I’m home and in the process of sorting out clothes and receipts from the trip.

Denver was a cool city, what little I saw of it. The conference room where I did the training had two full walls of windows and was on the 35th floor of a downtown building — I had a full view of the Rockies for the entire session, and it was hard to concentrate. Gotta get back some time and spend a few hours or more with friends like oni_express.

The taxcicab conversation I alluded to earlier was with a distinguished and learned gentleman from Ethiopia who’d been in the country since 1972. We discussed the world situation, the conflicts between Islam and the West, and the state of race relations in the US and how they’ve changed in his view. We were stuck in traffic for a bit so we could really talk. I love getting drivers with whom you can have a great conversation. Our best discussion was about his (and my) concerns that the overlooked variable in Iraq is the Kurdish situation — how Kurdish autonomy and the PKK werre viewed as a threat by Tukey, Iran, and others, and have the potential to be a slow burning fuse to ignite a far more widespread conflict.

Flights were uneventful, even if connections were a bit hurried. I did a lot of fast walking on already tired feet.

More later, gang — I’ve got paperwork to do if I want to get paid on time. 🙂