You probably have gone on vacation and fallen in love with the place you were at. I know that I have. But, vacationing and living are two different things. First, it is likely that you are visiting at the ideal time of year. Can you deal with living somewhere on the less than ideal time of year?
Tag: travel
November 19, 2024 – Preparations for Travel
We are going on our first ever Thanksgiving road trip. This year, we are headed to Montana for a week. The way the weather is shaping up, this could be a miserable doozy of a trip. It is a long way to go in winter weather and we are expecting feet of snow at the higher elevations this week.
The problem with cold weather is all the additional gear you need. Add to that a dog and two extra passengers, we will be pushing our space even in a full sized Navigator. I had to break out the car carrier for the first time in quite a while. This thing is great for extra space, but it also adds a lot of extra height to an already high vehicle.
At the hospital, we already hit the 6’7″ bar warning that a crash is eminent. I happen to know after years of experience that I am just fine. But, I don’t know how fine I am. So, I don’t push it and keep in mind that I may be a bounce away from some very expensive body work. I can say that my wife has tried to drive into our garage Fortunately, I was outside to stop her. The carrier stays on only as long as it has to be on.
A smart man would have gotten the car to a mechanic before we leave. I really didn’t give it a thought until last weekend. By then, it was pretty much too late. That is not to say that I have done nothing. Recently I started getting a ‘Tire Pressure Fault’. I have checked the tire pressure multiple times and chalked it up to more electronic gremlins that have been plaguing this vehicle its whole life.
But, I wanted to check on chains for our upcoming travel. My wife had been told that chains would not fit on the vehicle due to wheel clearance concerns. So, I asked about the tire sensor. I was educated that it was probably a battery. Who knew, inside the wheel has a sensor that communicated with the computer. After fourteen years, two of the sensors are dead. I always wondered how that was done.
All this being said, I would think that this would be something the tire shop would do with new tires. It turns out, no. Now, I have to break down each wheel and replace the batteries. It was suggested that we could wait until new tires are due, but with the Navigator’s reduced role, it could be years at this point. The best motivation is that my wife want’s it done.
Besides the obvious luggage for a week long stay, it would be good to take some extra precautions. The first is be prepared for extra time. The highway’s may be closed until the storm blows through and the snow plows do their jobs. This can effect the start time and the return time and there is absolutely nothing that you can do. Keep your schedule flexible.
Part and parcel with keeping your schedule flexible, make sure your vehicle is stocked with food and drink. You could spend significant time in slow traffic following a plow, an RV or in a snowbank waiting for a wrecker. If something does happen, stay with the vehicle. Leave a plan with someone you know so that they know where to look for you and having food, water and shelter significantly increases your survival odds.
There is all kinds of recovery gear you might want to have. But, if you don’t have it and likely have never used it, probably best to skip. That being said, stick to major roads for safety purposes. These will be the best plowed and most travelled roads anyway. A much better chance to be found or get help if you need it.
I am going to bring a portable CB. I am not expecting a whole lot but it gives a possible way for secondary communications. My past experiences have been pretty ho-hum, If things get ‘western’ than maybe it will be an option to get ahold of a trucker. Plus, it gives a little more experience on the road with a potential tool. It would be better if I had a permanent mount.
End Your Programming Routine: This is supposed to be fun. It is a week of vacation for me and the first whole week this year. I’ll admit that I have a few doubts but it should be alright. I would much rather gear up and not need it, than need it and not have it. But, you have to go through these what if situations and test them to really be ready for the situations.
August 29, 2023 – Back To Normal… Psyche
If you are not from the eighties, you may have never heard that phrase before. Middle school is such a great time to make lifelong, meaningless memories. The last week was the second whirlwind of the summer. We spent the last week burning the midnight oil getting my son ready for his trip to Taiwan.
July was all about hosting an exchange student, getting my older son prepared to go, planning a proposal for my anniversary, executing and cleaning up from our party. Fortunately, my younger son is a mixture of ultra responsible and wildly ignorant. It lulls me into a false sense that everything is alright and under control. You just have to look under the surface a little more.
