Airports can be full of sad people. Maybe not quite as sad as the run of the mill Walmart but sad for different reasons. Some are travelling against their will, some are going on vacation and some like to pretend that ‘I am the man’. Taking a riff on the grosser than gross jokes, this is lamer than lame only it is not a joke.
I am making a slight tweak here moving forward. If I didn’t make my case in the podcast then I sort of failed my mission. I am removing the End Your Programming segment of the podcast posts. It seems kind of redundant and counter intuitive to write about what I talked about. This will help me in keeping things streamlined and quicker to deploy.
Sometimes we joke that we are going on a Griswold Family Vacation. That is partially based on where we are going and how we are going to achieve it. I myself have some additional business travel that I am not really looking forward to as well as us driving all over the southwestern United States.
I also spend a lot of time talking about the types of trips that I took throughout my life during the Spring Break period. This is to give an idea about the things that we have done and provide inspiration for you to make your own memories.
End Your Programming Routine: Time seems to be accelerating. By the time we get to the Summer, my family is starting to scatter to the wind. I talk about some of the reasons we are taking this trip in the podcast. I am definitely not getting sentimental, but my kid’s futures are starting to get real. Enjoy your time while you have it.
It is probably no secret by now that I am not home. It is another business trip and there is worse news. I wouldn’t have volunteered this information except for the fact that this is another birthday that I have not been home for. I wrote about it in November, my last business trip the downside of traveling.
I am on little bit of a junket type trip. I am providing training for a group of users so it is an 8-5 type hours. For a lot of the attendees, this is the first time traveling on the company dime. There is anticipation for the work to be over so they can gather in the bar and drink the night away. I chose to skip that and come back to my room and write.
Not too long ago, I travelled a lot. I have been on projects that had no limits on travel expenses. I have had $250 meals and 10 drink nights to get up and do it again the next night. I guess I saw it as a way to commiserate with my peers that I didn’t want to be there week after week.
Don’t get me wrong, I am not a teetotaler, I am a little bit anti-social. More than anything, I guess I have been there, done that and want something different. When I started in this line of work, I was in my early thirties. I think that I have gotten to an age where fun has a different definition than a hangover. Especially when you are up for meetings at 7AM followed by presenting all day.
The truth is, I might be in a better mood if I wasn’t missing my son’s birthday again. A few years ago, it was half a joke that I was always gone for his birthday. The years 2011 – 2015 I was gone all of those birthdays on ’critical’ business trips. I had hoped those days were behind me, as long as I am in this type of work it is a risk.
I suppose that one difference with this trip was that I knew it was scheduled last fall. I was more prepared for the ultimate reality in a way. It doesn’t make it any easier when I have been working seven days a week for the last month.
I guess I will have to wait and see how it all plays out. I have always said that I don’t mind a couple weeks of travel a year. This year it is looking like three trips at least. You always have to temper that: Michigan/Minnesota/Toronto in the winter doesn’t really qualify as much fun either.
End Your Programming Routine: Most people I know have made the transition from exuberance to weariness on business travel in their careers. The people that did not were typically single and this was as much of their lifestyle as being home. Their social interaction was at dinner or the bar and they would be doing the same thing at home. I do try to find some kind of birthday gift from the places I have been. Maybe those trinkets will hold a special place someday.
After spending a week in the Midwest, I can say that there is a stark contrast between the nanny states and free America. My tour was fairly limited to Minnesota and Iowa, but it was at least a sampling of somewhere else.
The biggest difference I would attribute to attitude.
Fear of Covid-19
Fear of the unvaccinated
Fear of government
Fear of what others thought
Fear of the unknown
I spent a night in Minneapolis waiting for my flight back home. Everyone that I spoke with said that I should walk the ‘Mall of America’ because I was only one mile away from my hotel. So, I did. And the first thing I observed was that 75% of the people were in the mall without a mask on.
I spent the majority of the week in Iowa and I would say that the status quo dissatisfaction quotient is higher there than in Minnesota. The official state policy is that masks are not required for the vaccinated. I would estimate that it was more of a 90% unmasked interaction.
My personal view is that I support right to choose. I also support the businesses right to go above and beyond and require masks. Masked were required by my employer, so I wore one even in the car for five hours with my co-worker. While in Iowa the policy changed and so did I (as well as all of the other employees).
