Small world

It's been a long week.  I was out out on the road again with a trip to our sister company and just got back in time to head up to College Station for the first football game last  weekend. 

With my job, I have the opportunity to travel a bit.  Not an obscene amount like in sales or service, but more than the average bear.  I get to travel to wild and exotic places like Manila or Hong Kong or Minneapolis or Buffalo or even Denver to meet with suppliers. Whenever I go, I take the opportunity to tour the sites and experience the area.  Hike the local paths, eat the local food, drink the local beer.  Life's a journey and sometimes we need to take time and enjoy the adventure.     

Enjoy the mountain vistas (we don't have hills like these down in Houston). 

Enjoy a quaint local hotel near the academy

And have the opportunity to meet some really interesting people on the trail.

 

Yea, Abby already let that cat out of the bag.  Two weekends back, I flew up to Denver to spend a week at our sister division and I took an earlier flight up to make a side trip down to Colorado Springs for the weekend.  I thought, hey, while I'm cruising the Mile High State, why not pop down and try to see some old friends?  Not only does Abby rule the trails down in CS, but I sorta neglected to tell her that my old crazy roommate happens to live in the same town as she does.  Ya know, the George Clooney guy that dresses in a tux for a class reunion?  Well, like many trips I take, I tend to have an ulterior motive.  So I when I planned a trip down to CS to reminiscence over old war stories with my old roommate and, while in the area, have a chance to meet up with another interesting blog friend I have known/talked with for years. I spend Saturday evening having dinner with my friend and his wife and then planned to meet up with Abby on Sunday before heading back up to Denver.  I had originally proposed meeting her for coffee or lunch, but, after reading all of Shadowrun's adventures, I proposed something more energetic.  Too bad that the Incline had closed after Shadowrun had trekked up the trail, so we had to settle for something more sedate for this old flatlander.  I left the choice up to Abby, being the local guide and she chose the Red Rock Canyon as a good alternative.  I met up with Abby and Wolfgang for some hiking.  Wasn't sure that she would recognize me right away so I figured why not wear something obvious (or obnoxious).  Both Abby and Wolfgang were gracious trail guides hosts and we had a great time hiking all over the trails.  I've had the chance to meet a few of my blog friends over the past few years and I always jump at the chance to meet the brains behind the keyboard.  Abby is as funny and energetic as she sounds.  We had a blast hiking the trails and trying to cover a million different topics.  We were talking so much, that I sort of overlooked the trails and we certainly forgot to take any pictures.  The one at the end was our post hike, let's get lunch shot.  With the gathering storm clouds, I suggested lunch and we picked a local watering hole just a few miles down the road that serves some good local beer.  We had lunch at the Roundhouse and spent another hour talking about different things like the Olympics, Ryan Lochte, Airstreams, Dogs, floods, etc.  It was a great time but I had to head back up to Denver so we said goodbye and they headed back home while I drove around the Springs a bit more before heading north.  I am glad to have had the chance to meet up with them, if only for a short while.   

I got up to Arvada to my hotel with no problems and set up to work at the plant.  The second day, when I got back from an morning run, I noted that there was some severe weather down in Colorado Springs and they were hammered by a ton of hail and flooding.  I texted Abby to check in with her and see if they were ok (thought it was ironic that we were talking about people getting flooded out in Louisiana at lunch on Sunday) and they were ok.  I also added that, out of all of the topics we covered, I forgot to talk about my roommate that I had dinner with on Saturday.  I made mention that he might be closer to her than I had originally imagined.  I even noted that I drove past a certain school crossing zone that looked mighty familiar near roomie's house, so they had to be close.  I noted, offhand, that she might have even seen him once or twice around the neighborhood cause he drove one of those unique 4 wheel drive military vehicles called a Unimog.  One of only a handful in Colorado.  Her response was epic - OMG - Your roommate is Unimog Guy?  I never really picture him as "Unimog Guy", but it fits.  Sorry - no pictures of the Unimog - was too dark when I had dinner with him.  Still, I found it amazing that Abby knew of him and how close they actually were.  Small world.          

Unimog guy

More road tales

My job has definitely gotten interesting.  With our merger last October, change was expected and change we have gotten.  Several reorgs have seen people come and go.  New bosses, new job titles, new roles.  And the changes are still coming.  Becoming part of a larger, global company is changing everyone's perspective/outlook.  And, with any change, you must learn to adapt and roll with the tide otherwise you run the risk of being swept under/aside.  