The phrase ‘are you ready?’ was uttered many, many times this year. Me: “Is all the paperwork together for your visa?” My son: “Yes, it is.” Consulate: “This form is missing a signature.” The net result is visa arrived 13 days before departure and that means a $3100 plane ticket. The Rotary keeps insisting that this is their exchange so I did my best to absorb all the punches as they come.
My son had a number of to-dos to get done. What wasn’t planned was a stomach flu. That compressed everything into four remaining days. Also included in those days were Boy Scouts Court of Honor, Oregon State Fair and the final sendoff with his friends. My wife accused me of not using my previous time wisely. I didn’t know that he needed new shoes, shorts, shirts etc. Remember, ‘are you ready?’
My son wanted to get a computer, I think that is pretty appropriate. All summer long Me: “I need some quotes on what you think you want.” My son: “OK, I am busy with (insert activity). I will do it this week.” We found one at Costco but I gave my Costco credit card to my son in Germany, we will have to wait until mom gets back from France. Mom: “The one you want is no longer in stock. What about this one?” Me: “OK, if my son wants that one”.
Literally, the day before he is leaving the computer shows up. I came upstairs from a work break and the opened box was on the table with the still wrapped computer setting on table. I knew that he was at the fair all day, so I plugged it in to make sure there was a full battery charge. But, you don’t just pick up a new laptop and go. There are updates, profile transfers, software installations that need to be done before it is ready to go. Talk about taking it to the wire.
The flight was at 6AM. Rotary said repeatedly be at the airport 3 hours early. For most people that is good advice. But, I travel a lot, including internationally. The only thing that they do differently is check passport and visa at the counter. Otherwise, it is just like any other plane ticket. Part of the reason for planning to get to the airport early is to accommodate for traffic, running late and those types of variables. Nevertheless, we went with the advice.
In order to get to the airport at 3AM, we had to leave the house at 1:30AM. This is the absolute best time to drive through a metropolitan area since traffic is little to none. It was a very short night getting back from the fair and 10:30PM. We powered through as we do but I will say that I crashed at 7PM. That was the longest I could go.
There is my son about to board the plane. You may wonder why there are no faces shown? I have pictures, but in this case, I don’t have permission to show others. He is travelling with another student to Taiwan as well. So, at least there is safety in numbers.
End Your Programming Routine: I did find out that he arrived safely. Also as I am writing, my older son is on the plane back home and we will be picking him up in a few hours. If you listened to the podcast, you would know that there was some emotion in this overall event. I have largely come to terms with that. So, back to normal? Back to the new, normal.
April 5, 2023 – The Coming Home Hangover
I have been doing a little watching of Seinfeld lately. This podcast is something like that, it is all over the place but actually going somewhere. I finished my book on the plane and I didn’t have a specific topic that I wanted to talk about. I did what I sometimes do and that is start writing. My topic was a phenomenon that often happens to me after business travel all week.
End Your Programming Routine: It is a very strange feeling to come home and feel like you don’t belong. I think that it is always a mental issue, nobody says or does anything otherwise, it is just the way I feel. It usually changes in a couple days and things are back to normal, but it is how it is.
February 16, 2023 – Business Travel Mindset
I can tell that I am starting to lose it because everything is starting to get screwed up. My SSL certificate expired and I really can’t deal with it on the road. I am getting things out of order for publishing and producing more podcasts than I actually need. You probably wont see all of this unless you are really paying attention.
My mind is tired. I explain more in today’s episode but right now I feel like my normal life is a lifetime away. Today is about my perspective on how I feel traveling. I know others that love life on the road, but I could just as soon never go on another business trip.
End Your Programming Routine: Just because there are some perks doesn’t mean it is fun (to me anyway). I have to say that I commend those people that work rotating shift work as a career. Maybe it would be different if I did it my whole life but my brain is starting to get foggy. Long days with little rest is starting to wear me down.
June 29, 2022 – Travel Anecdotes
A lot of my travel information I wrote and talked about was before the trip. Now having gotten back, some things have changed from what I knew (or thought) was true before hand. I thought I would throw some grab bag items out there.
- Covid tests are no longer required to re-enter the US. This changed June 12, right before we left. After getting advice from other recent travelers, we were making plans on how to accomplish this on our trip.
- Customs Forms are not used for entry – At least this is true for the US and the EU. This eliminates the ‘need a pen scramble’ on the airplane as you get ready to land. We did have some e-forms filled out for health screening which helped speed the process.
