Travel

Travel Day

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Today was a travel day to Kingston. Dan and I went up there for several reasons. He wasn’t looking good. He had a cold or something. I told him that if I got sick since I sat next to him on the train that I would have to hurt him.

The day was busy. We headed back to the city around 4:30. The 5pm train we were aiming for was late and the 4pm train was late also. Since we got to the train early for the 5, and late for the 4, the 4pm train arrived a few minutes after we got to the station. Train math gets me dizzy too.

Dan and I sat in the cafe car and drank. I didn’t know they had a nice selection of alcohol. I had some Jack Daniel’s and Coke. The trip went by fast.

A bunch of people got together for Jim’s next to last night in NYC before flying out. I got back too late, and I was tired so I passed and went home to relax.

I Am Back, Did You Miss Me?

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I am back from my 2 day (actually 26 hour) trip. I went away to do some overnight work for work. I cannot discuss it. it has been deemed top secret. What I can discuss is below.

Amtrak is good, but they are starting to slowly piss me off. Their vending machines for tickets wigged out on me. Then the train Jay and I were going to take got canceled. At least we got to eat Nathan’s while we waited for the next train.

I like Ruby Tuesdays, but I am beginning to make a list of food I won’t eat there again. When I goto my companies other office I usually go out to lunch (or dinner) with guys from my team. Almost always we goto Tuesdays. So far the appetizer sampler is on the do not order again list. As of last night the Buffalo chicken tenders are also on that list.

Other good news is that the Holiday Inn I normally stay in when I travel now offers Wifi! Jayson said it was free. I didn’t get back to the hotel till after 2AM so I never actually tried it out, but next time I will.

All in all a good trip. How do I know? I got some sleep!!!

Road Trip, to Walmart?

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Jayson, Gretchen & I drove up to the Walmart in Monroe today. It is about an hour drive, but it is worth it for cheap everything. We borrowed his dad’s car. We are not kids anymore but living in Manhattan gets us to borrow our parents wheels again. I spent way too much. Dam impulse buy of expensive electric razor. Stocked up on frozen foods, cleaning supplies, paper goods, garbage bags, etc. You name it we probably bought it. Don’t forget the real popcorn butter. Now I am going to need bigger paints after I eat all this stuff.

Jayson said I was like a cat on catnip in the store. There was just so much to get. he can make fun all he wants since Gretchen and him went twice already recently on this trip. I for one had not been to Walmart, or any really good grocery store since I moved back to NY in 2000.

The high point might be the find of a $6.54 for a toaster. Jenn if you read this, you would be proud of that deal! Of course the $150 razor probably cancels out the savings on the toaster, but I had been thinking about this razor for a while. Now in 2-3 weeks I will have nice close shaves, with no razor clips to buy anymore!

I do have to say that this Walmart had all the nice stuff that I remember from the Baton Rouge Walmart, but fending for ourselves for carts, and the sitting down greeter really ruined the ambiance. Just kidding, that actually happened but it was a good day so I won’t ruin it with bad comments about little things. Even gas was cheap. Go New Jersey with your really weird fuel rules.

Now that I am stocked up I should be good for a few months. I figure a fresh direct order is in the works on about a month or so to restock some food. Other than that I am good.

The Long Travel Day

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I woke up at 6AM today.  Almost a good 2 hours earlier than normal.  Am I stupid you may be asking?  Well, yes in a way.  I went up to our Kingston office today.  I had 4 things to take care of.  As with any Kingston trip I am lucky to get anything I plan on doing done, since other stuff always comes up.  This trip I wanted to get 2 interviews done.  I wanted to sit with Kai and Brian about DNS modifications.  Then I wanted to work out some on call paging issues.  Lastly I wanted to meet with Craig and Kai about some email issues.  Actually when I look at all the stuff I needed to do I got 3 out of 4 of them done.  I cannot really count meeting with Craig since when I was in Kingston he was in NYC.  The other tasks were actually completed.  So I feel good that I had a productive day, even though I don‚Äôt feel productive.

The trip up was longer than expected.  Track work slowed the train trip down.  Then I got to the station and there was no taxi‚Äôs.  Kai had to come get me.  At least I rate enough to have someone come get me

I am offline now writing this entry on my way back home.  This trip is going slow also.  I assume track work.  To guarantee a seat I paid the extra $9 for a business class seat.  I got lucky.  This train has newly renovated seats.  These seats rock.  They have leg and foot rests.  Almost as nice as the automatic seats on Delta Biz elite.   If my treo could take low light photos I would have gotten a shot of them.

The interviews went well.  I was (still am) looking for a good support candidate in Kingston.  Both guys I spoke with seemed smart, but had very limited experience.  Now I find out that someone I know very well is looking to relocate and is very interested in the position.  I think this person would be perfect for the job.  The only problem is he would not be able to start till January.  I need to have Kai tech him out and see how smart he thinks he is.  This is another case of someone I would never believe would be willing to move, stand up and say I would do that.  Hey I want to move.  If jayson can surprise me, why can‚Äôt other people?  I want to be impartial so I will send Kai the resume and see if things work out.

Cisco Executive Briefing

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It sounds fancier than it was. Gus, Dave, Kai, and I went up to Cisco Systems Executive Briefing Center outside of Boston. We were getting the overview of their IPCC product from all the product managers and engineers working on the system. First off I will say I think the trip was worth it. I think there were some issues still unresolved by some of our team, that I think Cisco was able to handle.

