Business Travel By the Numbers

* Number of flights I've been on in the past two weeks: seven
* Number of flights that were designated as "delayed" by the airline: one
* Number of flights that took off within ten minutes of their scheduled departure time: zero
* Number of flights that arrived more than twenty minutes past their scheduled time: seven
* Number of places to buy something-- anything-- to eat or drink once you clear security at the Kansas City airport: one snack cart, despite the fact that several signs advertised a restaurant supposedly located behind security.
* Price of a small bottle of water at the snack cart: $3.99
* Price that US Airways charges for a plastic cup of water in-flight: $2
* Price that US Airways charges for cheap domestic beer in-flight: $7
* Price that US Airways charges to check a bag, each way: $15
* Approximate percentage of people who brought enormous bags on board as a "carry-on": 60%
* Number of US Airways flight attendants who made any attempt to enforce carry-on rules: zero
* Number of meals in the past fourteen days that involved some sort of barbeque: eight
* Estimated length of time before I will be able to stomach barbeque again: one month, minimum
* Bottles of Dayquil consumed during the past fourteen days: 1.6666 and counting
* Cost of the room service burger I ordered the night I was too sick to join my colleagues at the fancy-dancy dinner cruise: $18.65
* Number of pillows on my bed at the fancy-schmancy hotel in Charlotte: six
* Cost of the king-sized bag of M&Ms in the minibar at the fancy-schmancy hotel in Charlotte: $6.50
* Cost of the bottles of imported italian mineral water on the bedside table at the fancy-schmancy hotel in Charlotte: $12
* Sampling of the exotic animals I petted on the safari-meets-petting-zoo team building event: zebra, giraffes, emu, alpaca, some sort of albino elk, yak, those things that look kind of like antelope that have twisty horns, and a whole host of assorted goat- and deer-type things
* Number of days that I got out of bed early enough to blow dry my hair and put on makeup in the past fourteen days: nine
* Number of days that I would normally get out of bed early enough to blow dry my hair and put on makeup in any given fourteen day period: zero
* Number of times that I got to swim in the beautiful swimming pools at the hotels we stayed in: zero
* Number of emails that I will probably have in my inbox when I go back to work on Monday: I'm too afraid to guess. But when I was gone for two days at the beginning of last week, I came back to 63 emails.
* Number of people that I heard speaking Swedish in the Philadelphia airport: three
* Number of people that I heard speaking German in the Philadelphia airport: six
* Number of people that I spoke German to in the past fourteen days: one, and it wasn't at the Philadelphia airport
* Meetings missed due to illness on the most recent trip: three
* Number of hours I've slept since arriving home yesterday: approximately seventeen
* Number of days until my next business trip: 49