- Air travel within the EU has pretty much the same restrictions – The only real difference I observed with security was I could leave my shoes on. There were still restrictions on liquids that needed to be in a 1L (1qt) bag. Electronics had to come out of the bag.
- Security is not Safety- My son went through three different security checks with scissors in his bag before they were identified. Portland to Barcelona, Barcelona to Palma and finally Palma to Barcelona he was stopped in the bag scan. I don’t even know how that is possible to feel like this procedure is adequate.
- Having friends at the airline has perks – We got priority parking and our own personal check-in when we flew to Mallorca. We also took advantage of sending a bunch of liquids back in order to not loose them.
- Five fifty a gallon is a bargain- Our rental car was a diesel and the prices were in Euros per liter but the cost was roughly $7.75 a gallon. Fortunately, the cars are small and relatively efficient so it only cost about $30 to return the rental car.
- Cash is still king- We got a 10% discount on fuel just by paying in cash. I really didn’t know what was going on when the price was different than registered but figured it out as I drove off.
- Living/Travelling in Europe is expensive – Even thought the Dollar and Euro are near parity I would say items on average are probably 25-33% more. In one example, I paid 25 euros for a tube of sun block. For me, that was worth the price but I can’t imagine paying $25 for that, even if it was from France.
- Spain is not Italy – I expected the people and experience to be very similar (if not the same). I found Spain to be orderly and law abiding compared to Italy. Traffic was not crazy and nobody got pickpocketed or had someone try to rip the watch off your wrist.
- The world has become smaller- When I was in Italy in the 1990s, they siesta’d hard. Almost nothing was open between 1 and 6 pm. Siesta is still a practice in Spain, but I hardly noticed a change. Maybe it was where I was at but I think the world has changed to the point where this practice is not nearly as prevalent.
- English is definitely universal- If my broken Spanish didn’t work there were no problems switching to English anywhere.
- Spanish is not Catalan – The native language of the northeastern coast of Spain is not Spanish. While I can understand most simple Spanish, I had no idea what was happening when spoken to in Catalan. Many of the spellings are the similar but with the accent it is a different word. The tempo of Catalan sounds more like Italian but the words I could not understand.
I didn’t spend much time in the water. I am very susceptible to the sun and since it was literally 58 degrees as a mid-June high when we left, I didn’t have much time to toughen up. So, I limited my water time until after 6pm just to avoid massive sunburns. The kids went into the water here and it was a summertime high 80s. I wish I could, but the view was amazing.
Does this look like paradise or what?
End Your Programming Routine: I am wrapping up my week on vacation. There will be one more on Friday but I promise I am moving on. You cant exert that much money, time and effort and not have it play a factor in my work and opinions. I know that it is hard to enjoy someone else’s vacation, but hopefully there was at least some good information presented.
June 17, 2022 – Looking for a Quick Win
I want to start building some rigor into podcasting and unfortunately, the timing is poor with me being in Spain. I thought maybe I would talk about some travel tips today since I have flown quite a bit. In addition, I have flown internationally many more times that I would like and this all fits into what I have up to lately.
At one time, I was a Delta Platinum frequent flyer (back when that was the highest tier) and I even got a Christmas card from a hotel one year. I know a bit about travelling. What I am trying to convey is not the nuts and bolts of travelling or packing tips or how to get the best deals or the most out of travel but best practices.
The Merriam Webster definition of best practices are as follows: a procedure that has been shown by research and experience to produce optimal results and that is established or proposed as a standard suitable for widespread adoption. To be clear, these are most typically opinions from subject matter experts (like myself in this case). There is nothing saying that there are not conflicting opinions labelled as best practices from different sources.
Travelling for business and travelling for vacation are not exactly the same thing but they share a lot in common. Primarily, they are both travel. I think most people in the business world pack and orient toward speed. Meaning ‘How can I get off the plane and get home as fast as possible’? This means no checking bags and keeping things as compact as possible. I am going to let the the podcast speak for itself for the rest of this.
End Your Programming Routine: Bear with me, this is the beginning. I have listened several times and heard the smacks and uh’s too. I mean, I don’t think it is too bad considering these are off the cuff and I don’t have much practice. I anticipate adding some bumper music and working on a more standard intro and exit. But overall, I am pretty happy with what I have here.
