"Yes, the purpose of my trip is business."

I got to utter that line for the very first time today. On my very first business trip. I don't count the day trips to our Toronto plant, since they didn't include all-expenses paid meals and hotel stays. To be able to order "The Special" at dinner without having to ask how much it cost - that's a luxury I could get used to. Oh, and did I mention that I'm in Florida? Staying in a hotel on the beach? In shorts-and-T-shirt weather?

I would have been more excited it weren't for certain circumstances surrounding this monumental event (or, a significant milestone, if you will). For starters, I've been completely swamped at work. Swamped to the point where I don't answer phone calls, I don't return pages, and when people drop by my desk to talk to me, I will continue to type at my computer for a few minutes as if they were not standing right over me, something that I used to absolutely detest with other people. So the thought of having to leave all this work and unresolved problems behind, was, well, stressful.

Secondly, Hurricane Wilma. It made landfall in Flordia last Monday, the day before I was originally scheduled to leave from Montreal. The city I am visiting wasn't adversely affected, but the hotel I was booked at cancelled my reservation on the weekend because their power was out. So then I pushed my trip out by a day. And then by 5 days. And then extended it by another day. By the end of the week, the people at our internal travel agency knew my extension and pretty much answered my calls with "Yes, Angela. What is it now?"

And finally, our customer almost decided to do their flight testing on Saturday. Which would have meant I would have to miss Unwind, our bi-monthly coffeehouse - which wouldn't have been so bad, except that I was taking the lead with Tim on this particular one.

However, all has turned out well. Despite having to fly out at 7:45 am on a Sunday morning (forcing me to miss church), I got a free upgrade on my car rental - not that it mattered since I'm paying for the car anyway and should be back home for next weekend. Now I just have to worry about whether or not I have time to hit the beach.

Oh, and I'm not gloating. I'm just very enthused.