I remarked a couple of times last week (here and here) that I was away from my normal place in the Texas Hill Country. I also noted that I would make some report of what I was about while I was away. I try to be a man of my word, to do what I say I will do, and so I note that I was in Baltimore, Maryland, attending the IRS Nationwide Tax Forum. Since my day-job is managing a tax preparation and bookkeeping office, it’s the kind of thing that makes some sense for me to do; since my company paid for me to go, I really had no reason or ability to say “no.”

Most of the time that I was in the City that Reads (I’ve seen it called such), I spent either at the Forum or asleep. I don’t travel so well as I used to, after all, and I’ve gotten very much out of the habit of walking a walkable city, so getting to do both was taxing. (Pun intended. I’m a dad. Deal with it.) As I’ve commented to some people since I made it back home, “My body remembers that I used to do things; it doesn’t remember how I used to do them.” So much said, I was glad of the exercise; I got a lot of cardio in, and carrying my luggage back and forth gave me a couple of solid strength-training sessions. And it was good to remind myself that, yes, I can actually do things that aren’t behind a desk every now and again.

I took copious notes while I was in the Forum sessions, training from graduate school reasserting itself. So much is helpful; I was able to bring a lot of information back with me. There is the challenge, though, of transcribing my notes into a useful form; I was concerned with recording information, and now I have to organize it. I’m back at my day job, so while I can make some time at the office to attend to the project, I do have other work to do that was put off for the time away or that has come up since I got back; it will be a little while before I have the notes set up so that I can actually use them–two forms, most likely: a printed form and an HTML document. Cross-referencing is a thing for me, as those who read much of the other materials I have in this webspace see.

I did get out and do some other things, though. I made a point of getting around to local eateries in the Inner Harbor, Federal Hill, and Otterbein areas, trying to avoid the ones that seemed “touristy” in favor of those that looked like they cater to folks who live in the area. It was a good choice, I think, even if I did end up eating and drinking far more at a time than was good for me. I did have the experience while in Federal Hill of running into a group of regulars at one pub who all come from Texas–two of them from the Hill Country, even. It was not something I expected to have happen, but it’s something I’m glad did happen.

(I also tried to make a call of courtesy to a fellow franchise office in Pigtown, but I found the place had not only closed but vacated, so that didn’t work.)

It’s not as if I didn’t do any “touristy” stuff, either. I spent a day touring the Inner Harbor, climbing aboard and through historic ships moored there. There was a commissioning ceremony getting going on one of the ships, so I didn’t spend as much time aboard her as I might’ve done–I didn’t want to be in the way, even though nobody was trying to chase me off–but that gave me time to tour the others and provided for fewer other folks to move around. (One of the ships is a WWII-era submarine, so space was tight, and I am bigger than I probably ought to be.) Nor was I immune to checking out some of the Babe Ruth and Edgar Allan Poe stuff, the latter of which really shouldn’t be a surprise; I was an English major, after all.

In all, it was a good time, and I’m glad to have done it in itself. I don’t know that I would go at the same time of year, though. I missed out on a few things at home while I was away, and I did have some fun with deadlines when I got back; I’d rather avoid those issues if I can. And I am a homebody; it was not long until I got to a point that I missed being with my people. It made coming back a good thing, even if it has taken me most of a week to get back to myself and who and what I need to be.

I’m there now, at least for now, and happy to be so.

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