April 8, 2022 – My New Travel Backpack
February 2015, I purchased a new Swiss Gear Backpack to replace my company issue Dell laptop. While not at the end of it’s life the end was near. Most of all, I spent a lot of time in China and I felt very subconscious advertising Dell in a third world county. While nothing ever happened, I really felt like something less conspicuous would be a better choice.
I only used that backpack for a few months before the company gave me a new backpack with the company logo on it. At that time I felt compelled to wear the brand and switch. The Swiss Gear went into backup mode for a few months until my nephew needed a replacement and he used it to the point of destruction.
From the day I switched, I regretted it. I thought maybe it would grow on me but it didn’t. Every time I looked at it and more so used it I was reminded of my poor decision. Even the embroidered company brand promise was a lie ”Technology Made Easy and Effective”. A more fitting brand promise would have been ”Difficult to Work With and Needlessly Complicated”.
The bag itself was well made with quality materials but poorly designed. Access to the main compartment was choked by the opening only allowing 1/3 of the compartment. The internal volume barely allowed my computer, notepad, charger and a small accessory bag. Travel with anything more than a book to read basically filled the bag to capacity.
Fortunately, I didn’t do much business travel while it was in service. Lately, I have been doing quite a bit more, so I got a replacement. I wrote about my day bag I bought about a year ago. My requirements for that were maximum flexibility. I wanted it to hold whatever without much care for dedicated organization. Translation, I wanted one big pouch. I could add organizers if I wanted, but mostly to hold what I wanted.
My business bag is different. I work out of it, I travel with it. I keep all of the things I need to do my job when I when I am not in the office. For those of you that dont work on the road, there are different sized bags for different laptops. I happen to have a 17” laptop which means I need a bag on the larger size (or at least to fit). I wanted it to be tough, professional and have diminutive branding.
Since I have new computer glasses, I wanted a place to keep those safe. I wanted some minimal organization for office supplies. And I wanted enough room to add a book and some travel extras like if I chose to stuff a jacket or lunch. There are some good places to look like REI or Sportsman’s Warehouse, online selection is nearly limitless. Trying to even see the features of a bag online are often impossible because they don’t show scale oftentimes only the front and back without the interior pockets.
I settled on an Ogio brand. Sometimes their logo use is garish, this one is OK. At least I don’t tend to recognize it as a logo when I see it. I have an Ogio duffle bag that is 20 years old and has worn like steel so I feel good about the durability. There is full access to my laptop and my iPad in a TSA full zip pocket and it is a little bigger than my old one.
All is not roses and my glasses case does not fit into the specified pocket. There are several other small organizers thar are advertised for a phone or other small item. Those pockets are too small and I don’t tend to leave my phone in my bag, so kind of useless. The dirty little secret is that the more of these do-dads that don’t work there are the less overall volume there is. In a way making the bag less functional.
End Your Programming Routine: This is my first trip with the bag. As much as I hated the old one, everything had a place. I am still getting used to what pocket is what and what zipper to use. It definitely has more space and a better potential for efficient organization. Maybe it is the thought of not looking at the old bag that is better but I am still happier with my choice.
December 1, 2021 – A Tour of the Free States
The trip we took last week took us from Oregon to California, Arizona, New Mexico and then Texas. On our return trip it was everything in reverse. I had an opinion on what I thought I would see and I will say it wasn’t quite what I expected.
First of all, it was standard fair for workers in all states to be masked. As we headed south, I expected California to be similar to Oregon in customers wearing one. That was not always the case. What I observed was in rural California people were not wearing masks and suburban California they were.
As we moved into Arizona, I really didn’t see any mask wearing. We only made one stop in New Mexico both ways and it seemed as though masks were an afterthought. Finally, I would say ‘Dont Mess With Texas’.
Prior to 1836, Mexico occupied the Alamo compound as a fort. They abandoned it and some locals took it over, still technically Mexicans. The winter of 1836 the Mexican Army came back to retrieve a couple cannons that were left at the site a battle ensued. That was the spark of the Texas Revolution. The idea that Texans would submit to policy if it suits them is derived all the way back to this time period. Among the chief disputes that lead to the revolution were individual rights and taxes, sound familiar?
