So really, it was flying to Atlanta, but the history major in me leapt to Sherman’s march, and I felt like pissing off some Confederate sympathizers who might be reading, because that’s what we Damn Yankees are wont to do. So there.

In any case, when we last left the ongoing narrative of my life, I had arrived in Atlanta, and was eating breakfast at the hotel before heading into the Atlanta office for several days of workshops, requirements validation, and software testing. As the office didn’t require us until after lunch, my travel companion and I worked from our hotel rooms for the morning, then met up to grab some lunch at a busy shopping center nearby before heading over to the local office.

Upon arriving at the office, we retrieved our bags, finding them somewhat lighter. Seems both our laptops were missing, along with my companion’s brand new iphone. In spite of the extreme unlikeliness of us both forgetting our laptops and losing a phone (which we’d used earlier for GPS), we attempted to call the phone with mine (off – straight to voice mail) and returned to our hotels to confirm that, however unlikely it might be, that the computers weren’t there.

They weren’t. Laptops and phone were gone, stolen from a locked vehicle in a crowded parking lot adjacent to two busy restaurants. Welcome to Atlanta.

We both took this pretty well, considering (well, my travel buddy was rather distraught over the phone, understandably), and sort of feeling like we could use General Sherman marching through to burn buildings and bend some rails around trees in vengeance, we made reports to our security officers and the local police, who were quite pleasant and confirmed for us that the car was indeed locked (the lock was forced), thus absolving my companion, the driver and keeper of keys, of any lingering guilt, and obtained loaner machines from the local office to get us through the week.

Theft aside, though, it was a pleasant and productive trip. I was made to feel welcome by people who I’d never met in person (we all got along swimmingly, having spent hours on the phone together over the last several months), I felt useful and comfortable within the familiar embrace of the software development cycle process, was impressed by the way this particular project was being managed, and ended up sitting through the same briefings three times for different audiences, but ended up not minding too much because of the pleasant company.

Also, having posted a brief line of bitching to facebook, I ended up reconnecting with an old college friend in the area that I hadn’t seen in somethng like 18 years, who, through serendipitous circumstance, works about five minutes from where I was staying. We had a nice evening catching up over local brews and pretty good food at a local pub. Thanks, Erik, for the hospitality and local guide service – hopefully I can reciprocate the favor some time soon.

Otherwise, I didn’t really get to see that much of Atlanta (though it looks like I’ll be getting to know the area pretty well over the next year, between business travel and other potential commitments) due to work and various running about to address issues rising from the unfortunate theft of my employer’s property, but I did make the effort to see the one local landmark that every Atlanta resident, to the person, told me I had to see: The Big Chicken of Marietta, who was kind enough to pose for photographs: