Until then…

We left on Friday morning, and quickly jumped onto the interstate for the ride down. While the rest of the car was chatting and having a grand ol’ time, I was trying to work on a project for my job, which wasn’t as productive as I had hoped for.

As we worked our way through Missouri, we stopped in Springfield to meet one of my dad’s brothers and his wife for lunch. We had a nice, but brief, visit with them at the Golden Corral, and then got back in the car to knock out the rest of the drive.

Somewhere around 11pm, we finally pulled up in front of my brother’s house and it wasn’t a moment too soon. I’m definitely not a huge fan of such long drives… My sister-in-law had a bunch of family in town, too, so she and the baby were over visiting with them for a while after we arrived. We, of course, waited for her to get home so we could see the baby that night, and our excitement provided sufficient energy to keep us up well past 1:30am after the ladies returned home. We passed my niece around the room, and finally called it a night.

We all slept WAY in on Saturday morning, but then got up and made some breakfast, and continued to pass the baby around . What ELSE are you supposed to do in that situation?

For the remainder of Saturday, we really just enjoyed each other’s company and hung out. I became the official driver, so I drove around to various places and eventually took my mom and sister to a mall for some gift shopping. i don’t really think that this mall was anything special to the locals, but it was 100 times better than anything we have near my own home. It was a more traditional mall, whith all of the storefronts on the IN-side, but it had such a good variety of stores that it put most malls to shame. I’m not a huge fan of shopping malls, but I AM a fan of this one.

My dining habits were not the most consistent; for example, at 10pm on Saturday, I took one of my brothers with me to get a burrito from Chipotle and a burger from Whataburger. Why? Well, ’cause I wanted both and didn’t want to compromise. I may not have mentioned this previously, but I’m a complete Chipotle addict, and this visit was just as amazing as any other. As for Whataburger, it was my first visit/taste, and it is definitely something that I’ll have again if I can. It wasn’t the most amazing burger in the world, but it was definitely tasty and well-worth the trip.

Sunday was a very lazy morning. We needed to be at church at about 1pm, but we were all up by 7:30 or so. We lounged about, passed the kid around, and talked and laughed with each other. At church, we were joined by my sister-in-law’s family and a few of their friends. Most notably, the amazing, funny, and amazingLY funny WhiteEyebrows was present. (Yes, that was a shameless shout-out.) After church, the whole clan raced over to my brother’s home for a late lunch. Unfortunately, though, WhiteEyebrows wasn’t able to join us… and he was missed by all. (Wow – a shout-out and a brown-nose all in the same paragraph )

We definitely enjoyed the company of the other family. They are a fun, lively group, and they are totally friendly. Good times, good times! After things settled down again, we got back into the ritual of passing the baby around, and that lasted for the rest of the evening (and actually into the wee hours of the morning).

Monday morning really just consisted of us getting ready to leave. My brother got up and cooked breakfast and my sister-in-law got the baby up for us to pass around once more. We got the van all loaded up, and we were off. It was so nice to visit, and we’ll be back down there as soon as we possibly can!

NOTE: I’ll post a few pictures of the baby when I get a chance… we probably have a hundred of ‘em!

So this week I was in Glastonbury, CT, which is extremely close to Hartford. So close, in fact, that we rarely make the distinction between the two when referring to the office that our company has here. But though we’re here with (more than) two cities to see, there really isn’t a whole lot to report.

Hartford is a really old city that doesn’t have a whole lot of “new” in it. It has been called the “insurance capitol” of the world, but even that isn’t accurate any more. We were here last year, and the only excitement we found was the not-so-good part of town. And by “not-so-good,” I mean that I slouched completely down in my seat so that I wouldn’t be seen by the people on the street. It was fairly frightening.

Glastonbury is across a river (not sure what it’s called) from Hartford, and is a really, really small, quaint town. There must be a city ordinance of some sort that is in place to preserve the historic, old feel of the town, ’cause even the CVS and Walgreens look like they have been here for a hundred years or more. It’s quite interesting.