We got up to Boston by noonish. Our account manager and his boss picked Gus and I up from the train and we drove the 40 minutes to the site. it is a nice new campus. We ate lunch, which was surprisingly good. Normally this sort of stuff is not what I consider good food. They had nice chicken dish with stuffing and potatoes. I was stuffed for hours after that. We meet a VP of sales or something who came down to make sure we were getting treated right. I am not sure what Gus said to whoever at Cisco but around August they started treating us really nice. Far better than I would expect from a company our size. Granted we do some advanced stuff for a company our size, but it is weird when the #3 guy or so at Cisco stops by your office for a meeting. I will say that Cisco is very responsive to questions or problems. Some of my / Gus’ comments have reached high levels. it showed with the presentation.

We got a really good overview of their IPCC product. I think Dave was pleased with what he saw. I was. I also got to see some nice warez from them. We checked out the color VOIP phone. Gus and I also test drove the video conference functionality of Call Manager 4.1. I even got to see the long rumored VOIP WiFi cordless phone. It was so cool. I want one for my house, but a practical deployment of it would be for the supervisors in the call center when we have 2 floors to cover. Check out the MOB for some of the really cool tech we saw. No pictures of the video conference system we used. Just trust me that it was way cool.

We had a long fact filled day. Then we rushed off to catch a late train. We made it to the station with 15 minutes to spare. I decided to upgrade to First Class. I figured I wanted good service one time, and I would pay for it out of my own pocket. I am on the train now. The seats are bigger. There are less people in the First Class car. I also got dinner and free drinks. The food is MUCH better than Biz class. I had a steak with potato’s, with chrem brule. I cannot spell it. I was not a fan of the desert anyway. I am sitting at a conference table for 4 by myself. It is roomy. I was hoping to take a nap, but I haven’t written a detailed blog entry for a while so I decided to take the time now. So was the upgrade worth the money? Probably not, but it is nice to get waited on and just relax sometimes. Amtrak for the money has the best upgrades. And that is saying allot since the Biz class on the Acela Express is nice as it is. Right now this is my favorite form of travel.

Another Week, Another Trip To Boston

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I am back on the Acela Express up to Boston today. Gus and I are on the 8:03 again. Dan couldn’t make it, so he bailed on us. David, and Kai are both driving and meeting us once we get up to the site. Today we are visiting the Cisco Customer Briefing Center. I have never been. I hear it is nice. 2 of our Cisco engineer’s are also on the train. I stopped and said hi to one of them.

I have been trying to (with mixed results) use my T610’s bluetooth connection to download email on my Powerbook. Not very reliable today. At least I have my blackberry with me. I got no movie watching done on the train. I just did work, and followed up on email. I have no life…

Road Trip 2

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Yesterday Gus, Dan, and I were off again on another road trip. This time one of our account rep’s drove us all down to Philly. We visited a cool client of theirs (names of vendor’s and clients are being obscured, sorry it is confusing to you). We checked out their ACD system and the phone system they use. I liked what I saw. it was a nice operation. I learned a bunch about the product we were looking at. Since we were in Philly I had a Philly Cheese Steak. it was good. I wanted a nap after it!

My problem was the really long drive there and back in the rain. I don’t like long car trips. I don’t mind the train or the plane as much.

I was also out of the office 3 days last week. I will be out again at least 2 days this up coming week. I am busy. That means jayson is over worked since he is alone (danny is helpful, but he has releases as his first priority). Then all the work I need to do is piling up for me when I return on monday.

After work I went back to Dan’s to hang out. Alyssa, Dari, and Jennifer came over also. I fixed his wifi point. Dan, DO NOT touch the dam point again. It didn’t take me that long, so no biggie. We hung out and played scatigories. I think that was the name. I won the first game, but sucked on the second game.

Road (Train) Trip

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Today I took a train trip with Dan, & Gus to the Boston area.  We visited a site that is running a call center software package that we are looking to buy.  It was a productive day, sort of.  We learned allot.  But I like doing, and not talking so I get bored sometimes doing this sort of stuff.  We did go over really cool stuff, so I was interested.

The travel was boring.  We took Amtrak’s Acela  Express to Boston.  I have taken the old meteorologic before but the Acela was nice.  At least I got to do some work for allot of the trip.  From NYC to the Boston area it was about 3:20 minutes.  We didn’t go to the end of the line though.  As Jayson put it today "I spent an hour less on the train than he worked all day".  Very true, unfortunately.

This was day 2 out of 3 that I was out of the office.  I stayed home yesterday from an overnight I did.  Today was travel, and tomorrow is more travel.  We are going to Philly to visit another site.  Tomorrow we are driving, or being driven down.  I would rather take the train, but Philly is closer than Boston.

More news about that trip after it happens…

Delta Airlines Sucks

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I hope they go bankrupt. I dare any Delta Airlines executive to email me and want to know why I dislike them. They hide behind their dumb-ass rules and even if there are extenuating circumstances they continue to screw the passengers. When did the customer become cattle, and no one care?

I got a response to my generally angry, but civilized email to them. They told me in the nicest way possible to go F myself. My account of the ordeal is here. If my company treated customers like I was treated (by supervisors and everything) we would be out of business. I am going to upload the letter I wrote (minus the date and flight number) and you tell me if situation I endured was not out of the ordinary enough to warrant some compensation.

I even had one moron of a rep tell me that it was my fault for not looking at the weather report before I went to the airport. This is after I told him that I asked the delta ticket agent at the airport if everything was fine. I even volunteered to not fly if the weather was questionable. I was assured things looked fine. Their response was weather shifts and things change minute by minute. How the hell do you go from no real delays to massive hurricane closing airport in 2 hours with out anyone realizing that it will happen?

My goal of getting back the points and / or getting a free ticket to compensate me for my messed up ticket is looking bleak right now. My last resort is to write to the corporate office, and plead my case. They will most likely be assholes like the rest of their company and say nothing, but it is worth a try.