Bushkill... is that like buzzkill? Cause someone killed my Cincinnati buzz

Arrival in Allentown was largely uneventful. I did my typical rush-to-the-rental-car-counter thing so that by the time I was done getting my car, my bag would be showing up on the conveyor, which was the case, so I found myself getting out of there pretty quickly. Unfortunately, that also meant being out on the highway at about ten 'til five in non-trivially populated metro area (Lehigh Valley), which then meant come rush hour, not only was I trying to make sure I got on the right highways, but I was also fighting "the flow". I was trying to keep to within ten MPH of the speed limit, but that was rather difficult to do lest I be squashed.

After more than an hour of driving, I rolled into Bushkill, PA, my destination. It took me a few wrong turns to find my "hotel". On a map, I'm further North than my sister, who lives in Manhattan, and I'm so far East in PA, that if I went a mile further, I'd be in New Jersey.

So my quandary is this... the training center I'm attending is in a mountain retreat. So my "hotel room" is technically a "villa" (hint: there's a jacuzzi [which I'll NEVER get the opportunity to use] in my bathroom). It's VERY pretty (evident in the view from my room). There are lakes, pools, beautiful mountain views, and SO much more. But I'm slated to be in a training room during all of the daylight hours, which means I'm not going to get to enjoy ANY of the niceness. So, while it's quite swell, this place, I'd kinda rather be in downtown Philly or something, because at the expected rate of exposure to the outside world, what's the point of being in a place this nice? They say there are fewer distractions, but I say, are you sure about that? Is it fewer distractions or just different distractions?



Which leads me into my next point; One of the supposed nice things about a place such as this would be the fact that one is to be "disconnected". And that I am. But I hate it. This is no vacation, so I NEED contact with "the world". I have ZERO cell phone coverage here. There is no internet access from my room, except the phone line, but they charge outrageous fees to make any outside connection (yes, even to "toll free" numbers), and there are NO local access numbers for any national ISPs here. So, about as disconnected as one can get.

I DO have wireless broadband in the training center, BUT most of the time I'm there, I'm in class. So at night, my choices are to go to my room and get away from that freakin place, OR, stay there even longer so I can catch up with the world.

(UPDATE: Prime example... no one in my class had ANY idea there was a terrorist incident Thursday morning until almost lunch time when someone told us.)

All I can say is... thank GOODness for Skype. Since they opened their SkypeOut service earlier this year to free outbound U.S. calls, I took full advantage of that to call my dad, mom, sister, and a few others, mostly to let them know that I'm disconnected and can't be easily reached. I've "dinked" with it plenty before, but this was the first time that service saved me real world cash.

So I'm here for some very technical training. And I am unprepared. I had two full months to read seven "pre-class" documents, many of which were actually government regulations, so while I did make several attempts, they all ended in sleepy failure. I tried again on the plane, but learned how bad an idea it is to try to read such things via a PDA on an airplane. Public sleepy failure.