Travel post…

Since I seem to spend an awful amount of time in the airport, I thought I would put some of that time to good use, and do a bit of writing. I don’t get to do a lot of writing except for the blurbs I post here. I’m not even sure what I am going to write about I just need to kill some time before we board so I thought this would be a good way to go about it. Let’s see where this rambling ends up going.

It’s November 27, 2006 and here I am traveling again. I said I wanted to travel more and here I am, on the road almost an entire 3 weeks in a row. This new product I am on is kind of cool but it is a lot to absorb in a relatively short period of time. I must say that I will be glad when the 11th comes around so that I know I can stay in the office for two weeks, and then enjoy another two weeks off for vacation. Yup, two full weeks of not having to think about anything tied to work. I suspect there will be a lot of lying around and doing very little during this time. Although, I have said that I want to do some studying and maybe complete my MCSE while on vacation. Not make it the only thing I am doing but it might be nice to get that out of the way.

Well, looks like we won’t have the chance at $1,000,000 after all. Both me and Tamara applied to be on the Canadian Deal Or No Deal and did not get a callback. Oh well. It would have been interesting but I guess our applications weren’t interesting enough to get an audition. That’s ok. Maybe at some point The Amazing Race will let Canadians in and we’ll apply for that. THAT would be seriously cool.

I think other than being a bit tired from all of the travel, things are generally going quite well. Work is good, and busy, and homelife is pretty quiet but I think that’s good right now. I did quit my volunteering at Rogers, at least for now. I just have too much travel going on right now and to be honest, I was getting bored of pointing a camera. It’s kind of neat being in studio and all but it was getting a bit boring and now with work really picking up, my time is limited.

However, as weird as this may sound, I have been pondering doing a short film of my own. Sort of a mockumentary. I’ve made some videos (as you may have seen) and I have done some stuff for DVD, but I have never actually shot a film of any kind. I had this idea that in my head sounds hilarious. It might sound lame to you, but I think it would be funny. I would need to gather some people to play various roles and get everything written/set up but I think in the end it would be funny, if written right.

The movie would be a spoof of those “When Animals Attack” shows. When you think of animals that attack, you might think tigers, lions, bears, even elephants. But do you ever even consider that you could be attacked by a cow? *chuckle* Just writing that is funny. I’m thinking of a 5 minute short film called “When Cows Attack!”. A few stories from “locals” who have been attacked by cows along with some reporter footage, and shots of cows. I think it has some serious potential to be hilarious. I mean come on, cows are about as passive as you get. I’m not talking bulls, I’m talking regular old grazing cows. The ones you tip over at 3am.

Regardless, if anyone here would be interested in portraying someone in my film, if I ever decide to shoot it, let me know. I need to write some stuff up for it and really think about how it could be done and done well, not lame. Serious humor potential is in there.

Ya, ok, I’m weird, but you guys keeping visiting this site anyway, and I still hear from you so what does that say about you? 😉

I’ll say this about traveling, I have become quite adept at cramming a lot of stuff into one piece of luggage. Since we don’t take the chance that luggage could be lost during transit, the consultants don’t check any of their baggage. We take it all on the aircraft which means you have to be able to pack a weeks worth of clothes and supplies into your carry-on luggage. I have the biggest carryon bag allowed and I really pack in the stuff. Three pairs of pants, 5 t-shirts, 4 golf shirts, 5 pairs of socks, 5 underwear, plus my comfy pants, deodorant and shaver. Plus one pair of dress shoes. That’s a hell of a lot to pack into one small bag let me tell you. Rolling everything helps. Big time. Things like sweaters and stuff I don’t pack, I just wear when I leave. I find the airplanes kind of cold at times.

All of the trips I have taken in my travels, except for one, have all gone through Toronto so I am becoming more and more familiar with that airport. I really manage to sort of fly through there on my way to the gate. I have a rule when I arrive at an airport where I am connecting through. Before I do anything, I find my gate. I mean, even if I have like a three hour wait (like today) I still get to my gate as fast as I possibly can, and then once I have arrived at my gate and know where it is, then I start exploring. I think it’s better to know where your gate is so that if you are in a time crunch, you’re not spending a lot of time trying to figure out where you are supposed to go.

Next week, on my return flight, I have to connect in New York City through an airport there. I only have 45 minutes from the time my plane lands, to when the other plane leaves. That makes for a short connection because they are in different terminals which means I need to take a shuttle (I think) from one terminal to another and then find my gate. That doesn’t give me a lot of time to make it. Plus, that assumes that my flight arrives on time. Hopefully there will not be any issues and I will make that connection. If I miss it, then that means odds are I will have to spend the night in NYC (awww) and come back on Saturday morning. That would not be too bad as I can take a train/bus to the Newark airport and hopefully get a flight back to Moncton nice and early. There’s a direct flight from there to Moncton almost everyday. I’m not too worried about that right now. I’ll worry about it next week 

The plane just arrived which means they will be boarding us onto it within the next 15 minutes. I have become much more relaxed on flights now too. I used to get super nervous on the landings but now it’s nothing to me. I guess that’s what happens when you travel this much. I will say one thing, I really love Skycheck. It allows you to check your carry on bag just at the aircraft so that you get it as soon as you land and you don’t have to go any luggage carts or stuff. You can’t do it with full sized luggage and it’s only on smaller aircraft that can’t fit the carry-on in the overhead compartments.
Anyone here afraid to fly? I used to work with a woman who’s husband was terrified to fly. He was supposed to fly down to Boston or New York and he was so scared that when it came time for him to board the aircraft, he couldn’t get on. I think he ended up driving the whole distance because he was too chicken shit. I mean, it’s one thing to be afraid of flying on a really small plane, but these big jets are safe and I mean with all of the planes in the air it actually is quite safe. I must admit though, everytime I get on an airplane, I wonder if it will crash. I’m not scared of it crashing, I just wonder if it would crash and if I could survive it somehow.

I do wish it was easier to identify places and cities from the air. I fly over a ton of different locations and I always wonder what exactly is it I am flying over. I see what looks like a city but no idea what it is. They should have like huge signs in the ground or something to let people know where they are flying over. Today, I’m flying to Rhode Island which is not an island at all but is located on the eastern seaboard of the US. Supposedly it is quite nice there. Even my grandmother said it was a nice place. I hope I actually get to see a few things.

Well folks, they just opened the gate doors so boarding is going to start shortly. Time to cut this off for now.

To be continued…

So I made it back. I did get to the hotel and had my first day at the client site. Things this time are going much smoother which is always nice when I don’t have to worry and pull my hair out so much.

I think this is about all there is to my post. I’m going to have a little chat with my wife, then maybe get some Zzz’s early tonite. I’ll see how it goes.