richter scale. I was surrounded by 5 older ladies who had been in the airport for hours, longer than I had, who were freaking out about their connecting flight. To say the least, these ladies are getting me all riled up (I’m usually very calm on flights because I know that traveling is not worth blowing a gasket over).

De-icing takes 20 minutes. It’s 4:40. Plane taxi’s to end of runway and… just as we get ready the pilot pulls off to the side. Oh, no. Now what. Pilot… “uh, well, philadephia has just put a ground hold in place 30 seconds ago.” 30 seconds! Is there anyway to make numbers bigger in this word doc because that is what I am trying to say here. Flight was 5 minutes late. 20 minutes de-icing and now we had missed the window by 30 seconds. The DC storm had just hit Philly. Crap. Pilot says, “we may sit here for 30-40 minutes and if we do that, we may have to go back to the gate because many people wont make their flight.”

OK, so now I’m thinking that this really sucks. BIG TIME. Not only am I not going to make it to Portland, not going to make it to Seattle, I am going to be stuck on a plane for another hour, then have to reschedule, and it will be who knows what time by the time I get out of the State College airport. 10 minutes later it happens… pilot says, “buckle up, we’re going.” WOW. We take off. Attendant goes on to explain that they had wiggled in with Air Traffic Control and had to go because otherwise everyone was getting rebooked for flights on Monday at the earliest. Again, that would not be acceptable. If that HAD happened, I would have asked the United and US Airways CEO’s to tell my adviser why I would not be able to start my dissertation work until March. Yeah, I wouldn’t send my worst enemy in to do that job.

Plane goes so I am happy. But just as that happens I realize that it is now 5pm, we’re on a flight that is typically 45+ minutes, it is snowing in our destination, and I have 45 minutes before the doors close on my next flight.

(YES, this is a long story, if you need a break, take one here).

So the pilot basically flies us straight into the Philly airport landing pattern. Sucker was fast. I owe him.  We land. It’s 5:45. We are in terminal F (I saw “we” because there are 4 of us trying to get to the Seattle flight). Seattle flight leaves out of gate A4.

Who’s been to the philly airport before? Yeah, you have to take a bus to get from F to A. Ugh. We’re on the bus. It is slow. It is so slow. So PAINFULLY slow as the four of us sit there. We see terminal A. Gate A1, empty. Gate A3 empty. Gate A5 empty. We think our flight is gone (remember, it is snowing, it is dark outside, we cant sit much and neither can the bus driver). We realize that A4 is on the other side of the terminal so we can’t even see if our flight is gone. At this point I wasn’t even worried about the flight itself. I simply wanted the anxiety to go away. The bus driver starts to pull in and cant park well so he has to back up and then go forward again. The dude is killing me. We get off the bus and the sliding door to get back into the terminal is LOCKED. LOCKED. LOCKED. WTF??? The driver of the bus has to get off and unlock the door, not know what is going on.

So here I am with three ladies trying to get to this gate. It is now 6:05. The status boards in the airport say our flight is on time. They look at me and say, “you’ve got long legs, RUN!!!” Crap. I do. And I’m kinda slim so it is now up to me. I turn with wheelie bag IN HAND, no wheels on ground. This is no time to be pulling things on wheels…. You ever see a train take a 90 degree turn. Right. It doesn’t happen. I’m running. And CRAP, of course my gate is WAY down toward the end.

…I get to the gate. I see three agents at the door. I come up to them, huffing, puffing, ready to blow their little piggy house down. I ask, “is the flight closed?” The guy says in a slow and sad voice, “yes. The door is closed.”

CRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now I am stuck in PHILLY. PHILLY!!!! AHAHAHAHHHH.

Just then, the attendant looks at me and smiles and says, “just kidding, we’re delayed 50 minutes.”  I started laughing. I shook his hand and said, “good one.” I saw the ladies and told them. We were all very happy. I went and sat down. We had 20 minutes until we were going to board. And then more fun begins… I had to call my friend in seattle (who is my hero for life right now), cancel my hotel res in portland, cancel my car res in Portland, and cancel my 10am apt showing that was scheduled for Sunday morning. Nice. Kind of set. Then it hit me. How am I suppose to get from Seattle to Portland???

A car? Nope. Costs an extra $200+ if you return a rental car to a different location from where you picked it up. A flight? No, costs $170 plus all my bag fees. Then I realized it, TRAIN!!!!!

So now life is getting a little better. This is when I finally look at my ticket to Seattle (as we are getting ready to board). It says, “3F”. Wow, that is close to the front. Wow, that is first class. Wow, that IS first class. SWEEEEET.

Boarding starts a little late, but I am not worried at this point. Scheduled arrival is for 9pm (PST). They board. I get on FIRST and sit in FIRST. SWEEEEET.

I sit next to a great guy. He starts out by saying that he doesn’t like these long flights because they hurt his back. That he will be up wondering around later during the flight. But that right now he was going to get as drunk as he could and then pass out for as much of the flight as he could.. SWEEEEEEET.

