Bidness Travel
Day 2927
So I’m on a business trip, right? Made my plane reservations last Thursday – as late as I dared wait. Got a direct flight from Rochester to Detroit at 6:40 am. Sweet!
On a what, 50 seat CRJ200? Delta overbooked by 3 seats. I wasn’t offered a boarding pass when I booked the flight which should have been my warning. Lucky for me, 3 people accepted the proffered carrot – $400 in flight vouchers. I ended up being the next to last person to board.
So. Detroit – got there pretty much on time. 75% of the flight was over Canada – go look that up! Pretty odd – a small part of Canada is south of Rochester.
Anyhow. After a 15 minute hike through the airport I got to the rental car shuttle. As it was pouring rain, I grabbed the first car in my size that I came across. Wouldn’t you know I got a car with New York plates? At least it provides an excuse for looking like I don’t know where I’m going.
Trip is going well, got unfettered access to the machine I was to inspect for long enough to get a good feel for it. Now I get to write the report and incorporate the photos I took. The company that did the mods has a wee bit of a challenge ahead of them.
Best news of the day? I’m fling home a day early and won’t miss golf Wednesday night. Golf I shouldn’t be playing till after my MRI Thursday. But heck, it doesn’t hurt to golf, and my arm has improved over the last few weeks – even with golfing. Of course, next week is bowling. Wonder if I’ve run into the thing that will finally slow me down?
Ah, well. Reports to write.
I’ve been (almost) everywhere
Day 28xx
Just the other day, for no particular reason I had an odd realization. Well, I’ve had several recently, but I’m only gonna tell you about this one, for now.
We’re all familiar with this countries wonderful interstate system, right? I realized the other day that I have actually been on 3 of the 4 remote intersections of the interstates.
Several times in the late 70′s and once or twice in 1980 I’d driven through the intersections (interchanges I guess) of I-5 and I-90 outside Seattle. Twice in an Army deuce and a half. Fun trip that was.
Once in the late 80′s I drove through the I-95 and I-10 intersection in Jacksonville. After that trip, we always took A1A around the city.
More recently I had the opportunity to cruise the I95/I90 interchange in Boston. Parts of this are underground I believe. Not a lot to see there.
That leaves only the I-5/I10 interchange, someplace near LS, right? Trust me, I’m not in a hurry to get there, especially in a deuce.
Just made reservations to hit up New Orleans again this October. As ever, we will be staying right in the French Quarter – but well east of the debauchery that is the west end of Bourbon St. We’ll be back at the Bourbon Orleans, where if you make a wrong turn on Bourbon St you’ll end up at a gay bar. Always wondered why there were no seats on the bar stools there . . .
Actually we like it because of it’s proximity to Cafe Du Monde, Frenchman St, the shopping in the French Market or along Royal St. All those fancy pants places on Canal St? Too far from the fun.
If you can get to NOLA the first weekend of October, join us at Pat O’Briens where we’ll be chillin watching the Saints game on the big screen, outdoors sipping a hurricane.
Can’t wait.
Catching up (Again)
Day 2767
Yes, again. Spent the last week out towards Boston (Lowell & Chelmsford if anybody knows the difference) taking a seminar for work. That was a 3+ day data dump that I fear has left some gray matter dripping out of my ear. Also drove solo both ways (6 hours Google maps – NOT 7!!!) Helps when you make one stop for bladder break – lunch – gas tank and can wrap up your off road bidness in under 20 minutes.
Then, THEN we’ve had the most gorgeous weather around here the last few days! A whole string of 70+ degree days in March up here in the tundra! One day, when I finally gave up on growing apples and was taking down my two apple trees (in the interest of trying to grow grass in that corner of the yard) I had to stop and swat a mosquito. In March! In the tundra!
