scott

Its Vacation Again

by

I am finished with work for the year. I am not traveling as far as I did earlier this month but I am glad to be off for another week and a half. I went into the office yesterday and today and wrapped up a bunch of stuff. Unfortunately some other things just couldn’t be finished because of other peoples vacation schedules. I kinda knew that was going to be the case but I tried to cram as much stuff into the 3 days I was working this week as I could.

Now I am off to focus on what to do this vacation. I still have a few days of nothing planned. Right now that is good and bad! I am going try to get some relaxing in this week.

Back To Work

by

I am back at work for the first time since the 10th. I spent most of the day catching up on the 667 emails that had piled up. I was actually surprised there wasn’t more mail. I was also pleasantly surprised that it only took me the 1 day to catch up. It is hard getting back into the work mode since I am only working till Wednesday and then I am off again until the 4th of January.

Thankfully after lunch RCN came and fixed my Cable Modem. It took the guy 5 minutes to come in and look at it and say you need a new modem. 5 more minutes later I had a new one and it was working fine. I am glad it was something simple, and that my VPN is working much faster now.

Bad RCN

by

As predicted RCN was unable to come out to repair my cable modem after the blizzard. I don’t fault them for that. It was nasty out. What I do fault them for is the 3 phone calls to them checking on the service call and being told first that yes they would show up in the window the originally told me. Then the second person told me things are running slow due to weather and they would check with dispatch and get back to me. They never did. The 3rd person was good and was checked and said no one was working on repairs today and they would schedule a call for tomorrow. They were baffled by the other peoples comments. They claim that someone would look into the incident. I hold no hopes that the will actually do that. I am just happy they claim that someone will be out around lunch time tomorrow to fix my modem.

The Mifi isn’t the fastest thing int he world but I can browse the web and check main just fine on it. It gets a bit slow when using the VPN for work.

Technical Difficulties

by

My luck wasn’t going very well this weekend. I got home and started settling in and suddenly my cable modem died on me. That was the final straw on my decision to get a MiFi. Before being stranded in the Bahamas I was pondering the wireless broadband device the Novatel MiFi. After the day in the Bahamas airport I really wanted one even though I knew that it wouldn’t have worked in the Bahamas. When the cable went out I decided to head out to Manhattan before it started snowing to pick up one of the nifty devices. I didn’t want to spend an unknown amount of days in a blizzard without internet. I am brave, but not that brave.

Thankfully the store was empty and I was in and out in 20 minutes. Let me tell you the Mifi is really easy to setup and it works exactly as advertised. RCN claims they will be out tomorrow morning to look at my Modem but I tend to doubt it since it is still snowing.

Finally Home

by

The trip home today was uneventful compared to yesterday. I didn’t wait for the shuttle buses that Jetblue was going to provide since I didn’t want to get stuck in a huge crowd so I grabbed a cab to the airport on my own dime. That choose was worth it. I got my ticket in 5 minutes, and was glad I got a head start on the customs line that was pretty long. We got out of the Bahamas without any other incident. We landed in NY a few hours before the storm started. I was thankful to be home even though I enjoyed my vacations.

Looking back on the incidents of yesterday I can say obviously no one likes being stranded. Jetblue did the right thing by putting us all up for the night, but overall the entire process was horrible. There was very little to no communication about what was going on. It looked like Jetblue staff wasn’t communicating to each other because no one had the entire picture of what was going on. In the end things worked out but during the entire situation it was frustrating not know what was going on. So they get mixed grade overall.

Groundhog Day

by

My return trip home was not as uneventful as the other legs of my trip this week. Actually so far it has been a disaster. I got to the airport over two hours in advance like the resort and the airline suggested. I got through customs and security pretty quick, even if security had me take my belt off and swapped my entire bag. The lines werent horrible. Then I sat. There was no free wifi like the Jetblue site suggested there was and I couldn’t get the pay WIFI point to take any of my credit cards.

This is where the fun began. My flight got delayed. At first just an hour. Then that hour past and a flight that was supposed to leave at 2:10 got moved to 6PM. They claimed that they needed a part from NY that they had to fly in. This would have been ok if there was a place to eat (I don’t count a skeevy cafeteria that only looked like it had fried chicken and rice) and the fact that they are doing construction in the small terminal. That mean drilling and other loud banging sounds all day. Top off the no WIFI, power outlets, and the terminal was packed. it was not pleasant. Then we hear the flight was canceled. There would be no flight until tomorrow morning.

Thankfully they put us up at a decent hotel. Unfortunately getting to the hotel was not fun. First we had to wait on line to get travel vouchers. Then we had to wait for luggage while the bus drivers waited to take us to the hotel. For about an hour no one knew what was going on. Then the luggage shows up and we have to claim it, then put it on a van for the hotel. Thankfully I got a seat on one of the first bus’s. Then it was waiting at the hotel for a room. Thankfully again I walk fast and actually got to the head of the line for rooms. I have been in this situation before and kinda knew what to do. After a wait for my luggage to show up I headed to dinner.

