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 |  I travel the country on business, sometimes the world. Come see where I've been. |
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Talk about perks, my job has one of the best ones I can think of! I travel in the course of business, delivering classes for my employer. I am a Senior Training Specialist for Motorola Solutions, and teach classes on a wide variety of subjects centered around 2 way radio communications. I'm qualified to deliver approximately 30 different classes, but about half of those are 'Legacy' classes, and are not in demand anymore. My students are technicians, those who maintain, program, calibrate, and repair large 2-way radio systems. Some of these systems are statewide, and use TCP-IP networking to allow sites to communicate with others. Some are small, traditional type radio sites. The size doesn't matter, in each case the systems must be kept operational at all times, since many of them are Public Safety Systems. So I get to travel, sometimes frequently, 3-4 weeks in a row.... where am I this week? This probably won't have daily entries, but I will make entries when I get to go somewhere, and keep an updated list of coming trips. My schedule changes faster than the weather, so don't be too surprised to see me list an upcoming class, only to remark later on that it is cancelled, or delayed. Delays are fine of course, but a later date might mean that someone else gets to go instead of me,,, Well, here we go with this, let's see where it takes us.  Best Cultural And Regional Honorable Mention |
Halifax, Nova Scotia The week of 6/17 found me in Halifax, Nova Scotia. To be honest, I was across the Benford Basin, staying in Dartmouth. Either way, I was still in Nova Scotia again.  This was another Networking class, with the delivery of it a little 'shaky' the week before. This was because those in the shipping world had changed the requirements to ship something Internationally, so the support staff was scrambling to learn how to meet those requirements. All was well though, the shipment arrived just in time. What was the shipment? A large Pelican Case, about 3x3x3 containing 3 Routers and 3 Switches with all the necessary cables to support their operation in class. If that Pelican Case hadn't been shipped, the customer had provided two switches and routers for the class. I don't like using customer equipment for a class, especially since one switch and one router had already been configured for use. But, everything went our way, so all was well. The class itself flowed smoothly, the students were great. During breaks we'd go off topic, one of them provided me pointers on using my new Pit Boss Smoker and said to email him if I had any questions about smoking food. The problem is, I don't remember who volunteered! I'll be fine with that though, plus there are neighbors around with Meat Smoking experience. I really enjoyed this class though. Once in a while students can (and will) make a class delivery a little tough. Not this time though, everything went smoothly Noteworthy Restaurants: Ela! Greek Taverna Restaurant https://elagreektaverna.com/dinner/ Do you enjoy Greek Food? Maybe Mediterranean Food? Then you need to dine here! This was the best meal I had all week. Yummmmm. I enjoyed three of their Appetizers. Halloumi (Pan-fried and panko-crusted cheese with sweet pickled beets and tzatziki), Spanakopita (Fresh spinach, feta, green onion, dill wrapped in filo with feta cream sauce), and Seftalia (Lamb and beef meatballs, herbs and spices with grilled pita and tzatziki). Of course I had leftovers for the next day's lunch. To top if off, I had an excellent glass of house-made lemonade. This is a place I would definitely return to. Sushi Nami Royale https://sushinami.ca/dartmouth-crossing/ You might be thinking 'Sushi in Nova Scotia? C'mon Jim, get some Fish n Chips! I know, it's just that I was in the mood for Sushi. Their Volcano Roll was a bit different, the server held it near the table, flames leaping up from the Sushi Roll. It didn't hurt the flavor none, other than causing it to need a bit of cooling before I could enjoy it. I also had a nice bowl of Shoyu Ramen. Another restaurant I need to visit on a future trip, should I get to return here. My Current Schedule July 8: Fort Bragg NC July 15: Vacation (Staying home) July 22: Los Angeles July 29: Schaumburg Aug 5: Cavalier AFB (I am cross training a new instructor for this class, he will most likely deliver it instead of me) Aug 12: Los Angeles Aug 19: International Travel Aug 26: Frankfurt, Germany Sept 2: International Travel Sept 9: Boston Sept 16: San Francisco Sept 23: Montana (Hungry Horse Dam) Sept 30: Vacation If any of you in the LA area would like to meet up, I have an idea. I will be there in July and August, so here's my thoughts. I realize that getting away from the family can be tough, so let's meet at a Pizza place. I'll provide Pizza(s), all you need to do is show up with the family (and children). Drinks or anything besides Pizza is on you. What do you think? Is this something that could be done? The best days for me would be either Sunday, or Friday, late afternoon/evening. I'd love to meet anyone from WDC who is in the area. That's it for now. I am home for the week of July 4th before heading out again. Until my next entry, write all you can, and love everyone, especially those special people who fill your life! JimD |