What I think I observed was a general consensus of will not comply rather than what I see here. If I could try to describe it I would say here there are two distinct camps, hard left and hard right. What I saw in Texas is an acceptance that we are just not going to comply. For instance, in all of my travels I did not see a single pick-up flying a ‘Fuck Joe Biden’ or ‘Trump 2024’ flag which I see on any given day here. What I did see were signs that ‘such and such city government requires masks to be worn in this location’ and no one complying.
To me this means that in the hard left states like Oregon pushes the opposition into extreme positions. It is like trying to block the daily tides, you might get lucky but that is really unlikely so all you can do is hope for a miracle. In contrast, in Texas there is a general ease that this is the way things are and doesn’t require people to go to extremes to promote one side or the other.
My overall impression was pretty favorable with Texas. I have lived in the south before and I would say that Texas attitude is more refined that of say South Carolina. Of course not everything is roses, there is high heat and humidity. Fire ants and cockroaches and other bugs and no real public land. But, you cant have everything.
End Your Programming Routine: Where I will come down here is that the real difference is the urban-rural divide. It is not necessarily state lines that define attitude and behavior but common values. If you are ever driving on I5, there is a barn between Yreka, CA and the Oregon border that has a roof painted the statement ‘The State of Jefferson‘. That has been there before I was in college (mid-1990s). Despite being in California that farmer shares more in values with Ozona, TX then the next closest neighbor in Ashland, OR twenty miles away.
November 30, 2021 – Lessons From the Road, Part 2
Let me just say that, I am bushed. The drive home wasn’t as smooth as originally anticipated. Day 1 we drove from Houston to Blythe, California, that is 1200 miles. The plan was to drive from Blythe to home at a little under 1000 miles. After Day 1, it should have been easier – nope.
Sunday, we were only able to get 200 miles in 10 hours. I kept watching the arrival time get later and later. We got to the point that our arrival time exceeded my start time for the work day. The freeway traffic was showing red from LA all the way to Sacramento and we were running on 5 hours of sleep. We decided to bag it for the night.
It still took us nearly 14 hours to get home yesterday. By that, I will be getting to my finer analysis of the trip below.
- I was worried about the weather, I never considered the traffic in the drive. I5 was a parking lot all day Sunday and I never had any idea this would be the case. I think about traffic during the weekdays but not weekends.
- The original plan for the trip did not included driving my mother in law back (with all of her stuff). We barely had room to move and when we stopped, we had to move stuff to move people to move stuff to get in and out.
- Our overall planning for the time in Texas was weak. I expected to work two days, which I did. That being said, the rest of the family did nothing on Monday. We spent all day Wednesday driving to San Antonio (200mi one way) and back even though we past it both ways on I10. I think that we could have done a better job of planning the trip so that we could have done more sightseeing while we were there.
- It was extremely difficult to keep 11 people on track with only stopping for fuel and minimizing the down time. I selfishly wanted to get home as early as possible because I wanted as much time as possible before work the next day. No one else had the same urgency that I did.
- I think a daily cap of twelve hours is probably a good limit. That is still a long time in the car but it leaves a little more room for not keeping a blistering schedule. There wasn’t a ton of sites that I would have liked to taken a little more time but having some proper rest in between days would have been beneficial.
- Overall, the kids did a good job for the most part, the adults not so much. There were several incidents of inappropriate behavior for no good reason. For that reason, I will never do a multiple family unit in one vehicle again. Between the difference in urgency and the plain ridiculousness, I will not do it. It is not to say that I wont travel together, just not in the same vehicle. That way, I have the freedom to go ahead if I want to.
I will probably post one more time about the trip and a different subject matter this week. I plan to talk about my assessment of the states we crossed and how they compared with Oregon. There are definitely some differences.
End Your Programming Routine: I am not trying to be negative, I am saying that I would do things differently if I could. Overall, this was definitely an experience for the memories. And, I am not saying all memories are good. The focus was on providing an experience for the kids and providing one more family get together as its current dynamic. I think that was accomplished. I am pretty sure the kids felt like this was an adventure despite what my opinion was exactly and that is the best I could hope for.
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