Ok, so flight to seattle is delayed an hour… then we find out the pilot is not there so we end up being delayed another 30 minutes. Then the pilot shows up and we are happy until he announces that we are stuck at the gate until we can get de-iced. DAMN THE COLD. We finally get going. We take off at about 9pm (EST). I’m tired. I haven’t eaten since NOON TIME. And if you know me, you know I like to eat. BUT, of course I am in first class

Dinner comes along with 3 gin and tonics (I was following my seatmate’s lead). Nice. 45 minutes into the flight I have eaten and passed out. I slept for about 3.5 hours. I wake up. 2 hours remaining. I had to use the lavatory (where did that word come from anyway???). I look at the flight attendant and tell her I would really like a glass of water (she had seen all the drinks we’d have, she was the one who gave them to us!). She hands me the biggest bottle ever. Gosh I love FIRST CLASS J

We finally arrive. I am rather delirious at this point. I had gone to sleep at what was for me 10pm and awoken at 1am.  It is now 3am (or 12pm PST). I somehow make it to the baggage area and realize that I had just flown through Philly and that my bags were never coming. The best news though was that my friend was already on her way down to pick me up. So so so nice. No hotel needed. No car needed. I don’t think I could have driven if I had wanted to. I probably would have slept in the airport. And somehow this is where life turns for the better and stays that way… BOTH my checked backs popped out on the baggage carousel…. If there was ever a time I needed US Airways to come through it was then and they did. I still don’t recommend anyone flying through Philly though.

So my friend picks me up. I have all my bags. We get to her house. Her boyfriend (of many years, they live together in a very nice house) had cooked me some extra dinner. We watched the end of a funny movie. It is now 430am EST. I go to sleep. When I get to my room I realize that my friend had already packed a lunch for my trip the next day and left some other nice gifts. She is a goddess right now and probably will keep that status for years to come.

Just before I fall asleep I think to myself, “where the heck am I?”  What a day.

I wake up at 6:30am PST. I book a $40 train ticket from Seattle to Portland. The train is SWEET. If you can ever take the train, I highly recommend it.

Ok, so the drama of this story is starting to come to an end. Mostly because my hands are tired, my brain is wacked out on PST and random sleeping hours. There is probably more to this, but I will let some of the drama go.

So somehow I went from an easy flight to Portland on United, to a first class flight to seattle coupled with a train to Portland. I got to test my anxiety levels. Got in a short run. Saw a great friend. Portland is a wild time and I haven’t even spent the night yet. Looking forward to the first day of work… that jet lag is going to hit me hard.

PS – The condo I am in is VERY nice…. except for the fact that I don’t seem to get cell service so if you’re trying to call… ugh.

PSS – Its sunny outside even Oh, and kinda warm. For all those in PA, well, sorry.

PSSS – Rental cars are a rip off.

PSSSS – This is only version 1. Let me read it when I can actually focus my eyes and my head stops pretending to be a bobble doll. There is so much more… omg.

Every since leaving the comforts of my parents’ home to go to college, I have yet to settle in a single place for very long. College wasn’t too bad; a semester in Wisconsin, a month in Massachusetts, another semester in Wisconsin, and back to Massachusetts for the summer months (Although I did spend a couple summers in Wisconsin). But since graduating in late 2002 until the end of January 2010, I will have lived in six different states and 14 different apartments/condos/houses. That does not even count the times I lived with friends for a month or more (4x), nor the month and half when I lived like a nomad in South America.

Let’s just take a moment to think about it… this means that I move on average about every 8 months. Over the past decade, my longest residency in one place has been  17 months (2006-2007) when I first started the PhD in IST. If I take out that “outlier” of 17 months, the average drops to about 6 months, although in reality it felt more like every 4.

Many people live out of a suitcase. Consultants are often shipped to different places on just about the same rate. Some with even greater frequency. Most consultants also only do live that life for 3 years. I’m not trying to be dramatic. Just putting this in perspective for myself (this is my blog, isnt it?). I know I’ve moved a lot, but writing this piece now forces me to really do the calculations, but then there is the part that cannot be quantified…

There are four parts about moving that just straight suck. Starting with the least sucky of the four, I don’t have a home. I’m not too worried yet but it would be nice to have a place to call my own, whether it a condo, house, apt, or bungalow I guess this one will just have to wait. Although, I’m thinking of buying my “second” home before I buy my first. You know. The vacation home. LOL. This way I can leave most of the nice “stuff” there knowing I will always want to go to it. Anybody have any suggestions for such a place? US? Europe? South America? Vermont?