My role hasn't fully changed, yet, but we see which way the tide is going so we are adjusting our approach.  Lately, everyone has gotten into the habit of checking the company org chart on Friday morning.  That seems to be the time when changes are posted.  

Even with the changes, I'm still traveling a bit.  Some for audits, some for conferences.  As I did last year, I attended a conference on Conflict Minerals in Chicago.  Nice three day deal in downtown Chicago, but they definitely don't hold this gig in the local Motel 6.  Very nice hotel right on the river - the Londonhouse.  Great corner room on the top floor.  Impressive views of downtown Chicago and the downtown river.            

 

I am a bit of an architecture nut and love older buildings.  If I hadn't gone into Mechanical Engineering, I was considering Architecture as a major.  I find older cities and the building fascinating.  

Of course, the most interesting view was right outside of my window across the river...

And nobody was climbing up the side of it...
On many of my road trips, if time allows, I will explore around the local area trying to find the more interesting/mundane things.  

 Enjoying some local street food and drink.

And a local piano bar.   Since Ms Agg is a redhead, I just had to send her a picture of this.   

I am a regular TripAdvisor contributor so I tend to review and rate the places I visit - hotels, restaurants, bars, venues.  The hotel was supposedly just opened a month before as part of a complete renovation.  I found the hotel very nice but there were a few quirks that I had noted.  I wasn't really all that impressed with their elevator system, the room was an odd layout (IMHO poor use of space) and I found an odd situation in the bathroom. 

And, of course, the throne room. 

Can you spot what I might find as odd with this set up?

I've got a few more trips coming up.  I will post up any pictures that may peak my interest.  Like, perhaps, another dog run this weekend.      

Tails from the road

Points to Shadowrun.  I figured she might know where I was a few weeks back.  After all, I was kinda in the neighborhood (if not across the state).  I had a business conference in Chicago for a few days at the end of June.  I'll admit I've been to Chicago many times but usually it is either passing through or visiting plants on the west side of Chicago.  I have never been downtown so I took the opportunity to check out the local flora and fauna.  I got in a couple of nice long runs along Lake Shore Drive, found an amazing pizza place (Blaze Pizza) that makes your pie in 3 minutes, hiked across downtown to visit some of the tourist sites, took the "L" train back to the airport.  Pretty good conference, a nice break from the daily headaches at the office.  One more city off my bucket list.       

Chicago Skyline

Navy Pier

Cloud Gate

Water wall

Two guesses where what TV show this fountain is featured in

Some really good pizza

Last weekend I took an extended trip up to New Braunfels (south of Austin) with my brother and his family to spend some time tubing on the Guadalupe River.  It's sort of a summer tradition down here in Texas.  Take a scorching day and go spend it floating down the river on inner tubes with a few hundred other people trying not to get fried.  Momma and SIL were not able to go so I took the furry kids instead.  First time they've been to the river.  For two old hot dogs (who don't swim), it was an interesting weekend.  Hot, wet, & overfed but I think they made out just fine.  

We even squeezed in a side trip to a local dog park that just opened up.  

  

Hiatus

A gap or interruption in time, or continuity; a break.

A period of time when something (such as an activity or program) is stopped.  

A breach, break, discontinuity, gulf, gap, hole, interstice, interval, opening, rent, rift, separation, void.  

I am sorry guys.  I wandered off the reservation for a while.  I had plans to post up weekly but just found myself distracted/busy/off line.  I sorta took a break from the net for a spell.  Things have been going down here that have kept me away from the keyboard.  I haven't even been following everyone's blogs for a while.  Sorry.

But, despite my worries, life goes on.  Been busy over the past few weeks.  Family, dogs, travel, anniversaries, all have kept me sorta busy.

I won't bore you with a long saga, just a few highlights over the past few weeks.  I hope to fill you in with the details in the next few posts (I promise not to take so long):

Anyone guesses where I was?

Pizza nirvana

Milestone for the old folks

And, of course, it is time for our annual trek to the dog show...

Claire working the crowd

Grayson feeling neglected 

Claire looking for love 

      

Spoiled?

