Crank it up and scour your brain clean.

Sure, I’ve had some interesting travels in the past few weeks.

But even the most exotic locations in the world (where I mostly wasn’t) can’t begin to compare with being mobbed by my two little boys when I walk in the door, or getting a nice big smooch and hug from my gorgeous wife once the rugrats let me go.

…was on the  “boardwalk” in Long Beach, California.  (Not complaining, but “concretewalk” would be more appropriate nowadays.)  Perfect temperature, sun, the Queen Mary — no, it didn’t suck.  I mean, I stretched against a palm tree, for Pete’s sake!  That picture alone could go on a “Life is Good” t-shirt.

My travels allowed me to run once again in a nice little town in middle-of-nowhere Michigan (which is not a criticism, since I grew up in a whole other middle-of-nowhere place in Michigan and love it) that I’ve run in many times.

I always love running there, and today I ran a longer route than ever before, so I saw some new stuff.  And the fact that it was in the low 40s and windy wasn’t too big a deal.  Nor was the rain that started a couple miles from the end.

I’m just glad:  a) I got ‘er done before the heavy stuff came down and the temperature dipped into the thirties, and b) I was able to finish my run by dashing down to the local Walmart for a belt I was lacking, run back to the hotel, shower in about five minutes’ time and just make our group departure by the skin of my teeth.

Since then, we’ve had a quick stop in Tennessee and now we’re off to California.  God willing, tomorrow morning I run on the beach.

…is a grand tour around most of the US by corporate jet.

Yeah, I know, it sounds all glamorous and exotic.  And in some ways it is — I’m currently at 43,000 feet, flying at an airspeed of  647 mph over Toronto toward Boston.

But it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.  For example, I’m in a seat facing my colleague Tito.  We both have short legs.  But there’s still no leg room.

Tito needs to be much shorter for the sake of my comfort.

…I should point out that, while many have compared Airbourne to AC/DC and old Def Leppard, I appear to be the only one to hear in them the soothing tones of Jackyl.

Thanks to mapmyrun.com, I knew my hotel in Hamburg was a hop, skip and jump away from the Alster lake, a beautiful spot right in the heart of the city.  There’s a great five-mile run around it that goes mostly right along the water on a perfect dirt trail.  I had the opportunity to run it once last Wednesday afternoon, in sun and high 50s, and again Thursday morning, before sunrise and in maybe the high 30s.  Awesome.

I have to admit I figured going in I’d be some kind of freaky, bizarrely-attired nutjob, clearly from the States, a lone runner among oodles of nice, relaxed amblers.  Instead, I was a freaky, bizarrely-attired nutjob among dozens of freaky, bizarrely-attired nutjobs, whose countries of origin weren’t readily discernible.  Whew!

Anyway, the running was fantastic (if chilly Thursday, but I’d been reading about the Navy SEALs and wasn’t going to let a little cold or jetlag keep me from my workouts for sure).

My new pal Detlef may be the most un-PhD-ish PhD I’ve ever met.

He was our host for our work in Germany.  We had long hours in his car getting to and from the places we were visiting, so I was all ready to apply all my Dale Carnegie skills to prompt worthwhile discussion during the drives.

No need.  Dr. Detlef was the most garrulous “academic” I’ve ever met (the quotation marks are there because he works in industry, not teaching or researching).  I had trouble keeping up, and not only because of jetlag.

I discovered late in the day he’s also a hard rock and blues fan — he’s seen AC/DC twice, the first time back in Bon Scott days.  He and his coworkers Andreas and Karsten are even onto Airbourne already, and are also big fans of Joe Bonamassa!  (I got them in the end, though — they’d never heard of Bloodline.)

Between that and his penchant for driving up to 180 kph (or 110 mph) on the Autobahn, he gave my travel buddy and me adventures we never anticipated.  Thanks, Detlef!

…is almost universally superb.

And in reality, none of the people there sound like Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz.  But in my head, all of them do.

I’m no international traveler.  But work took me over to Deutschland (Hamburg, specifically), with travels to points in the north of the country and a fifteen-minute dash through southern Denmark, plus stops in Amsterdam traveling both ways.

So my next few posts will be about that.  I landed back in the good ol’ USA just three hours ago.  It’s mighty good to be home with my sweet wife and crazy boys.