Once again, I'm on the road for work. This time, I'm in Puerto Rico for a little recruiting at the University of Puerto Rico. I arrived in San Juan this evening on the tail of Tropical Storm Jeanne. Fortunately, it's not raining or blazing hot, but it is muggy as hell. After living in Seattle for 14 years, I'm a wimp now around humidity.

The flight was long, but uneventful. Between Seattle and DFW I was sitting between two soliders from the Stryker brigade at Fort Lewis who were returning to Iraq for their last 45 days on this tour. I hope they come home OK. After a surprisingly good lunch in the DFW airport (super great shredded bbq beef sandwich and green beans cooked to near goo with ham), I found myself on the plane next to a so big he was four inches into my seat. Fortunately, the gods of travel were smiling on me; the exit row aisle seat behind me was open and the flight attendant took pity on me. Score one for luck.

I had good directions (I thought) from the airport to my hotel (the El Convento, a converted convent in Old San Juan), plus I had my GPS unit. What could go wrong? He he he.

So, the streets in Old San Juan are not especially well marked. Plus it's dark, being night and all; on top of that, huge areas are still blacked out with no electricity. Every few blocks there would be some scraggly guy trying to direct traffic, presumably to help people find parking spaces for tips or to direct cars toward bars or something. I swear though, it was the same guy all over town. I was totally confused.

After taking a huge tour of Old San Juan, I finally blundered into the hotel and managed to get checked in. Thank, God, it wasn't raining hard or I may never have found my hotel.

A big glass of rum with lime juice made everything OK. At least there's power here. I wound up having dinner in the hotel since the few places I wanted to try were still powerless. It was OK, but the campiranas (rum, lime, and simple syrup I think) that Michelle recommended made everything just fine.

The "Highspeed Internet Access" touted on their website is apparently this shared PC in the library. Not enough to sync my mail, but enough to spam my blog.

Anyway, I'll tour around San Juan a bit tomorrow and then out to the UPR campus is Mayaguez. I may stop at the Areceibo radio telescope for a little geek tour since the Bacardi factory tour is closed on Sundays. Damn it. Hopefully, it won't be dumping rain tomorrow.

Time for bed.