October 4, 2008

What I've been up to

I notice it's been a while since I posted....about 3 weeks, which is about right. I've been a few places since the last post. If you follow me on twitter you might get a few updates. About a month ago I got a new iPhone and I've uploaded a great twitter program for it. I don't quite understand all of the nuances of how to use twitter, but the iPhone does most of the work. If I keep the tweet short I can add a tiny url that shows where I was when I uploaded the tweet.

Three weeks ago I was a bit fixated on a speech I had to give to a group of local health professionals. I wasn't fully briefed on the specific group I was addressing, but was told I needed to fill about 90 minutes with general info about our company. It doesn' take 90 minutes to talk about Southworth Associates, so I filled in with information about interventions in general, our monitoring/case management programs, and pretty much let the group direct the discussion. It went fast and I was done in about an hour. Also on my plate was trying to get our new promotional video edited (I didn't actually do the editing, but had to do reviews and input), and work on a new brochure from scratch.

Two weeks ago I was on a business trip. We left on Sunday going to Nashville where we visted New Life Lodge and The Ranch. The trip was a combination of work and social call. Technically I'm not allowed to have an opinion, but I really liked the Ranch's grounds. New Life lodge was pretty cool too, but I didn't like their street lights and thought the grounds needed some maitenance. I can't even speculate as to their programs since I don't know anything other than I've seen better results (on paper) with longer lengths of stay. Anyway, I didn't get to see enough of the Ranch, so I'm hoping for a return visit.

We were in Nashville from Sunday to Wednesday morning and the boss was kind enough to let me take off early on Monday and drive down to Chattanooga to play some HackMaster with some friends down there. At 2 hours one-way it's not even close to the longest distance I've driven to a game. It was more socializing than game, but that's what HackMaster is to me anyway. I stayed way too late and limped back to my hotel room so I could get 4-5 hours of rest before the next days visit. Totally worth it.

Wednesday morning we got on a 6 AM flight to Atlanta and then on to Harrisburg. There was this kid sitting behind John who would not shut up. He was maybe 5 and his mother wasn't very attentive at all. Her best attempts at parenting were to either yell at her kid or to show him a DVD. The DVD shut him up. Seriously, this kid was a PITA. The mother would yell at him and he started screaming she was hurting him. I looked over and they weren't even in adjacent seats. The brat had the window seat and mom the aisle (there was a middle seat) and wasn't even touching him. Thankfully the flight to Atlanta was about 45 minutes.

We get off the plane and as we approach our departure gate I notice that the mom and brat are in our vicinity. What would be the odds they are also going to Harrisburg? You guessed it, 100%. The next plane was quite a bit smaller and we had a very friendly steward. We warned him about the brat and before we had even taxied the kid had fallen asleep. Ends up the steward gave the brat some cookies and then asked the pilot to crank up the heat some in that section of the cabin. The brat was only loud & obnoxious for maybe the last 15 minutes of the flight. I really wish Delta had those employee compliment cards like United has. Steve would've gotten two for that flight.

Harrisburg was a single night stop for me. We checked in to the hotel, grabbed some frozen yogurt (John loves the forzen yogurt) and later went out to dinner at Outback. I had to whip together some demonstration packets for one of our programs, but that didn't take long. I travel with a scanner and printer now, so I can usually use the laptop to whip together whatever I need. I also have an encrypted thunb drive with most of my office files on it, so that helps too.

In the morning we went for a quick visit to Caron. John stayed to play some golf and I took the car and moved on to Philadelphia. I had an important webex and conference call at 3 PM. I should mention that Mike Early from Caron was kind enough to give me a Caron shirt. I didn't think it looked like much, but I'm a freebie whore and damn if that shirt isn't extremely comfortable. I'm seriously considering making that a travel shirt. The only issue I have with the shirt is that if I'm carting the laptop around the neck pulls a bit......until I bother to undo a button. Then I'm set. Shirt looks good on me too.

I took total advantage of the fact I had a rental car and a free night in Philly. I drove downtown and had me an awesome Philly Cheesesteak and Pizza Fries at Pats. Seriously, do I need to expand upon that? I retired full of food to the room and watched several episodes of HBO's new series True Blood. Damn I wish I had HBO.

Flew back 1st class all the way home and got to spend a whole day packing and prepping for the Moment of Change Conference last week. That is a post unto itself.

1 comment:

Self-Hating Shrew said...

I love pizza fries.

I'm surprised you didn't try Geno's too. They use Cheez Whiz on their cheeseteaks, which some people swear by.

It's difficult to order a cheeseteak at either place. If you don't know what you want, they go Soup Nazi on you.