Travel

On The Third Dav of Vacation…

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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.

Day 2

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Friday was low key. Joe, Karen, & Chris had to work. I slept in and thankfully slept off the drinking from Thursday. I didn’t drink a lot but for me after one or two I start to feel it the next day. Getting old stinks sometimes!

I went to Joe’s office. Hung out for a bit, they ordered lunch for us and some of his guys that were in the office. I then took a quick run on two jobs with him to just tag along. We got to drive around the wet and dreary Baton Rouge for a bit.

For dinner Joe grilled up some steaks from some place they order from a lot. They place seasoned everything in some special seasoning and sauce. It was really good, even if Joe did over grill the steaks.

After ward we played some xBox. I hadn’t played anyone on xBox in a while. I forgot how fun it is. I didn’t forget how bad I was at it though.

Vacation #1, Day #1

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Yesterday I was off to Baton Rouge, well I flew into Baton Rouge but am staying with Joe & Karen in Zachary. I hadn’t seen them since the wedding, and I haven’t visited in ages. So when I decided to burn off vacation days they were a logical choice to go hang out with for a few days.

My flights out were relatively uneventful. That is always good when dealing with the airlines. I am thankful for my Amex card and that it allows me access to the Delta lounges.

We hit the Chimes for dinner after I got picked up from the airport. I didn’t need anything fancy. I just wanted some fried sea food. I got it in the form of shrimp. We drank a bit and then headed back to Joe’s place.

We hung out and talked a lot longer than I thought. Joe and I (mainly Joe) had a few more rounds. It scares me how much a like Joe and I are in some ways.

Long Travel Day

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Today I went up to see Gretchen, Jayson, and baby Seth. It was a nice, if not short visit. I took the train up in the late morning and everyone met me at the station. We grabbed a quick lunch (including Seth) at a local pub/restaurant. Then we went back to their house to hang out. It was nice so we went into the pool. It was Seth’s first trip in the water. He seemed to like it. We hung out there for a while and then just relaxed at the house. It was a nice leisurely day with friends in the country.

I headed back early to goto a birthday party for my friend Luke. Typically the trip to Poughkeepsie is long enough to warrant staying over, but the last few times I have had plans. This time I should have stayed. I decided to spend the few extra bucks for an Amtrak train to Penn since the party was 2 blocks from Penn. Metro North would have required an additional two subway trains. Well Amtrak decided to not cooperate and the train was an hour and forty minutes late. The bad luck was that I just missed the previous Metro North train so I had to wait another 40 minutes for the next train.

By the time I got into Manhattan it was late and I was on the wrong side of the city. After prodding by Danny & Luke I said to heck with it and just went home. I was tired from the long day and I didn’t really want to trek over to the west side for a little while with people who were obviously drinking a decent amount.

What saved me from going insane was the mobile amtrak site, my iphone and my HP Mini Netbook I used on the train to watch movies.

Travel Day

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Today was an in the office day for me. Unfortunately the office in question was in NJ. I typically have a full day of meetings when I goto the NJ office on Thursdays. It is my only time to meet face to face with some people so the day is packed. Today was a bit different. For starters the entire afternoon was set aside for a certification meeting i had face to face with some people. Can’t really go into too much more details besides we had to review a long list of standards and processes. I still had two hours of other meetings in the morning. I brought lunch since we were supposed to work from 12 through 5pm. Thankfully we finished the items on the agenda after only around two hours. That left me the remainder of the afternoon to take care of other outstanding items I had. It was good to be able to catch up stuff that was piling up.

I was able to head home normal time. It still took me about 2 hours to get home. I didn’t do anything memorable at night, unless you consider ordering in dinner memorable?

Friday Travel Day

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Friday was a bit hectic for me. I went to the NJ office where most of my team is. I was going with a new Project Manager, and two other people from the mid town office who work on the same project. One guy was new, one never met the rest of the team and the other hadn’t seen everyone in almost a year so it was nice getting everyone together to talk. We spent over 3 hours going over stuff. It went really well. We all then went out for lunch after the visitors got a tour of the facility. Those tours never get old for me.

The downside of the travel day was I was only in front of my computer for about an hour and that was in a conference room for a meeting going over a spread sheet. I was only able to read and respond to a few of the many emails I received this week. Since I am going to my sisters tonight I won’t be able to try to catch up from my backlog until Monday!

Because of the tour and lunch we didn’t head back to the city till almost 3. By the time we got to mid town it was well after 4. I ended up going home and finished up some work there before going out to meet up with friends for drinks. I was delayed in getting out because I waited to sync up my new iPhone 3GS before I left. It arrived in the mail while I was out during the day.

Drinks were cool. Meet up with Luke, Stanley, & Danny to name a few. I didn’t stay out too late so I was happy! All in all a busy and productive day.

NJ Day Trip, Again

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Yesterday was my scheduled day to be in NJ for work. Thankfully the trip was uneventful. I had a bunch of meetings, had to cancel a bunch more due to things that came up. Went out to lunch with some of the network guys. All in all a typical day in NJ. I thankfully got home in under 2 hours.

NJ Again

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Today was my scheduled trip to meet up with most of my team in the NJ office. The day went well, but the bus ride home was not fun. I had to get off on 34th and 9th and walk to 7th ave for the subway. If I had stayed on the bus it would have probably taken another hour to get home due to the bus traffic. Got home in around 2 hours and 15 minutes.

Trip To NJ Thursday

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Today is the normal day that I have scheduled myself to goto our NJ office to spend time with the majority of my team. Now that the office they are in has been renovated they are all back in the office instead of working remotely part of the time. It isn’t practicle to have them come to NYC anymore so I goto NJ. The trip is not the most fun I have had getting to work, but it is still better than the trip I had to take to goto Kingston when I was at Partsearch. That was a crazy day.

In order to make it to NJ I do need to get up 2 hours earlier than I normally would. And the commute is long. In the morning it is about an hour and a half depending on traffic. Going home it is over 2 hours door to door. I almost didn’t make it today. The 7 train stopped running due to a mechanical problem with a train, so it stopped at 5th ave station. I had to walk to Port Authority to catch my bus. That typically would be fine, it is only a few avenues but I was on a tight schedule and if I missed the bus I was aiming for it would mess the whole day up. The whole situation aggravated me since I missed catching an earlier 7 train by 2 seconds (literally the doors closed in my face) and that train would have gotten me to Time Square since it was in front of the one that I was on that got stuck at 5th ave. But I digress. I was able to make it to the bus with minutes to spare.

The rest of the trip was uneventful. The day however was full of excitement. We had an issue during the day that kinda messed up my meeting schedule, but issues and emergencies kinda trump typical scheduled stuff. With the excitement out of the way I had a semi normal afternoon before running out to catch the bus going home. The past few return trips from NJ have been bad since I have gotten dropped of on the street far away from Port Authority. It seems if you get a bus stuck on the line into the terminal it can take an hour to go from the 30’s on 10th to the terminal. Thankfully this bus got out of the tunnel via a different exit and it only took like 20 minutes to go 2 blocks (yeah this is why I don’t like bus’s) to the terminal. I was home in around 2 hours 10 minutes door to door. Not great, but not horrible. I stayed in after that because I was just tired. Thankfully tomorrow is a work from home day.

I will say that my issues with the iPhone as a phone aside, I would probably go crazy without it on the bus. I am able to listen to music, watch some podcast’s, read the news on the internet, or just watch my location slowly move on google maps. It helps pass the time!