So the first day wasn’t too exciting. The most fun came from wandering through ALL of O’Hare Int’l Airport in the morning while we endured our three hour layover. After we landed in Hartford, we hurried to get to the office and worked until the early evening. We found dinner near our hotel, and then relaxed in the jacuzzi for a while before going back to our rooms for the night.

The second day was just as uneventful. I’m not sure if it’s because I’m exhausted from travelling so dang much or what my problem is, but I wasn’t really in the mood to do much. We worked all day and went to dinner with the local office manager at a local favorite. The restaurant is known for it’s FRESH seafood (the lobster is held live in a tank in the lobby area until you order it), which isn’t my fave, but I had a salmon dish that was extremely tasty. One thing that I have noticed, though, is that people here in the Northeast really like their butter. I’m not talkin’ about margerine or butter-like spread. I mean the real, creamy butter that comes from cows. Since I don’t eat a lot of butter on a regular basis, the food has been quite heavy in my tummy — but it still tastes delicious! After dinner, I hung out in the pool and jacuzzi, and then watched some television until I fell asleep.

The third and final day of actual work seemed to take forever. We got to the office fairly early, and the morning dragged on. A couple people from the office wanted to take us out for lunch, so we went to a local burger joint, called Plan B Burger. This place was phenomonal! The lights above the tables were made from old meat hooks and some very interesting light bulbs, and yet the rest of the interior was very contemporary, complete with green-and-silver foil wallpaper. The food was even more amazing than the place, but it wasn’t much more than “burgers and fries.”

After another long afternoon, we finally got to leave the office for a bit of celebration. This was the last (working) day in the last office of this round of travels, so we decided to have more great food. We went to a steakhouse, called J.Gilbert’s, for dinner and then got some delicoius ice cream at a local favorite: Friendly’s.

We were then so hopped up on caffine and sugar that we were absolutely giddy, so we went back to the hotel, sat in the jacuzzi, watched some silly TV, and checked out the latest posts on FailBlog and GraphJam. We laughed until it hurt, and then retired to our rooms for the night.

Now, after a casual morning, filled with a nice, wandering drive though the state od Conneticut, we’re sitting in the airport waiting to fly home. And, upon my return, I don’t plan to leave town for any over-night excursions until September, which is totally awesome!

So the trip started off just fine, although I was responsible for my own rental car. This may not seem very substantial to the casual reader, but this ultimately meant that I wasn’t going to have my compatriot with me for the entire trip. It wasn’t that big of a deal, but I’m going to chalk that up as the first screw that was loose on this trip. We worked together in the first office for a couple days, but then one of our Network Admins and I switched to the second office for the remainder of the week. The work itself wasn’t too hard, but it boiled down to the people that were the problem.

The first office was usurpted by our company more than ten years ago, but it almost seems like the people there haven’t yet got the message. It reminds me of the joke-like stories of prehistoric wars where people fighting at remote battlefronts would keep fighting years and years after the war actually ended. Well, while there isn’t really a war, I kinda got the impression that some of the people still think that they work for their own company intead. Since we hail from the “home office,” there are occasional moments of animosity where the cold shoulders are on full display. I can’t say that I can blame them for it, but it definitely doesn’t make my job any easier.

The second office has always been “ours,” but the culture that exists there is ENTIRELY different than the first. The people in that office are so fun and lively and funny that I felt bad for having to keep them in line. They were an absolute blast.

Then there were two additional travellers with us: the guy and the gal. The guy is from the Network Administrators group, and he was brought along to be an extra set of hands and to share the experience with other people from our IT department. The gal is actually the person that I report to directly. While it was nice to have more help, there were monents when it seemed like having more people was actually a chore. I could go on and say more, but I’ll stop there.

Since we were trying to work in two different offices at the same time, I had dinner with different people almost every night. One night, my compatriot and I drove around for about an hour only to return to the area near the office/hotel to get food from the Waffle House. The next night we had dinner at a decent steakhouse. The following night was dinner from an up-scale sports bar and restaurant, where I apparently looked mad enough to get free dessert. I’m still not sure how that happened, but I didn’t complain about the delicious cheesecake that we didn’t have to buy. The following night was dinner at Benihana, which is a fun place to watch the Japanese guy cook your food directly in front of you. And, again, we got free dessert without saying anything bad or derrogatory. I can’t tell if I look mad all the time or if people think I look like an influential food critic. Regardless, I’m going to see if I can get this to work in more places.

