It's certainly an odd day so far

[cjsmith]

1. Pick up visiting callers for the upcoming convention. Wait at the exit from customs for an hour and a half. The plane's been down for 45 minutes now. Where are they? Realize there's ANOTHER exit from customs. Oh, crud. At least I know how to say "I apologize."

2. Take them out to lunch. Fail utterly to explain what "spinach" is.

3. Arrive at work to find three voice mail messages. It's extremely unusual for me to get even one phone call in a day. Discover all of them are from my mother. Call mother back. She had a nightmare involving me being dead. OK. Reassure mother.

4. C'mon, painkillers. C'mooooooooooonnnnnn, painkillers.

Nap soon? Or a break? Or something??

Comments

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

What brought you to Germany? You haven't lived there, I take it, but you've traveled there multiple times?

[quasigeostrophy.livejournal.com]

Twice for work. I'm getting fuzzy on the years already, but I think the first time was in November of 2000. $FormerEmployer has a fairly large office in Braunschweig. On that trip I flew Indy -> Detroit -> Amsterdam (13-hour layover in Amsterdam - took the train into town to sightsee while braindead) -> Hannover. I was in Braunschweig for about a week.

The second time was in October of the following year. I went to Amsterdam for two days (visited a sales office in Hilversum), then on to Braunschweig for the rest of the week (where I took a short trip to Wolfsburg to see the big VW plant). Then on the weekend I went to Paris to visit another sales office. Toni met me there on Saturday and we wandered about before taking the EuroStar train through the Chunnel and checked out London for a few days before coming home. Total time in Europe for me that time was two weeks, for Toni one.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Oooo, work sending you overseas! I know it can get real old real fast, but I'm envious -- the only place work ever sent me was San Diego. :-)

[quasigeostrophy.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I was fortunate that work sent me a number of places I wouldn't have gotten to (or gotten to as much). Don't think I'll find a job with that again as easily. Aside from the 2 European trips, I got to see Salt Lake City (2-person engineering office); Seattle (twice - large developer/partner); Lowell, MA (satellite engineering/support office similar to what was in Indy (although I'd already been in that area plenty of times)); Missoula, MT (contract call center (totaling a rental car by hitting a deer)); and the SF Bay area (Mountain View HQ and Sausalito office) so many times I've lost count. :-)