My week - Posted by Steve Mount
Never could resist Marilyn's prodding ... so here goes.
I've been a busy little beaver, and just spent over a week on the road. On Monday, I flew out from Burlington to Dallas by way of Philadelphia. I learned several lessons on the way. First, always double check your MP3 player to make sure you downloaded what you thought you did - I thought I'd loaded over 60 songs onto a memory chip, but I only loaded 11, so my selection of music for the flight was limited. Fortunately, the player itself stores 60 songs, so I was good for about 5 hours of play time before I had to repeat the playlist, but it would have been nice to have had 8 hours.
Second, there are some dinky little planes out there, and someone as tall as I should not be sitting at a window seat in the smallest of them. The curvature of the fuselage and placement of the window made it such that I wound up with a crick in my neck that I didn't shake for days. Fortunately, this was the Burlington to Philly leg, and it wasn't too long.
Third, Embrarer planes are very nice, relatively roomy, and there did not appear to be a bad seat on the thing. Of course, airlines can do what they want to squeeze you, so YMMV. From Philly to Dallas, I flew USAir and the whole plane was coach, and I had pretty good leg room. From Dallas to Chicago, I flew United, which had a 1st class section. I sat directly behind the last 1st class seat and had pretty good legroom.
While in Dallas, I ate - a lot. I had Tex-Mex twice, Barbecue once, Cajun once, Asian Fusion once, and a variety of other things. While at the conference, I kinda got used to having coffee freshly made whenever I wanted it, and when I got back to work today, I was a little sad I had to make it myself.
This leads me to: Fourth: $2 margaritas are worth $2. In other words, limeade is cheaper than tequila, so to sell a $2 margarita, you need a lot more of the former than usual.
Fifth, all your favorite TV shows come on early. I knew this, of course, but I didn't really realize that the local news was also on an hour early. It makes sense in retrospect, but I kind of expected the 10-11 hour to be filled with the same kind of syndicated crap that we get in the 7-8 hour on the East Coast.
Sixth, just because you're in Dallas doesn't mean you get to see Dallas. Of course, I've been places and not seen them before: Denver, Chicago, Orlando... but I'd really hoped to see more of Dallas than the 10 block radius around my hotel, which wasn't technically in Dallas but instead in Carrollton. Very much like southern California: wide avenues, big freeways cutting through, large blocks of shopping.
On the way back, we got to the airport 2 hours early, as directed, which means we were there at 4am. Seventh lesson is that if the airline desk does not open until 4:45, then you don't need to be there 2 hours early. Of course, I got a great place in line, but that doesn't seem worth the 45 minutes I could have been sleeping.
I guess that's about it for lessons. Upon return to Burlington on Friday, I got to sleep in my bed one night before we headed out again, this time to Lake George, New York, and a one-night stay in the Great Escape Lodge, which has a very-nice-for-the-Northern-climes indoor waterpark. Very fun, though we've been there before so I already knew it would be. For dinner I had halibut, which was good, but I had halibut in Dallas (at the aforementioned Asian fusion place) that was better.
Finally, we rushed back home on Sunday to get some errands done and to go to Rick's graduation party and the boys' Cub Scout step-up ceremony. The latter was held in the rain, and we all got pretty well drenched, but nothing a bon fire couldn't cure.
I guess that's it for me. What did you do this week?
I've been a busy little beaver, and just spent over a week on the road. On Monday, I flew out from Burlington to Dallas by way of Philadelphia. I learned several lessons on the way. First, always double check your MP3 player to make sure you downloaded what you thought you did - I thought I'd loaded over 60 songs onto a memory chip, but I only loaded 11, so my selection of music for the flight was limited. Fortunately, the player itself stores 60 songs, so I was good for about 5 hours of play time before I had to repeat the playlist, but it would have been nice to have had 8 hours.
Second, there are some dinky little planes out there, and someone as tall as I should not be sitting at a window seat in the smallest of them. The curvature of the fuselage and placement of the window made it such that I wound up with a crick in my neck that I didn't shake for days. Fortunately, this was the Burlington to Philly leg, and it wasn't too long.
Third, Embrarer planes are very nice, relatively roomy, and there did not appear to be a bad seat on the thing. Of course, airlines can do what they want to squeeze you, so YMMV. From Philly to Dallas, I flew USAir and the whole plane was coach, and I had pretty good leg room. From Dallas to Chicago, I flew United, which had a 1st class section. I sat directly behind the last 1st class seat and had pretty good legroom.
While in Dallas, I ate - a lot. I had Tex-Mex twice, Barbecue once, Cajun once, Asian Fusion once, and a variety of other things. While at the conference, I kinda got used to having coffee freshly made whenever I wanted it, and when I got back to work today, I was a little sad I had to make it myself.
This leads me to: Fourth: $2 margaritas are worth $2. In other words, limeade is cheaper than tequila, so to sell a $2 margarita, you need a lot more of the former than usual.
Fifth, all your favorite TV shows come on early. I knew this, of course, but I didn't really realize that the local news was also on an hour early. It makes sense in retrospect, but I kind of expected the 10-11 hour to be filled with the same kind of syndicated crap that we get in the 7-8 hour on the East Coast.
Sixth, just because you're in Dallas doesn't mean you get to see Dallas. Of course, I've been places and not seen them before: Denver, Chicago, Orlando... but I'd really hoped to see more of Dallas than the 10 block radius around my hotel, which wasn't technically in Dallas but instead in Carrollton. Very much like southern California: wide avenues, big freeways cutting through, large blocks of shopping.
On the way back, we got to the airport 2 hours early, as directed, which means we were there at 4am. Seventh lesson is that if the airline desk does not open until 4:45, then you don't need to be there 2 hours early. Of course, I got a great place in line, but that doesn't seem worth the 45 minutes I could have been sleeping.
I guess that's about it for lessons. Upon return to Burlington on Friday, I got to sleep in my bed one night before we headed out again, this time to Lake George, New York, and a one-night stay in the Great Escape Lodge, which has a very-nice-for-the-Northern-climes indoor waterpark. Very fun, though we've been there before so I already knew it would be. For dinner I had halibut, which was good, but I had halibut in Dallas (at the aforementioned Asian fusion place) that was better.
Finally, we rushed back home on Sunday to get some errands done and to go to Rick's graduation party and the boys' Cub Scout step-up ceremony. The latter was held in the rain, and we all got pretty well drenched, but nothing a bon fire couldn't cure.
I guess that's it for me. What did you do this week?
posted by Steve Mount at
12:22 PM
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