Like Terri, I think my two kids might be a wee bit spoiled.  And it ain't my fault!  My mom likes to comment on how spoiled my dogs are but I happen to catch her this past weekend "red handed".  Spoiled?  Those two mutts?  Ya think? 

I've been trying to post up from California, but the net connection was really sucky and kept dropping me.  It was a good trip out to Cali but not without some challenges.  4 days in Orange County (east of LA).  Two companies to audit, lots of LA freeway traffic to battle.  Audits went well.  Weather was fantastic - clear skies, temps in the mid 60-70s.  I finally got off my lazy ass and got back to running in the morning.  On these audit trips, I typically make it a habit to put in some miles to work off the meals we eat on the road.  Normally like to wake up early and hit the trails before we do our audits (ala 0530) to give me an head start on the day.  My buyer has been working hard on an exercise regime and trying to stay focused on her training (has dropped 30 lbs since she started it) and wanted to take a run with me one morning since she has a 5k Zombie run coming up next weekend (still trying to get me to run as well).  Our hotel was located next door to the Honda Center (basketball & hockey) and just across the freeway from the Anaheim Angels stadium (baseball).  Being a real sports nut, she wanted to run a lap or two around the stadium while we were in town and I was willing to lead the route.  So we hit the streets around dawn and ran over to the stadium for a lap or two.  A bit of a convoluted trail, but we managed to get to the stadium without any issues.  Nice old ball park.  Did a couple of laps and had a chance for a few pictures for her kids before we headed back.  When we got back to our hotel, we noticed that the ongoing street construction adjacent to the hotel had gotten a bit chaotic.  There was a 20 foot tall geyser going on in the street with water flowing everywhere.  After working our way around the flood, we made it back to the hotel but it dawned on us that this broken main might have a bit of an impact upon our hotel.  Yep.  It turns out that the entire hotel had no water pressure.  Normally not a problem except we had just done a decent 5k run and were pretty gamy and had a flight to catch back home.  

Improvise, Adapt, Overcome - my coworker resorted to using the cache of bottled water given to us my our last supplier as a means to combat the situation while I took to the hotel pool/hot tub to rinse off.  Not exactly per the plan, but it did work out.  I felt sorry for the staff having to deal with all of the irate guests and hassles of no running water.  I was emphasizing with the manager on how hard it was going to be to recover and clean up before the weekend crowd hit town.  

Now, if that wasn't enough drama, as we were checking out this morning, along comes the news about the shooting at LAX.  We were not going through LAX for any of our travels (avoid it like the plague), instead we were going through John Wayne Airport.  We were not sure on how this news would impact our plans, but expected the worse.  Given that LAX was completely closed down for hours, we expected pandemonium.  Turns out not quite as bad as we had feared, but still the flight was full with people who had to change plans to catch connecting flights.  Despite all of those challenges, we made it home on time and was able to greet momma and the kids when I got home.  Between all the slobbery kisses I got, it's hard to say which one missed me more.  

Working to catch up with everyone.  

Wrapping up London

Made the trek back to London on Thursday after my audit.  I would have liked to stay in Wales one more day, but already had reservations and needed to head back.  

Train ride was pretty uneventful except for a delay along the tracks that had us moving at a crawl.  By the time I made it back to Paddington, it was the middle of the rush hour crowd.  Had to fight my way across town on a packed train to find my hotel south of town.  This one wasn't anything fancy or neat like the last two - just your plain old Hampton Inn.  I cashed in some of my travel points and got my stay for a couple of quid.  

Spent my last day in London just hitting the general sights.  Trucked across town to find an old quilt shop for momma to find her something unique (not the typical cheesy souvenirs). Then hiked over to Greenwich to explore the Maritime Museum for an hour or so.  Took the wrong DLR train, lost my Oyster card, stumbled upon a neat local market, had a beer on the Prime Meridian, picked up some cheesy souvenirs for co-workers.  Just a general day in London with no serious objective.  Meant to hit a few more of the museums, but ran short of time.  Maybe next time. 

Finished up late in the day back at the hotel.  I needed to pack up for the trip out to Heathrow.  I planned to get an early start to make sure I made the connections and cleared security in time for my flight.  A very good trip.  Glad to have opportunity to come back over.  Now I need to get ready for my next road trip out west at the end of the month.  

Figureheads from old ships

Cutty Sark

Meantime pub

You never know who you'll see in Trafalgar Square

London Eye