Brentwood, Tennessee The week of 6/17 found me in Brewood, Tennessee again. It was an easy 2 day class, Tuesday thru Friday. Then we were told that on Wednesday 6/19, the customer would observe Juneteenth. I had to change my flights to arrive Sunday instead of Monday, and add an extra day to my stay. As a result, I spent Wednesday preparing course materials for an upcoming class in August. But it's with the Space Force In North Dakota! Except.... I will be cross training a co-worker on it the week of July 4th, and if I think he's ready, he will go in place of me. Dang the luck. It's okay though, I travel and teach enough, he can go. These classes are pretty easy to teach, I wrote this course years ago because we had nothing to use in delivering a short class like this. I based on a course we deliver for another product which made it very easy to write. It was nice too, delivering the class on Monday-Tuesday with Wednesday off, then Thursday-Friday. I had a day of rest in the middle, and worked from my hotel room most of the day. It was a pretty uneventful week too. Nothing much has changed on my schedule. Other than going to Halifax (instead of St, John Newfoundland). The customer changed the training site location, so I'm out of luck as far as going back to St, John. It's okay, Halifax is beautiful. I'm still scheduled to fly to Germany for a week in late August, and I have two more trips to LA, two to the Puget Sound Region, and another week in San Franscisco, plus other places I can't remember. And, I'm still ready to either retire, or change jobs within Motorola. So far, Retirement is winning that race. Of course I found some nice places to dine at too. Noteworthy Restaurants: Judge Bean's BBQ https://judgebeans.com/brentwood-judge-beans-bbq-food-menu I was dining at a BBQ Restaurant, so why did I go Tex-Mex? While it was very good, it was also very spicy. Their Texas Sushi (Jalapeno pepper stuffed with Sausage and Cheese wrapped in a brisket) was extra spicy and became part of my breakfast the next morning, mixed with scrambled eggs. Plus, The Original Shrimp Diablo (Jalapeno pepper stuffed with shrimp and cheese then wrapped in bacon) was the same way. Even their Cowboy Beans were spicy. I definitely ordered wrong! Very good food, but I should have stuck with BBQ. Del Frisco's Grille https://www.delfriscosgrille.com/location/del-friscos-grille-brentwood-tn/#menus A couple of my students joined me for dinner. I've been here at least once before and loved it, so returning was a no-brainer. I enjoyed their Pan Roasted Branzino, with Grain Salad, Olives, Shaved Almonds, Lemon, Shallots, Golden Raisins, Arugula, Romesco. As it turned out, we all ordered Fish, each a different dish. That's it for now. I flew from Nashville today, and am in Halifax tonight. I have tomorrow to relax some before starting work in earnest Monday. Until my next entry, write all you can, and love everyone, especially those special people who fill your life! JimD |
Virginia Beach, Va The weeks of 6/3 and 6/10 found me (us) on vacation, something different for me that's for sure. Our plans were to go to Virginia Beach for a week or so, mainly to drop off our Akita to his breeder (Faith is her name) for a couple of months so she could train him to be shown at a dog show. My wife has shown dogs in the past, but now she is too old and out of shape to do it, I have no experience with this, so it would require both of us being trained, and who would train us? Faith was more than happy to be reunited with Buddy (Our Akita) for a couple of months. So Virginia Beach was a logical destination. I started vacation on Monday, but we didn't leave until Thursday around noon. In retrospect, we should have left Sunday and spent time seeing other destinations and/or sites. Oh well, I can't undo what's been done, huh. The drive there was not the best on Thursday. Someone (me) had it in his wacky mind that we should drive to Peru Indiana to see a man I know (well, know is a stretch) on FB. He owns a donut shop there, and seems to write well. I was going to encourage him to join WDC. But I never considered that he would open the donut shop and arrive very early (say 5 am), so he would leave early too. We arrived a little after 4, he leaves around 10 or so. Yeah, I should have planned that much better, huh. Anyway, we spent Thursday night in Dayton Ohio. It should have taken us 5 hours to get to Dayton, but ended up taking almost 9 hours. <sigh> The next two days went as planned though. We spent Friday night in Cumberland Maryland, but not before having dinner at Penn Alps. This restaurant is in an area that is inhabited by people of Scandanavian & Amish descent, The restaurant has an excellent buffet that serves good, down-home country type food. We love this place, and dine there whenever we pass thru. My dinner was a Salad, a cup of their Clam Chowder, Ham, Green Beans, Butterflied Shrimp, Fried Fish, one hush-puppy and a dessert sampler (sort of). I failed to grab one of my favorite items though, Fried Clams! Saturday found us stopping in Leesburg, Va to visit a Produce Stand we