Other than that, though, the trip was quite uneventful. Except for the part when they forgot, or neglected, to place our luggage on the plane for the return trip. We had a direct flight from Atlanta to Peoria, but our luggage apparently wasn’t scheduled to depart at the same time. Since it was the return flight, it wasn’t absolutely terrible for me, except that I wasn’t going to be home for more than 20 hours before driving to Columbus, so that did put me in a bit of a bind. Overall, though, it worked out okay. The luggage was delivered around 9am the next day, I made it to Columbus in good time, and I’ll not be returning to that particular airline for the remainder of my travels.

When I started this post, I didn’t realize how much I was going to have to type about. SO, because of the sheer amount of material, I’m going to break it up into a few posts.

But not before the story of the illegal cab ride into the city.

We landed at the LaGuardia airport before Noon today, and hurried down to get our luggage at the carosel. We weren’t really in a hurry, but we didn’t want to waste any time. We were already planning to get to Chipotle for lunch, so we were just trying to keep our priorities straight. After getting our luggage, we started walking out towards the line of cabs just outside of the airport. On the way out the door, a well-dressed (black) guy stopped us and asked us if we were looking for a taxi. Since we were pretty much cornered by this guy, we went ahead and entertained his question. He said that he would only charge us a flat rate to get to our hotel, as opposed to the variable rates of the NYC taxis, and that he would be driving us in a BMW. I’m not gonna lie – the thought of riding to the hotel in a friggin’ beamer was much more attractive than the thought of riding in one of those nasty yellow cabs. So, we went for it. Thinking back on it, I should have asked if he was licensed to drive a cab in NYC, but I didn’t think of that at the time.

So, we followed the guy to his car, which really was a nice BWM. He was very nice, very professional, and got us to the hotel quite safely and quickly. I never feared for my life while riding in this car. But, at the same time, I don’t know that he was entirely licensed to accept money for transporting people in the city. We didn’t ask questions, so we don’t know for sure, but it was still a bit awkward. Oh well. Live and learn, right?

So I was up in Chi-town last week - for work, of course. It was an okay trip, but it was missing something…

Our office is only about 2 blocks away from the Sears Tower, Union Station, and the Holiday Inn, so we were definitely in the heart of the action. And by “action,” I mean that we were able to dodge the sleeping bums on the sidewalk as we hoofed it from place to place.

The drive up to Chicago is not the most exciting, nor is the drive home. But I did manage to make it from our Peoria office to the Chicago office in exactly three hours – to the MINUTE! That takes talent, I swear.

During the trip I learned some interesting details about the two gents that I was travelling with. I won’t share any of them here at this time, just in case they are able to find this blog and get offended by my humble observations. I wasn’t travelling with my buddy this time, so it made the trip less bearable. In the long run, though, it all worked out.

The most exciting thing that we did was eat dinner at the House of Blues. If you’ve never been to one, I definitely recommend going at least once, even if it is just to be able to say “I’ve been there.” I must warn you, though, that there was a decent-sized black guy in the bathroom that was being paid (hourly + tips) to watch me do my business. Of course, he was actually waiting to assist me with washing my hands, refreshing my cologne (provided), and freshening up my breath with any of about fifty varieties of mints on a tray near the sink. I’m told that this is something quite common in Europe, but here in the ‘States we don’t typically get so inebriated that we are unable to wash our own hands after using the restroom…

Oh well… Off to Houston!

Actually, I was dreading the drive up here, but it wasn’t half as bad as I expected. I’d say more, but I’m afraid that I’ll jinx myself.

Over the weekend, I did a LOT of music searching, so I though I’d share a bit. This track was entirely created, performed, and produced by a guy that I met while on the Mish. He’s absolutely amazing. Have a hear:

Unclaimed by Fresh Big Mouf

 It all started with the delay in my flight from O’Hare to LAX, which was delayed by about an hour because the people before us couldn’t keep their lunch within themselves. The cabin crew had to do a real deep-clean before we were able to board, and then we had to be rescheduled into the departure line on the runway. It was awesome.

