Sunset in Manhattan, Sunrise in Seoul.

17 hours ago I was in a Manhattan-bound rental car with the rest of the weekend traffic heading into the City and now I'm watching the morning attempt to catch up with my jet lag from the glass-walled top floor of a Seoul hotel. Another sign of different place and different time is that along with my black coffee, I'm having kim-chee mandu for breakfast, in jeans and a sweatshirt smelling like the inside of an airplane.

Beside me on the plane was an electrical contractor turned missionary named Steve who was on his way to install an array of solar panels to power a newly constructed church in Tanzania. He has made it his life's work to bring solar power to developing countries (that and trying to convince his oldest son, a sophomore in college in Lansing, to reconsider a career in international business and pursue engineering instead.)

The day gets brighter as I type, at about the same rate as my coffee gets colder. How's that for a balanced breakfast?

As I have been afforded this traveling lifestyle, in the name of personal portable power (our marketing lingo for "batteries"), I know that such opportunities, like the take off and landing of a Boeing 767, don't last forever. So I'm packing as much into my suitcase of memories and experiences as much as I can(literally, as I hop onto a plane for Shenzhen in 4 hours). I collect observations (in addition to stealing hotel soap) on things that I have always rationalized to be true but had never gotten to witness firsthand.

Regardless of the currency exchange rates or the nationality of the bank that happens to be on the verge of failing today, people still get tired, people still get excited. People like hot meals (for the most part, unless we're talking Cold Stone or nyangmyun), people want a place to lay their head comfortably(whether they get Premier Deluxe Platinum Elite Hosh-Posh points for it or not), people want hot showers after 13 hour plane rides, people want to stay cool in the summer, warm and fuzzy in the winters. People still miss their family and loved ones. People still lose their tempers. People still laugh together running through the rain with broken umbrellas. People shriek together while sprinting through airport terminals after spilling entire bags of Skittles like a confectioner's version of Spy Hunter.

Yesterday's Financial Times had its own share of grey-clouded gloominess: unemployment is getting worse, companies are getting devalued, many of us are still at war (personally or nationally). Just scan the front page of any newspaper (for those newspapers that still exist, anyway). Not necessarily the picture of greatness or unchecked prosperity.

But for those of us who are holding on with white-knuckles to the opportunities that they still fortunately have in the face of crippled travel budgets, seeing the world from 30,000 feet (or 9 km), provides a bit of introspective cloud time. I accept the fact that things may get worse before they get better. I accept the fact that my 401(k) will continue to vaporize. I accept that fact that one day people will stop buying toothpaste and detergent and batteries and I'll be out of a job.

I expect that my luggage will get lost again at least three more times this year and that my computer will crash and I'll lose three month's worth of lab data. I know that if I don't get in more preparation for my state engineering licensure exam in the spring, that I will absolutely lose my Cheerios on test day.

But the economy is cyclical. Just like baggage claim belts are cyclical.

Hemingway was right that the sun also rises for all of us despite our unpredictable, adverse surroundings--eventually anyway. We just have to stay awake long enough.

Just keep your nose down and chin up.

Solar power is here for all of us, even if you have to fly to another time zone to get first dibs.