Boy, what a start to the new year! After having spent the last three weeks on the road, I’ve just arrived back at our new home in Dallas, Texas. On Jan 2^nd I flew to New Orleans to take part in a company retreat for instructors at DevelopMentor. It was a lot of fun, and I got to meet others who teach for the same company I do. Then I flew to Los Angeles to load a truck with all our stuff from storage and haul it out to Texas, towing one of our cars while a friend drove the other car. In the course of loading the truck, one of the people helping me move managed to run into my left calf with a large hand dolly. Ever since then, I’ve been hobbling around on crutches and trying to treat my leg with ice, ace bandages, and elevation — which has made the rest of my trip especially challenging.

Moving from Los Angeles to Texas was a real adventure. My leg was severely injured and I was in a lot of pain. I couldn’t carry anything, and getting from one place to another was a chore. I could barely manage to climb into the cab of the truck, and spending 12 hours a day driving for three days put a real strain on it. By the time I got to Texas, my foot was swollen like a balloon and I had to go to the emergency room to have it looked at. My friend Peter Ruffner took his 86 year old father along for the 3 day drive from California to Texas, so it was quite a sight seeing his father and I using walkers to get to the rest room whenever we stopped.

After arriving with the truck and our two cars in Texas, we picked up my wife Zuzana and our son Kerrigan at the airport. They flew up to Dallas from College Station, where they had been staying with a friend. No sooner had we moved into the apartment than I hopped on a plane to fly back to Los Angeles for a teaching engagement. My leg was in bad shape, so I had to teach the class sitting in a chair with my leg packed in ice and propped up on the desk. Each day I had to get a ride to the office from a co-worker, even though the hotel was in walking distance. After that week, I flew back to Texas for the weekend, before having to take off again for another teaching assignment, this time in New York City!

My leg has finally started to feel a little better, but my foot is still swelling up from time to time. I’m hopeful it will heal so that I can get off the crutches and start walking on my own. Today we all went to Wal-Mart to buy household essentials. Thankfully, Wal-Mart has electric carts available for handicapped shoppers. I spent a couple hours tooling around the store, while Kerrigan rode in a special cart for children, which was equipped with a built-in TV monitor with running cartoon shows!

My next teaching assignment isn’t for another three weeks, so I’ve got some time to fully recuperate. I’ll spend most of that time authoring the “What’s New in .Net 3.0+3.5” course for DevelopMentor. Though the travel can be demanding, the nice thing about this job is the time I have in between gigs. I’ll take advantage of the break, because I’ll need to be rested up for the next assignment, which will take place in London. Overall, though, it is good to have work doing what I love, which is teaching developers about emerging technologies. All in all, 2008 is off to a good start. J