You may live in free America… I don’t. I know that the official policy mandated by the state is mask required. I was at Costco last night and we were the other direction; 95% of the people were wearing masks. As to the others? I am not sure if they were disregarding the rules or they were taking them off after entry.
This should be the great benefit of a republic. We should have the freedom to live in idiotic states and be happy. If we are not happy, then we have the freedom to go somewhere else. Oregon has been my home most of my life but I have lived elsewhere and I am getting to the point that I would rather be somewhere else.
If we really believed in the Constitution, then the ninth and tenth amendments would be strong rather than non-existent. Specifically stating (9th) that powers not specifically mentioned in the constitution belong to the people and that (10th) the federal government only has powers mentioned in the Constitution. The ninth amendment gives the power to the state of Oregon to create mask mandates. The tenth amendment forbids 1) the existence of the FAA and 2) the FAA to require all airlines enforce mask use.
We the people have the right to create a near totalitarian hell if we so choose. We have the right to permit homeless camps to block access to municipal pumps so our houses and neighborhoods flood. We have the right to mandate business with the state require unproven vaccines that also don’t hep vulnerable people and who knows what future consequences will be. We have the right to create recycling programs that we pay for and cannot use. Because our first amendment and the freedom to assemble, we have the right to have months of daily riots and destruction without consequences. I will talk about the difference between enumerated rights some other day, but that is the premise.
End Your Programming Routine: Friday we are leaving for more of free America. We will be spending the holiday week in Texas. I am sure that there will be more on this topic later in the month. There is no surprise to me that population demographics are rapidly shifting. Oregon has grown dynamically in the last ten years because it is a cheaper California. Idaho, Montana and Utah have grown tremendously over the last couple years because they are are better and cheaper than Oregon.
Here I am six hours early or is it two hours late? Well, to be honest it is the latter. I am dealing with old ideas and paradigms in a new world I guess. I used to be Delta Platinum when it was the highest tier and a Hilton Diamond member. That meant I spent a lot of time on the road.
I am travelling for the first time in three years for business or pleasure for that matter. My flight was at 6:15AM so I planned to be at the kiosk for check-in one hour early. It takes an hour and fifteen minutes to get from my house to the airport with no traffic. There is no traffic at the four AM hour.
What I didn’t count on was the check-in kiosk was broken. So, I tried four times before I switched to another kiosk. By that time ten more people got in line before me and I only packed to check my luggage. By the time I got to the counter, I was too late to check my bag on the flight because there is a forty-five minute cut-off (which is new) and they would not send my bag on another flight (which was also new).
Fortunately, I am flying to a hub airport and there are additional flights throughout the day. With my new job, I have to book through a travel portal and I didn’t see later flights as an option otherwise I would have forgone waking up at three in the morning. So that is something else new I learned on this trip.
Sometimes with flights this early, I would choose to stay at a hotel where the cost of and overnight stay was equal to the cost of parking for the week. That way I was only a fifteen minute ride to the airport. I completely forgot about that option and I am kind of weirded out by how constrictive the rules and travel policies are so I am trying to be conservative in my spending. Plus, I would have had to book it on the front end.
I have slept through a flight before but I have never been at the airport not quite on time. This formula for leaving and time is the same one that I have always used but I didn’t count on the environmental changes. Probably, I am out of practice as well and a few minutes here or there was just unforgiveable.
Today is a travel day anyway. It kind of screwed up my afternoon plans to meet my boss face to face for the first time but I have no other commitments. I will cross security at some point in the next hour to hopefully find some breakfast and then wait five more hours. I have always said that I am willing to be late leaving, coming home is another story.
I suppose I didn’t need to check my bag on this trip. It is only four days. My standing rule of thumb is I only carry on if I am travelling first class or with a group of people that are also only carrying on. Why? I think it is a huge hassle at security and I am not really time constrained waiting for baggage. I find trying to get overhead space a pain and my company is paying the baggage fee anyway. Plus, I can bring items on checked bags that I can’t carry on and that is the real reason.
End Your Programming Routine: What did I learn? I need to add another half an hour to check my bag. It probably wouldn’t hurt to check-in online ahead of time so I can skip that step and go directly to the drop-off. I also need to seriously consider going carry-on only. These are all reasons I dread air travel. It has no magic for me and I am proud to say that I have no status with any airline, hotel or rental company anymore. Those perks are nice when you live a miserable life on the road, I am happy here. I just need to realize that things change.
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