So here's my plan: To post a summary of my holiday sometime this coming weekend, even though it took place before the Potsdam/Berlin trip (see my last post, somewhat limited due to ill-health).

In the meantime, I've managed to process a few papers for the journal (around 70 papers were waiting for me on my return, not the 80 that I feared...), and I've changed my photo gallery to the new Apple-hosted Web Gallery. This means that when you click 'gallery' in the menu, you'll get a new window onto the gallery that's now hosted by Apple. The big advantage is that I can update it from within iPhoto, with no messing around. And the viewing options are superb. Worth every penny of that .Mac subscription!

So... Google analytics tells me that since I installed the analytics software (5 weeks ago), I've had 301 'absolute unique visitors'. I've no idea what that means, because elsewhere it says I've had '225 absolute unique visitors'. It does agree with itself, though, when it says I've had 326 visits, of which 104 were people who'd visited before (you'd think they'd have learned not to bother). Oddly, 326 minus 104 suggests 222 absolute unique visitors - not 225 or even 301... 10 of these visits got here by searching on Google for "Jerry Altman" - I was surprised to see that when one puts 'Jerry Altman' into Google, my name ("Gerry Altmann", in case you didn't know) pops up #1. I bet Jerry Altman's really pissed about that.

... with an ear infection, in my hotel room, in Potsdam. Not sure I'll be able to fly home. Ear feels like it will explode. Antibiotics and sympathy needed. In large quantities.

update: Went to a doctor, who said I should not fly and that I needed antibiotics. But rather than just write out a prescription, he wanted to refer me to a 'specialist'. So I crossed town to another doctor, who looked like a caricature of an ageing German doctor (he was all three of those - I can vouch for that, although to be honest, I did not solicit a translation of his medical certificates). Caricature was completed by the sight of what looked to me like the instruments of extreme torture. I quickly decided that if he so much as looked at, let alone picked up, the things that looked like the medical equivalent of pliers I'd run away. So I sat meekly as he picked up the plier-like things and proceeded to stick them up my nose. It wasn't so bad. He said my ears and nose were very nice, and that I could fly, and did not need antibiotics. So I proceeded to Berlin, and then back here to York, without antibiotics but with masses of (probably undeserved) sympathy. So it wasn't all bad, and have decided that sympathy is a good thing, and at least as good as beer, if not more so.

I'm back. Well, almost. Actually, I'm sitting on the train back to York, after a surprisingly comfortable night on the plane (and 30,000 air miles' worth of upgrade again). But do I feel refreshed and ready to face whatever battles await? Of course not... I'm actually exhausted. I'd like to think I was looking forward to heading off tomorrow morning for 10 days' holiday. But I've got something like 13 papers that have accumulated over the past week and which are awaiting an editorial decision. And about 8 to send out to review. They're just going to have to wait. But that 10 day's holiday is equivalent to two working weeks... and because I'm going straight after the holiday to yet another conference, I can anticipate that in 3 weeks' time there'll be around 80 papers waiting for me to do something with when I eventually get back. So while I'm looking forward to my holiday, and even to the subsequent conference, a part of me is dreading the life that awaits me when I eventually get back from this travel-fest.

On the other hand, my leaking pond, which is currently responsible for ensuring a plentiful supply of water in the York area, is due to be 'fixed' towards the end of September. And somewhat selfishly, I also plan to take yet another week off from the journal to write a paper that I've been wanting to write for ages. Yes, these two things will interfere with my attempt to clear the backlog at the journal that will have accumulated during August. But there comes a time when the needs of the one outweigh the needs of the many. If I repeat that often enough, I might even come to believe it.

The wonders of modern technology mean that I can add an entry while flying to the US. I'm taking a break from work. Yes... I'm working on the plane, sad individual that I am. Am flying to Nashville to give a talk to the Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, and I'm preparing the next talk I have to give - at the European Conference on Eye Movements. And even if I wasn't working, I'd have no idea what movies are showing, because today's 1st August, so the program in the seat pocket is showing the August movies, but the plane's movie system still thinks it's July...

Flying always reminds me of the knee-jerk reaction to terror threats. So here I am, in business class (thanks to a mileage upgrade), with plastic knives, but metal forks. So I'm wondering what the logic here is. True... I wouldn't be able to strip the plastic insulation from electrical wiring with a fork (I figure that's why I brought my teeth along). And I'm assuming it's nothing to do with the threat to flight staff (my guess is a fork can be pretty lethal). Who knows what the logic is, but no doubt it's been carefully thought through...

Two hours to go, and I've finished the talk. Now I can go back and finish the talk I'm supposed to be giving in a couple of days' time. Maybe I'll just take a sneak peek at the movies instead... someone in the row in front is watching a movie on her ipod. Tiny screen. But held up close it's still bigger than the tiny screens on the plane. And unlike those tiny screens, the image isn't flickering or blurry, she's probably getting sound to both her ears, and she can pause the movie to go to the toilet... but why bother pausing it? She can take it with her.

Those two hours came and went, and I'm now sitting in an airport somewhere waiting on a connecting flight to Nashville. A United Airlines official is just announcing that the flight is over-subscribed, and could volunteers please come forward and offer to take another flight 5 hours later. Am willing to use my highly-honed Karate skills (as if!) to get on that plane...

Sign in the baggage hall: "All passengers MUST collect bags". It wasn't clear what those of us who didn't have any bags to collect should do. After a few moments' indecision, I picked up someone else's bag and pretended it was mine. No one noticed, and they let me in to the Land of the Free... even the bags are free over here...

And finally, I arrived. The Gaylord Opryland Resort & Convention Center. An amazing place. Not least because my room had no bed. When I discovered that I was supposed to pull it down (it was a fold-up), and re-make it up myself (the bedding, or what there was of it, came away when the mattress stuck in the foldaway cupboard), I was surprised. All the more so when, having asked if I could have some pillows, they said "have you looked in the drawers"? I don't know... call me old-fashioned, but I do like a hotel room that has a bed in it that I don't have to make up myself. Only after three phonecalls, and some hours later, did they come and help out. And there's no desk, or bedside lights (essential if, as with most UK travellers to Nashville, you wake up at 3 in the morning and want to avoid stumbling across the room and fumbling with a desklamp). I just wish that, like others at the same hotel wishing the same, I'd decided to stay across the road at the Radisson. Maybe it's not too late to cross that road... UPDATE (the next day): despite being told there'd be no workmen renovating before 10am, my clock showed '07:18' when the hammering started. When I called up to complain (not that I'm the complaining sort, you understand..) they told me that 7am was the regular starting time. Somehow, they believe this is acceptable. Folks.... unless your life/career depends on it, do not stay at this hotel.