Travel

So Busy, Haven’t Posted

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If you read the next several posts you will see why I haven’t posted in the past few days. It has been crazy! I had all this stuff queueing up on the laptop since Monday. I will hopefully go back and post date these to when I actually wrote them, instead of when I post them. FYI, I do that secretly all the time. I just write this stuff on the train, and it is hard to post right away sometimes.

That is why allot of my posts bitch about amtrak or the LIRR. Just because I write about my current observations:)

Productive Day

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I had a really productive day in Kingston. Kai, Brian, and I met and got some due dates on a few projects done. I got a new project from Gus regarding upgrading our FTP system also. Fixed some issues in both offices, and answered a few trouble tickets.

It was one of those days where I worked and got allot out of the way, but it feels like I didn’t do very much. I know it is that way because I was in meetings and other planning sessions, but I still feel like I got no projects closer to completion.

I took Kai, & Brian out to an early dinner at Ruby Tuesday’s. Not many other places to go up there that will be good for most people. That is why we go there every time. I like the food so I don’t mind. It is no angelo & maxi’s or Outback for that matter, but it is ok. I am on the 5PM train out of Kingston (RHI) but it was an hour late so it left at 6PM. I was supposed to be on the 6PM train but it was also late. I didn’t want to wait so I got on whatever train showed up first going to NYC.

It will be a long day today. I won’t get into my apartment until 8:45PM the earliest if I am luck. Lets hope this train shows up when scheduled (7:40) so I can catch the 7:49 train to my apartment. The jury is still out on that one.

I was active (either physically or mentally) all day, so I was awake. Now sitting on the train I am finally getting tired from the work and allergy medication.

This blog entry was written while listening to Washin’ and Wonderin from the album “Nasty Little Thoughts” by Stroke 9

Vacation Planning

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I have to start looking at vacation places. I have my max amount of days I can accumulate. I haven’t been away since last June when I went to barbados with my family. I was thinking of taking a long weekend and going to New Orleans to visit Jayson. I wanted to go April 16 – 19, but the airfare was really expensive. I thought Jet blue’s prices were consistent. That they didn’t go up as the date of travel got closer. I was wrong. It was like $400 for a round trip ticket to New Orleans that weekend, but if I planned something in May it was $220. Delta who I also like to travel on wanted almost $300 and I would need to transfer in atlanta. Now the atlanta airport brings back memories of my travel days at Datastream but I would rather have a direct flight that was cheaper, and oh lets throw in some free TV while I am at it. Jet Blue I am sold.

I really do need to plan a real week long vacation. I have too many travel ideas. I can think of like 5 different places I want to goto. I need to pick one and go. Maybe this summer?

A Cold

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The down side of hanging out with Paula and Carrie in the van was I think I got their colds. I woke up sunday with a soar throat. Now today my nose is runny a bit and my throat hurts more. I took some tylonnol cold and I hope I will kick it.

I have been getting sick allot this winter. 2 flu’s, 1 relapse of the first flu. Like 3, now 4 colds. I am not happy.

I actually gave up and took a vitamin this morning. My vitamin of protest is the flinstone’s chewable. It is good for adults too, so I am taking them!!!

The Casino Trip

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So I made the casino trip. The trip is the reason why I haven’t blogged in a few days. I have been away and the only internet access that I had in the room was my mobile phone. I didn’t want to goto the biz center to use the internet.

The trip was fun. Thursday night we all ordered room service in Glenn’s suite and played a friendly round of texas hold-um. We took people who didn’t play poker and teamed them up with people who could play. Dean our company president and I were a team. I told him I don’t know how he does business deals, because he had no poker face what so ever! I had a ton of bad hands, but in the end I actually won. I got $200 to share with Dean. I took my $100 and went to the casino.

Dan showed me the basic’s of craps. It was allot easier to learn with a table in front of me. Keith had been trying to teach me for 2 weeks to no avail. What he taught me made it easier for dan to show the fundamentals.