Ok – so it’s not a tundra here. At least not this year. For the record we’ve had maybe 60 inches of snow total for the winter. Paltry. Barely half normal. But I’m not putting the snowblower away juuuuusssst yet – nope. Mother nature has a way of bitch slapping you back into reality if you pull a stunt like that. April 1, no sooner. No matter how wimpy the winter was.
Now that I’m back from Boston (Lowell/Chelmsford) my EPC (Engineering Program Coordinator), whom I actually met in Boston last week (cuz she works there with 40 or so of my fellow employees) want’s me to go to Connecticut to do a job. Someplace down near Danbury – with no flippin airport nearby, so it’s be another 6 hour one way drive for a weeks worth of work. Work buys the mileage, but another trip so soon? Why not send me to New Orleans this fall? Oh – right, I’d have to work. How the heck can you do that in New Orleans?
Oh – the grandbaby! Coming up on 4 months old. She’s getting a personality and a voice! Even though she isn’t actually saying anything sensible, you get the feeling she understands the concept of a conversation – she babbles, you say something back to her, she babbles some more – great way to spend an afternoon. Everybody should try it!
Gotta run. My 164 page report needs to have all the data appended to it. It’s going to finish at over 200 pages, plus an attachment for photos, manuals, prior testing – thank heavens it’s all electronic. Poor trees!
What travel problems?
Day 2290
Travel to & from New Orleans went without a hitch. Got to our home airport about 5:30am and hit the long term parking garage. Checked in, checked our bags, made it through security in about 20 minutes. No one asked to feel me up, no one asked about body scans, it was pretty much business as usual. The line for security looked long (hell, it WAS long) but it moved pretty quickly. I’m happy to report that in conservative little Rochester, no one was staging any boycott of the body scanners. If we even have them. I know we do metal detectors, random people get put through a sniffer and out luggage gets x-rayed – but I’m not aware of any body scanning.
We left Rochester on-time (7:00) and made it to Philly a little early. Even the Philly airport looked a bit quiet, but we just accepted it and moved along.
Really, our flights Wednesday morning full & were on time & airport traffic wasn’t bad. On the way back Sunday evening again our flights were full, but they ran on-time – even through Dulles.
In between the flying, the trip went just as well. It’s interesting visiting a place for the second time. Felt like we were able to hit the ground running. Got all the touristy stuff out of the way the first time, now we could settle into what really interested us.
We heard more music this trip than I’ve heard in a 4 day period ever. Saturday alone we hit up a Blues joint (Blue Nile), a jazz club (dba) and of course got in some Zydeco on Bourbon St. The Bayou Club on Bourbon was kind of a dive, and they really only cycled through the same 4 or 5 bands all weekend, but how can you not like Zydeco? The musicians there were also VERY good at engaging the crowd.
I think it was out first night in town, we were out carousing along Bourbon, poking in & out of clubs listening to the rock cover band. We were settled into a place called The Famous Door (I think), listening to a pretty good cover band. I noticed girls wandering around with racks of what looked like test tubes containing various brightly colored liquids. Turns ut these girls were trying to sell shots at $3 a whack. Hurricanes, Sex on the Beach, something blue, something clear – all kinds of stuff. One of the ‘friendlier’ girls actually paused in front of me, put her hand on my chest and pinched my nipple as she was asking me if I wanted a shot. Then she turned to Cindy and started rubbing up against her leg, asking if Cindy wanted a shot too.
That’s the kind of frisking we need in the airports.
Anyhow. In spite of being sexually molested by a girl young enough to be my daughter (THAT’s creepy right there!), I (we) turned down her offers of the shots. Which was kinda too bad, because I was noticing how she served them. Probably a good thing I was there with my wife is all I’m saying.
Only hit 1 repeat restaurant (but WHY Bubba Gumps?) from our first trip (Cafe Du Monde does NOT count as a repeat). Have another batch of 200 some pictures. Over the net few days I’ll winnow through them and post some of the better and/or more interesting shots.
Lots more to say about the trip, but I really need to get caught up on work. Later!
