Travel

Off To The Bahamas

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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!

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!

Traveling Again

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This weekend I had a quick trip down to Atlanta. All in all the trip was not eventful. The biggest thing that happened was I forgot the suction device that holds my Dad’s GPS to the windshield in the rental car. i remember taking it off the wind shield, but must have forgotten to put it in my bag because I cannot find it.

As much as I am still pissed at Delta for my trip to nowhere (see previous posts), they were not bad this trip. We actually departed on time both directions. I also cannot complain when I get into the Crown Room Club free (gotta love Amex Platinum Card).

I need to remember this weekend since I will most likely not remember the last time I drove until I remember that I drove this weekend. Before this week, I cannot honestly remember the last time I drove a car. I think it was the week I stayed at my parents place in August but then again I might not have even used one then. That is one of the sad things about living right by public transit (in this case the subway) you don’t need to drive. That is good and bad I guess.

The Kindle

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Since I traveled full time back in 2000 I have loved the idea of e-books. The idea was great but in practice it had a lot to be desired. I have read a handful of books in the ebook format. Most notibly when I was on the road on using my HP Jornada Pocket PC. It had a big screen but for reading books it wasn’t ideal. At the time it was the only game in town, and since there were times I didn’t want to carry a book with me having a book on my PDA was nice. Ever since I have been on the hunt for the perfect device to read books off of. Eventually I figured e-books would become more common, but so far they haven’t taken off so much.

When Sony came out with there reader I was fascinated by the technology. The size was right, it looked easy to read off of. I was all set to buy one until i read that you could only buy books from Sony for the reader. That on top of the fact that Sony’s selection wasn’t too hot I opted to hold off on my purchase.

That leads us to late November when Amazon announced the Kindle. It was very similar to the Sony reader, and it was backed by the book store at Amazon. I was still a bit hesitant to order one due to the DRM in the Amazon file format, but they offered over four times the books Sony did and they expected to continually add more books. After going back and forth on my decision I ended up placing an order for one in early December.

I was concerned about my choice because I read a few mixed reviews. I felt a bit better when I read Howard Morgan’s review late last month on his blog. I cannot remember a bad technology decision that he has made since I have known him. Well, I don’t count the fact that he wont switch to a Mac!

I found out late last week that my order finally shipped and I should expect to get my reader tomorrow. I already ordered 2 books for it that i was planning on reading. They should auto download to the reader when i turn it on. Hopefully this device lives up to my expectations since I have been waiting 8 years for it.