The Big Sleep
No sane person would take a red-eye flight but it was January and I was headed to Minnesota. I planned to board the plane at LAX around midnight, catch a bit of sleep during the 4-hour flight and show up at the client, Select Comfort, before 8:00 a.m. their time. Granted it was a brutal way to travel but it eliminated at least a half day being exposed to Minnesota weather. I looked for ways to cut short any trip to the twin cites since my first visit five years earlier when the client was an iron ore mine near Duluth on the shores of Lake Superior. It was mid-April and the day I arrived was the first time in over 100 consecutive days that the temperature in Duluth would reach above freezing. I pulled into the company parking lot after driving three hours due north from Minneapolis, got out of the rental car and was immediately bitten on the neck by the first mosquito of the season. A year in Minnesota consists of an 8-month winter, worse than that of Alaska, followed b