My first time out playing craps I went up $70. By the second night a bad run at a more expensive table caused me to loose all my winnings and also the $200 from poker and other winnings. I ended up putting up a hundred of my own money to keep playing. I figured that I was going to have spent that money anyway, so why not. By 11PM on friday I was down to my last $15, then Carrie and Alyssa came along to the craps table.

One of the guys running the table convinced them both to put money down and play. Alyssa sort of ticked the guy off the day before when he was a dealer at poker so he was razzing her. Glad they both decided to play because my luck turned around and the next thing I knew I had all my initial money back and I was up $50. By the time I called it a night I was down $30 of my own money. It was my fault because after I lost all of my winnings I dipped back into my initial cash like I said I wouldn’t. All in all I had a great time.

I need to play craps again and get better at it. It was way more fun than black jack.

The Casino

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For the past few days my status regarding a trip we are taking to Foxwoods casino has been up in the air. Most of the management team of my company is going to celebrate a good year last year. Some of the Tech department cannot go since we are releasing a major product on friday morning. My role would be as backup in the event something went wrong with the infrastructure. Today Gus decided that I can go to the casino after all since I have a cell phone and the hotel has high speed internet. Gus and Bob will stay back in NYC and go up to the casino Friday afternoon.

This is good for me. With Gus gone I have one less good poker player to contend with on Thursday nights game we are scheduling!!!

I now have to go home and do laundry and then pack. We leave Thursday afternoon at 3PM.

People

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On a good day I am not a huge people person. If you know me you know what I am talking about. I don’t like large crowds. The problem is that I take mass transportation to go almost everywhere. I am currently on Amtrak coming back from my 2 days in Kingston. Well travel can be fun, and it can suck. It usually sucks more than it is fun. Why you may be asking I think that. Well the answer is people.

Not everyone sucks, I am not that much of a cynic. But lets take the people sitting by me on the train today. We got the loud guy with his friend sitting behind me. He is one of those guys who has to talk on a cell phone with his outside voice. he is retarded into thinking that if you have a bad cell signal yelling will make people understand you. When off the phone him and his friend just wont shut up and are really load.

Up one row from me I have teenage / college girl who won’t get off the cell phone. Thankfully it looks like she has bad cell service since she is spending half the time trying to make a call.

Then there is Jr HS girl in front of me that keeps getting up out of the seat and going someplace and then returning. Thankfully the seat has not yet hit my powerbook when she is getting up all the time.

Not all is bad. Others who are quiet and trying to peacefully spend the time are the 2 college guys on the other side of the isle from me, and the guy sitting next to me. We are all suffering in silence together.

Why is it people have no understanding that anything they do affects the people around them?

Not all is bad when traveling. On the way up yesterday I didn’t have much of a problem. The big deal is when goes bad, it goes bad in a big way!

I spoke too soon. Cell phone talking college girl just moved into the seat across from me since the two other guys got off at the last stop. Lets hope her service sucks the rest of the way back to NYC.

I am a hypocrite right now since I had a problem at work and Keith just called me. I need to call him back. But at least I had a legitimate reason to use the phone.

It is weird that I talk about this topic every time I am on the train home from kingston.

Travel Time

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As of right now I am planning a trip to our Kingston office for tomorrow and possibly friday. I say as of right now, because I say that allot and things sometimes change on their own.

I have to go and interview candidates for a helpdesk position we are trying to fill up there. Also have other work that needs to get done up there. We are in the middle of planning a new software build for all our desktops. We are also going to revise our security policy for users also. you have to be exact when doing this stuff or you get 80 users who cannot do anything because their security profile is messed up.

More news tomorrow if I do end up going…

Back From Kingston Again

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I am on the train back from Kingston, again. I went up for 2 days since we are short handed on the support side up there. I spent most of today interviewing people for a help-desk position. Yesterday was taken up by miscellaneous issues. I always try to bring up work from NYC when I goto kingston. And every time I do, I end up getting none of it done. This trip was no different.

The work keeps piling up. I hope to clean out my backlog tomorrow, if possible.

On the plus side, the posts from today were written on my new Powerbook on the train. I can once again blog while in transit!!!