Number 3 is all the stuff. Anybody who has moved knows how much “stuff” they have. How much junk they own, but also how much junk we seem to need in order to live an “ok” lifestyle. So much stuff. Because of all my moving, I don’t own much furniture. I don’t have any “nice pieces”. I have a couch and a bed but if somewhere were to make the right offer I would sell them with free delivery (please send offers to…). It does “suck” not to be able to buy nice things because you know you’ll just have to move them or put them in storage in a few months. No art. No nice “pieces” (oh, I already said that one didnt I ). No big tv’s. No cool setups or whatever else people put in their house.  To give you an idea, for my move to Portland I am taking 3 suitcases on the plane, shipping a box of “stuff”, shipping a box of books (woo hoo), shipping my bike, and shipping my car. Those are the things that stay with me. The rest goes into storage, whatever the rest really is… a coach, bed, table, and 6 boxes of “stuff”. Actually, now that I come to think of it, the only thing that has actually lasted since college is my car! I really should write Honda for that one… 263, 587 miles (or somewhere close to that). Not bad. My suggestion for future nomads, if it doesn’t fit in the car, get a roof rack, otherwise, it doesn’t belong. Oh, I also suggest keeping a clear and easily accessible list of all the address changes you need to do… credit cards, banking accounts, drivers license, cell phone account, office…

Down to number 2 and some of you may think this should be number 3 – chaos. Moving is chaos. Moving is disruptive. You don’t get anything done when you move except lose things. Yeah. That’s right. You don’t even move. You just lose stuff. You lose time. You lose your discipline. You lose the routine that holds your day together. The one thing I’ve become good at is unpacking. Yes, I don’t have a lot, but whenever I move I try to be upacked, have everything set up, and have purchased all that I need (including groceries) within 48hrs of arrival. This way I can immediately get back to the routine. I can’t say I’m very good at the pre-move part, but for the post-move I am olympic material (wonder if they’ll ever making unpacking a sport. it is a good workout). Besides, when you move every 4 months, you can’t spend the first 3 unpacking like some people do. Otherwise, you’re repacking before you’ve unpacked. Again, don’t have a lot of stuff (but as noted earlier, we need a lot of stuff to live these days… try actually writing down everything in your house… let’s see, 2 pillows, sheets, bed, comforter, lamp, iphone, iphone plug, alarm clock, briefs… and those are only the things within reach – ps, im writing this while laying in bed; it’s either here or the couch). Let’s get to number 1 because that is why I really wrote this post…

Drum roll please… number 1… you. I meet so many great people everywhere I go. Of course there are always a few of  you I am trying to get away from, but for the most part, people are the hardest part of leaving. I just can’t take having another “going away party” or people asking if we can get together “one more time”. I am absolutely, 110% grateful and I do try to make time to see everyone, but for me it is the most depressing part of life. I hate leaving people. If there is anything I truly hate, it is that. (I don’t even like saying good night to people who I know I will see tomorrow – Im terrible at goodbyes) Mostly because I know I may never again have the same time to be with those people… ever… again… forever. You think I’m kidding? If you’re reading this and you know me (lol, nobody reads this, especially people who don’t know me), ask yourself, when was the last time I saw Phil? If it was in the past week, when is the next time you think you will see me after next week?

My worst move actually came in the fall of 2008 when I returned to State College after about a 7 month hiatus. During the 17 month period prior to the 7 month hiatus, I had developed a close group of about 15-16 people. They were great. There wasn’t a day where I didn’t see at least one of them, if not most of them. When I returned, they were gone. Some did return later, but now there are 5 of us out of the 16. Ouch. Academia. Maybe we’re thinking about the phd incorrectly. The question should not be, “why does it take so long?” Rather, it should be “how can we make it longer so we don’t have to move?”

My second and almost equally depressing move was when I left Seattle. Loved that place (it’s only 2.5hrs from Portland, very nice). Left some of my best friends there. Some of my best memories. I remember my “going away party” that I had at my apartment at the time. I had 40 close friends. 40. Crap. That’s a lot. I’ve never lived anywhere else with so many diverse and interesting people. People wonder why Seattle is such a cool place… who else would you want to spend a gloomy day with?

Right. So moving sucks. It is exciting to get to go to so many new places. Maybe I’m just getting old. Ouch.  I try to stay in touch, but we know that living near people is completely different than staying in touch. Having those daily conversations. Those stupid moments that only happen in person.What can I do about it? Nothing. It is the life I’ve chosen. It is my own fault. Well, if someone could please invent the transporter beam, I would be most appreciative.

Oh, another one is driving. I really dont like driving. My honda has been on both off ramps of I-90… one in Boston and one in Seattle. Even she’s tired of driving and she’s a car. It’s her life, too (she has enjoyed her garage though for the past 6 months). The two of us are just straight ridiculous.

Dear World,

I am moving once again. Geographically that is. To Portland, Or-Eh-Gone…

Moving the end of January for 6 months to work on my dissertation. Data collection to be exact. In short, an ethnography of sorts with a large corporation (no names on the blog please). Studying innovation (see my dissertation “stuff” if you want to know the specifics). I will continue to post about “dissertating” from the West Coast.

Currently in the process of putting together the remainder of the ingredients to start the baking process… IRB, work plan, writing schedule and delivables, etc.  Also looking at housing, cars, life…

More to come on my thoughts on “returning to the west coast”, “a conversation I overheard today”, “strange things in 2010, already”, and “the life of a nomad.” This post was just in consideration of you… to let you know… that I wasn’t leaving you.

This is the best post of 2010 so far…

So is the coffee I had 5 minutes ago…

As well as that peanut butter and jelly sandwich…

So was the run this morning in the windy, 18 degree temps…

Along with yesterday’s nap…

And today’s dinner which has yet to come (yesterday’s wasnt very good)…

2010 is already awesome.