What an absurd week that was

What an absurd week. All for the good, but absurd nonetheless.

This was supposed to be a rest up, catch up, get ready to leave town on business for eleven days kind of week. Planned it that way too. No meetings, no distractions, no nothing. During this upcoming week and a half I’ll be at the Digital Media Summit in Hollywood, the LA Podcasters meetup, PodCamp Atlanta and too many meetings along the way. Two coasts, three one-way flights involving five airports, two different rental cars, at the moment I can’t recall how many different hotels, and a stack of Google Maps printouts so thick it looks like a book report. Fortunately a trip like this doesn’t require the kind of nonstop advance preparation that an all-encompassing conference like Macworld Expo does, but I wanted my rest heading into this one nonetheless.

So beyond taping iProng Radio on Tuesday evening, my schedule was literally blank when the week started, and that never happens. I should have known better than to think it was going to stay that way as the week progressed. On Thursday my best friends (not all of whom live in the same State, curiously) all converged on my townhouse and ended up painting several of the rooms. Except when the week started I had no idea that any of them were coming. What led them to end up painting the place is still somewhat fuzzy for me, but I do know that my downstairs bathroom is no longer the same color it was when the week started. Thursday evening ended up consisting of a bunch of paint-covered buddies sitting around in my living room, eating pizza and watching Are you smarter than a fifth grader? and American Idol. Each of them takes one last stab at convincing me not to move to California. I don’t even bother to debate it with them. Each of them ends up deciding that they don’t really have an argument to make anyway. I love winning arguments without having to open my mouth. I’m still not sure I’m going to. I could always just stay here and continue to fly out there way too often for my own good.

On Friday the painting team is back in action, this time mainly trying to remove excess paint from things that weren’t supposed to get paint on them in the first place. Not ten minutes after the gang heads home, I get a call on my cell phone from someone who has her own iTunes Celebrity Playlist, telling me that she heard I was trying to get in touch with her for an interview. So we did the interview right then, timing be darned, because we were both leaving town shortly thereafter. One of the things I’ll be sharing at the session on podcast interview techniques that I’m leading at PodCamp Altanta next week is that if you have good reason to believe that there’s even a slight chance a particular interview may happen at some point in the future, do the research and write the questions now. The worst that can happen is that you wasted a little time and the questions never get used. But don’t write them, and you just might miss out on an opportunity. Timing is everything, and since timing is something that you can never quite fully control, you need to give yourself every advantage you can going in.

Now I get word that relatives are coming to visit me at my home this evening. Seeing as how I’m sitting on a plane headed to the west coast right now, I’m not sure how that’s gonna work out. Been that kind of week. Well, now it’s time to head into one of the biggest weeks I’ve had in awhile. Or should I say week and a half? I wonder what the weather is like in San Diego. Or Los Angeles. Or Atlanta. I’ll know soon enough.