I made it through the conference, a strange conflation of complaints, sales pitches, commiseration and actual contributions. It was less dire than last year, less pervaded with the awful stench of Vegas desperation, and I found myself behaving somewhat socially.

I left all that behind in National Harbor on Chesapeake Bay this morning, though, and got into my hotel in Arlington without event. The old hotel room was spacious and elegant and posh; the new one is compact and modern and posh. I have a seldom-indulged love for hotel rooms; the  feeling of luxurious transition, the sumptuous and solicitous sensation of limbo is addictive. Given the option, I’d live in hotel rooms, and move around every few weeks.

The National Mall is before me, museums arrayed around it, and I have a week in which to take all of this in. I’ve found out how to use the metro, I’ve stocked up my hotel room with the necessary munchies, I even did my laundry before leaving the old hotel. So the preparations are in place.

This is a good way to begin, though. Sitting under trees, on the grass, near the Capitol, watching all the other tourists go by to the sound of church bells and traffic.

The Capitol dome, this afternoon

In this universe, however, my flight is delayed. It will be taking off at about 2pm if all goes well. So I’ve got about four hours and twenty minutes to spend in the departure lounge of the Tucson airport.

Fortunately, I’m well-prepared for long delays. I’ve got a book with me, and a lot more on the netbook. TV shows to watch. Music to listen to. Enough to pass the time while I’m in limbo.

I’ve called the hotel, and let them know I may be ridiculously late. And now, all I have to do is relax to the inevitable.

Two hours later. They’ve booked me on another flight to DC, and given me a few bucks for food, and I’ve watched video and read and listened to music and I suppose it could be worse. I’m really glad I just counted on today being taken up entirely by travel.

In just three years it will be the hundredth anniversary of manned heavier-than air flight. It took a century to go from not being able to fly at all, to buzzing about in giant kites, to hurtling through the atmosphere in gigantic jet-powered cigar tubes.

I bet it took Orville and Wilbur just about as long to get off the ground that first day as it took me today. But here I am, doing the hurtling-through-the-atmosphere thing, on my way to Dallas-Ft. Worth and my rendezvous with destiny. Or at least with flight 330. I should get in at about midnight, a slight adjustment from my initial plan of sevenish, but at least I’ll get there today.

I really love the sensation of a plane leaving the runway, but I’ve never been quite as grateful for it as I was just now.

And I finally got into DC at 12:45, and got to my hotel at 1:15, where I found that they had my reservation, but no room. Half an hours’ worth of watching a clerk poke bemusedly at a keyboard later, I walk to another hotel a couple of blocks away, and collapse for four hours before getting to the conference to get registered.