There was a decent steakhouse in the hotel so I went there and had a nice filet. Half of it was paid for by Jetblue. On the plus side at the restaurant there was an acapella group from stanford that held a small performance for the guests. It was pretty good and something nice to break up the crazy day.

My luck didn’t hold out and I walked out of dinner without my Kindle. I didn’t realize it until I was back at my room. I ran back to the restaurant and thankfully the waiter found it and held onto it. That would have been really bad if that was lost too.

I took a quick shower and am getting ready for bed now since I need to be up at 4:30AM to catch my flight. Apparently Jetblue is flying out a plane for us and we can leave tomorrow morning. I am not happy about the events of today, but in context it could have been (and still may become) much worse. Right now I am worried that we may be delayed again and have problems getting into NYC since a storm is supposed to be on its way. We shall see what happens. Right now I am thankful I have an extra change of clothes for tomorrow.

No one likes being stranded. Jetblue did the right thing by putting us all up for the night, but overall the entire process was horrible. There was very little to no communication about what was going on. It looked like Jetblue staff wasn’t communicating to each other because no one had the entire picture of what was going on. In the end things worked out but during the entire situation it was frustrating not know what was going on.

Off To The Bahamas

by

Today I was off to the Bahamas. I thought long and hard about this trip but in the end I decided to head out on vacation by myself for a few days. I didn’t really want to but timing, funding, and other issues prevented anyone I wanted to travel with from being able to actually going. SInce I hadn’t had a real going away to a resort vacation in years (around 4) I figured what the heck. So here I am sitting at Atlantis in the Bahamas.

The flight down was ok. There was a slight delay due to a flat tire. That made us lose an hour. The seat was nice. I am glad I paid a bit extra for the extra leg room. I would do that again if given the chance. I don’t like the charge, but the space is nice.

I just got back from a deep tissue massage and dinner. Man the massage hurt. I seriously needed it but I have never done a deep tissue one before. You really get beaten up.

For dinner I hit the steakhouse. The food was really good, but really over priced. I was a bit saddened that they only had 12 year old scotch. For a fancy place you should carry better stuff. I stuck with Jack and Coke instead. Can’t go wrong with Jack.

Tomorrow I look forward to doing pretty much nothing. The joys of vacation. In fact I am doing so little that these posts will most likely get post dated since they wont make it online until after I get back!

Lull Day

by

Today is my day of rest between my first scheduled vacation and my second. With the delays yesterday I am glad I baked in a day to relax. I thought I would have to do my laundry today but it turned out I had exactly enough clothes to go on my second trip. I will have to do laundry when I get back. I didn’t do much today.

I was going to head into the city for a bit but the weather wasn’t too hot and I was tired, so I just cleaned up around my apartment and relaxed. I also had to re-pack for my next trip. Otherwise not an eventful day.

On The Way Home…

by

Getting home from Baton Rouge was much more eventful than the trip out. My flight out of BTR was delayed about an hour due to weather in Atlanta. I would have missed my connection if it wasn’t for the fact that the ATL to NY flight was also delayed a lot. I ended up having about an hour to kill between flights. The last leg back to NY wasn’t so fun. It was a full flight and there were two not horrible but not silent kids in the rows behind me.

The cab lines were huge but thankfully didn’t take forever. I am just glad to be home, even if it is for only a little more than 24 hours.

On The Third Dav of Vacation…

by

Saturday it rained. It wasn’t a typical southern rain. It didn’t rain for a few minutes and be over. It rained all day. We were pondering making the drive to New Orleans but the rain totally ended those plans. Instead we went to the shooting range. I had only gone shooting once before at Gretchen’s dad’s place but this was my first time at a real range.

Joe and Chris brought an assortment of weapons. Some would say a small arsenal. Others would say they were not waiting in the car while they went and got a few things from a store (that someone was me). We were only kidding but Joe loads up.

I got to fire a 45 and a 9mm. I even got to use a laser sight. For someone with as poor vision as I do, I (and everyone else) was amazed that I wasn’t a half bad shot. I naturally aim a bit high but with practice that I wont get I could compensate for that. I wasn’t as impressed with the laser sight as I thought I would be.

After the range we headed back to Joe’s place to relax for a bit, and then we went out to a really nice dinner. Joe and Karen (mainly Joe) does know how to find nice places, and I am amazed that the staff knew him! The meal was great. Afterward Chris headed off to a bar, but I was tired so I headed back to the house with Joe and Karen.

What was funny was Karen was prodding Joe to find stuff for us to do so I wouldn’t be bored. The fact is what we did do was inline with exactly what I was looking for. Minor activities, but nothing too crazy. I even got to goto Waffle House for Breakfast this morning! Vacation was almost perfect! Points were lost for the weather.