Archives: April 2008

Do You Tweet?

Twitter Logo

Twitter freaks me out… literally.  Why would you want strangers knowing what you are doing?  I get how it’s supposed to keep friends, co-workers, and acquaintances in touch but still… creepy.  

That being said, I am a member of Twitter and I do follow some people and read their tweets.  One I find extremely informative is ArizonaCoffee.  Coffee house reviews in real time is kind of nifty.  I also find myself posting tweets of my own, especially since I took the plunge and purchased an iPhone.  There’s a nice piece of software out there that allows for the easiest updating of Twitter ever.  I’m not saying that I’ve turned into a die hard Twitter fan.  As mentioned above, it kind of freaks me out, but I have found myself tweeting more often.  Do you use Twitter?  If so, what is the main reason and, if not, why have you decided to stay away?

 

Friday’s Song (Late)

Oops!  This one is a bit late.  Friday was busy.  I went to the Bon Jovi concert here in Phoenix and posting the song just slipped my mind.  In honor of Bon Jovi, here’s “Friday’s Song” for last week.

Make A Memory – Lost Highway – Bon Jovi

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12 of 12 – April 2008

What is 12 of 12?

This one is a bit late, sorry people.  Jenie and I spent our morning at the Superstition Farm Tour.  We then met up with Mike for some “extreme” bowling.  I think the neon colors were the only things “extreme.”  Enjoy!


08:55 – My Morning Drink


10:13 – Freckles greets us at the Superstition Farm Tour


10:41 – The Cows!


10:45 – Jenie isn’t too sure about this “hay ride”


10:50 – Work just seems to follow me where ever I go!


11:20 – Picante the Burro wants to be friends.


11:29 – Pebbles comes to say goodbye as we end our day at the farm.


11:31 – Wise words from the pig sign.


16:32 – Extreme Bowling!


16:43 – Black light extravaganza!


17:03 – My very spiffy footwear.


17:56 – Our Best Games – From the top; MIke, Jenie, and Me.

My St. Louis Adventure

As you probably read in my last post, I was stuck in St. Louis for 5 hours with nothing to do, nowhere to go.  One good thing about this city is that they have a light rail system that connects directly to the airport.  So, the great adventure began.  Once I was able to check my bag, I headed to downtown St. Louis on the MetroLink (total cost $4.50) to check out the baseball stadium, Gateway Arch, and the mighty Mississippi.  Photos below.

While Stuck @ STL

—From Wednesday—

I’ve been relegated to people watching, which isn’t so bad. I’m sitting at a Starbucks next to the charter fights counter and the Midwest Connect counter. Some of these people act as though they have never flown before. Granted, that could be the case, but probably not for most of these people. They don’t have their IDs ready, they don’t have their ticket information available, and they don’t know when their flight is even supposed to leave. WHAT? Then how do you know to be at the airport now? It’s semi ridiculous. Also, there are the classic gigantic bags that people are insisting they can carry on to the plane. I’m sure that these Midwest Connect plans are super small and probably don’t have the normal overhead capacity. Why would you argue with a ticket agent? They obviously know if the bag is too large and they’re not going to give you a boarding pass until you check that beast of a bag. Too funny.

I guess another thing that doesn’t making getting stuck at the airport so bad is the fact that I have time to write these posts. I think I’ve done a pretty good job of keeping regular with my posts. Sometimes it’s more difficult than others. Oh, and I guess it’s good that I’m here because I’m getting some good material for this blog.

Airport Bad Luck

I was on a business trip yesterday to St. Louis and the conference was over early. I did some quick checking on my phone to see when the next flight out of STL to PHX was on Southwest. I see that the next flight is at 12:35, which is a bonus because it gave me about an hour to get to the airport and switch the original flight (17:25). I get to the airport and head to the counter to switch my flight. BAD NEWS! Since the flight wasn’t late and my later flight wasn’t overbooked, I would have to pay the difference to get on this earlier flight. Granted, my company would be paying the difference but there are limits that you have to keep certain charges under. Sadly, the difference in the flight cost would far exceed the allowable limit. I found myself stuck at the airport until my flight later in the day. How can St. Louis have such a crappy airport? There is literally nothing to do or see here and, since my flight was more than 4 hours away, I was not able to check my bag. I was stuck on the wrong side of security until at least 13:25. The worst thing? The Wi-Fi at STL is not free. WTF. Why do airports not provide this for free for passengers?

Business Trips

Here is my list of things that I enjoy and dislike about business trips. The good stuff first:

  • Making nice with the customer. Most of our customers love us so they are always fun to hang out with. There is usually alcohol involved here as well. Not a bad thing.
  • Dinner on the company. When the company pays, it’s good.
  • A hotel stay in a pretty decent place. Our company treats us well in this regard, no sharing of rooms either, another plus!
  • Visiting the customer location and figuring out how they do business. Getting as much info on how the customer operates is exceedingly helpful in my line of work.
  • Visiting new places. I get to visit new and different cities that I have never visited before.

Now for the bad:

  • Usually short turn around times. I’ve yet to be at a customer location longer than 24 hours. Yikes!
  • Sitting in the airport. Not fun!
  • Visiting crappy places (yeah, I know I said new places could be fun, but sometimes they are hell.).
  • Visiting with the customer – Yeah, again, I know it was in the positive list but sometimes this is also not fun. Sometimes the meet and greet can spill into the wee hours of the morning, making the next day’s business difficult to get through.
  • Time zone changes. I get up at my normal time, fly to the new location, and then have to wait up 2 or 3 hours earlier than I normally wood. Fun? Not so much.

Those are my pros and cons about business travel. I haven’t done much of it but I’ve done enough. I do enjoy the whole experience overall and I wish I was able to do more. Do you have any business travel horror stories? Those are always fun.

From St. Louis

I’m in St. Louis, MO today on business so there is no real post for this morning.  I hope to have something up later today when I get back into town.  I hope everyone is having a great day.  Let me say one thing about business travel, especially when you live in the west… it sucks.  I had to be ready today by 7.30am CDT.  Yeah… that means it’s 5.30am PDT… Yuck.  No late night for me today!

A Relay of Protests

As many of you know, I love the Olympic Games. The idea that the world can come together once every couple of years and enjoy sport and put aside all issues is awesome to me. National pride isn’t a bad thing during the Olympic Games, it’s just viewed as cheering for your team.

So, now that the Olympics are taking place in Beijing this year the Olympic Torch Relay is being hampered by protests towards China’s stance on Tibet and their stance on basic human rights. See the images below. I find them exceedingly powerful.  I’m awaiting the pictures from the Torches visit to San Francisco on Wednesday.  Thoughts?

SNL Says It Best

SNL had a great opening skit this weekend.  Remember all the crazy, out of control Hillary bashing that went on this past week by the Media?  You know… all that hullabaloo about how much money the two of them have made since 2000???  Watch it and laugh.  Bravo SNL.