So after that part of the trip, things went okay. And by “okay” I mean totally nuts. It’s one thing to travel for work and have a certain list of items to address/resolve, but it’s entirely different when you are relying on coworkers to do part of the work and then have to go back and redo everything that they “did”. Did I mention that I love my job?

On Thursday morning (but only if you consider “before the light of day” to be morning), I woke up and turned on the TV to have some background noise while I got ready for the day. To my suprise, the news folks were reporting a fire in downtown LA, which meant that it was seriously only a few blocks away from my hotel. So I took pictures.

This was the pillar of smoke that I could barely see rising from the fire in the early dawn:

And this is the TV screen while the incident was being reported:

I can’t recall any other time that I was watching a news broadcast whtat was reporting a major incident that I was witnessing for myself at the same time. It was an interesting “first.”

Thursday night was already mentioned here (see “Official Report: Medusa Lounge”), so I don’t feel the need to say much more. The only exception is that I feel a need to find a similar lounge-type atmosphere close(r) to home. Oh, and one more thing. We left a gift in the LA office before we left:

Friday was no less interesting. We left the hotel at an exciting 5:30am to get to the airport for a 7:15 flight. That part was fine, except that I maintain the stance that there are TOO many people that don’t know how to get through airport security. Still. We’ve been in this lockdown-mode for almost a decade, and there are still rookies in front of me at every airport. The flight from LA to Chicago was fine, but then the flight from Chicago to P-town was cancelled. Not delayed — cancelled. So, luckily, the Admin Assistant at the office arranged for me to pick up a rental car, which was awesome, but then I waited for more than 90 minutes for my luggage to be redirected to the baggage claim there at O’Hare. It had already been moved to a different plane that was supposed to fly to Peoria much later in the evening, but I just wanted to get it, get the car, and get the heck home. After waiting that long, I ditched the idea of driving home WITH my luggage and accepted the option of just plain driving home.

Somewhere in the wait for luggage, my coworker/travel companion managed to pick up a 21-year-old girl who needed a ride to Peoria. It was interesting to hear her call her mom and friends and just say “I’m fine. I’m hitchhiking home with a couple of guys that I’ve never met before. I’ll see you soon!”. Sadly, I don’t know if she could have found two other guys that were more harmless that us, so I guess she lucked out. The remainder of the drive was entirely uneventful, though.

After we returned to Peoria, we went to the airport to see if, by some chance, our luggage had arrived there ahead of us. It was a long shot, but the remaining flights from Chicago to Peoria were all cancelled that eveining, so it was going to be until Saturday before we would get our stuff. We talked to the guy at the ticket counter, and he assured us that we would be able to pick up our luggage at the airport sometime during the day today. However, the airlines decided to deliver our belongings to us at our homes, instead. This would normally have been fine, even appreciated, but I wasn’t home when they came by. So, instead of calling me, they locked my luggage in the cab of my truck – with the keys inside. Genius. Absolutely genius. I then had to call Moms and have her stop by with a spare set of keys so that I could retrieve my luggage and start laundry.

So that was my week… Is anyone jealous?

Neither do I.

I stared at the baggage return conveyer belt for more than 90 minutes, and it never came. Oh well…

So, I’ve been travelling for work lately (with much more to come), and I wish that I had more time to enjoy the cities that I visit. Tonight, we walked around downtown Los Angeles, which really was neat, but we only had a couple of hours to spare so we didn’t see very much. Oh well… maybe next time…

On the flight out here, I was able to read an entire book from cover to cover. I was rather astonished at the speed of my reading, but I didn’t have any distractions so it was quite easy to do. The book was good, but it really made me think. It didn’t really challenge any of the ways that I think about life or anything substantial like that, but, rather, it was so realistic that I can’t decide how I really feel about it. I think I’ll read it again on the flight home so that I can form a better opinion about it. Maybe I’ll be able to post some thoughts about it after another go-around.