Tuesday, June 27, 2006

Still In The District

I had great plans for the day. I was going to go out on several customer visits, and maybe even get some sightseeing in during the evening. Unfortunately, I couldn't do either today. I've upgraded from Dayquil to Advil Cold Medicine, and I've got two other meds with me to pull me back into the land of the living before my flight back home tomorrow morning. I've got to get better before my next trip on Saturday morning, at least. I'm still doing conference calls. Ok, I'm calling from bed, but the people at the other end of the phone can't tell. Anyhow, I've got one more to go, and then I can go back to sleeping this off... Later.

Saturday, June 24, 2006

In The District

These field reports are starting to get a bit rare. I'm reporting from within the beltway. Yes, I'm actually staying in the District. You know, Washington, DC. That's right. I'm back to my old habits. I've probably overextended myself again, and am living on that miracle drug, Dayquil. I decided to try to get back in training again, and overdid it before I got on the plane. I always seem to have that bad habit of forgetting that I'm not eighteen any more. Anyhow, I'm here until Wednesday morning, and back for a couple of days at home before I leave again for Hawaii. I am one of many people in my group from San Diego at this conference in DC. It was strange that we all seemed to take different routes to get here, and we all seem to have different disaster stories of how we all got here. One person connected in Los Angeles, another in Atlanta, someone else in Chicago, yet another in Cincinnati, and someone went through Phoenix. Just about everyone experienced some sort of flight delay. I connected in Dallas without any flight delay, but getting out of the airport was an adventure. Let's just say it involves a minivan and step ladder... Anyhow, this is a long update, so I'd better get some rest. After all, I should probably sleep this cold away. Later.

Sunday, June 18, 2006

Sleepless In Seattle ... The Next Generation

I'm winding down from my vacation. As always, I decided that I needed to make the most out of my vacation time, so I did a double vacation for the week. I met up with Jon in Buffalo, which was great, though I was spending the weekend in Pittsburgh. I think I spent more time in the car driving than I did with Jon and his girlfriend. It was about nine hours in the car for the day.

The rest of my vacation was spent in the Pacific Northwest. My young friend James and I were scouting colleges in Oregon and Washington. We were staying in Redmond near his friends, so the day trip into central Oregon took a little more than five-and-a-half hours each way. That was a bit exhausting, but we really had a great time. I really didn't get too much sleep throughout the week. After all, I was on vacation, and why waste it sleeping the night away? I had a lot of stuff to do, and James had a lot of stuff going on with his friends, so we both had a great time. I think we both want to go back in the not too distant future.

It's back to work for me tomorrow. At least I've got another journey into Washington ahead. Only this time, it's Washington, DC, on Friday.

Later.

Thursday, June 08, 2006

Those Pesky Delays

I spent the day in Philadelphia, and caught what I thought was a quick flight into Pittsburgh. Well, I guess I should have rethought my travels. It seems that the weather just was not cooperative today. First of all, traffic patterns were a little crazy in Philly today. For some reason, the town was trying to emulate Los Angeles. There was stop-and-go traffic on most of the freeways, apparently in the wrong direction, according to my colleague who was driving me around. Anyhow, I got to the airport in time, and managed to get to the gate without incident. However, we did manage to sit on the plane for many hours, in which it became obvious that it was likely much faster to drive over to Pittsburgh instead of being trapped in large metallic cylinder shaped like a big Tylenol capsule, or whatever the pill was in the movie Airplane. Ok, enough ranting for now. I've got a big day in Pittsburgh tomorrow, and then I'm taking the weekend off in Buffalo and Niagara Falls. Then I'm off to Seattle for a quick vacation. Later.