found long ago. Brossman's Produce Stand. They have THE BEST Lime Pickles there. No, not Lime as in the Fruit, but Lime Pickling Powder. Here's what I found about it on a quick search. "Pickling lime is sometimes used during the pickling process to give pickles an extra crunch. It's a form of food-grade calcium hydroxide. Traditional canning recipes usually suggest soaking freshly sliced cucumbers or other vegetables in pickling lime for 10 to 24 hours before canning them." We bought 4 jars of those pickles, and gave a jar to Faith, and my daughter Jennifer who we met for lunch while there. We arrived in Virginia Beach Saturday afternoon/evening, and stayed at The Founders Inn. This is the hotel that hosted the Akita National Specialty Dog Show two years ago. The hotel is very nice, and is spread out around the grounds, instead of being a high rise like many hotels. We used Hilton Honors points instead of Credit Card, and the rate was very good! It was 40,000 points/night, which is what a typical Hampton Inn runs. Did you wonder about the value of those 150,000 Hilton Honors points I raffled last year during the WDC Birthday month? We used about 175,000 of those points on this trip. The only card charge was a pet fee each night. So cash out for pet fees was about $200. Still, think about how much the hotels would have run (I refuse to stay at a Motel 6 or Super 8, or even Comfort Inns anymore) if I'd paid with a credit card. The time in Virginia Beach was all too short, even though we stayed an extra day. We really enjoyed our time there, but dang, the traffic! Wow.... plus it was too crowded everywhere we went. I got a kick out of taking my wife to the Norfolk Naval Base. She got her first 'up close and personal' view of the aircraft carriers USS Gerald R Ford CVN 75, and the USS Harry S. Truman CVN 71. Her amazement at their size and such was amusing to say the least. Even though I retired 31 years ago, this is still 'old hat' to me, so her reaction was cute. I didn't try to get her a tour on board one though. That would take advance planning/permission, and both of these ships were not available for a tour, nor would she be able to handle the ladders/passageways, not to mention the walking across the brow to get on board. Heck I can't even get her on the USS Intrepid, a museum aircraft carrier in New York City because of the brow issue. The drive home was uneventful, and only 2 days in length, instead of the crazy 3 day drive getting there. We arrive home, and I was beat, just beat. This was not what I'd call a vacation, I thought those were relaxing. Still, it was a fun time though. That's all for now. Til next time, keep on writing, most of all, keep on loving those special people in your life! JimD |
Schaumburg, Illinois The week of 5/27 found me in Schaumburg for meetings with the rest of the team. It was really good because we had not met in person for five years! Yeah, that's a long time to not see your co-workers. Typical for this week, we meetings all week long. I didn't mind though because also in attendance were instructors who teach classes for companies we recently purchased. We also learned what their company manufactures, and some of it is scary. Let me give you an example. To provide that example, I must ask a question. Have you read 1984 by George Orwell? In case you didn't know it was written in 1947, and published in 1949. The scary part? We're living in the times Orwell writes about in his book. I read this almost 55 years ago, here's what I remember from it. First, the country the main character lives in is at war. I think the war is going on somewhere in Africa. The Media broadcasts contain information about the war, telling the citizens that the war is being won. Yet they are losing the war. The Media is telling the citizens what they want the citizens to hear. That sure as heck sounds like our Media in 2024. We're fed stories that they want us to hear, not the 'real news'. Secondly, there are cameras everywhere. These cameras are mounted on traffic light poles, telephone poles, whatever. They are placed all over the city, privacy does not exist. Again, does this sound familiar? Some of the people I met this week for a subsidiary of ours, train technicians on how to maintain these cameras. I saw a real-time video, and what they can do with their software is definitely scary. Not almost, Definitely Scary! I'd say more, but I'm not allowed to go into specifics. So, read 1984 if you haven't, or read it to refresh your mind about the story. And realize that we are living in the times of that book. A book written 76 years ago, long before the things in our world existed. On a 'happier' note, let's discuss my future schedule, and my plans, tentative though they may be. This will be my last full year of employment. I will retire after this year is completed. MAYBE. PROBABLY. It's up in the air, but to be honest, the travel, being away from home with barely 24 hours here on weekends (sometimes) is getting to me. I am exhausted most weekends, I spend far too much time napping and not enough time getting things done. I was given a nice Pit Boss Electric Smoker (I've been wanting to learn how to smoke meats and veggies), but have not used it yet. It's been assembled, but the door latch does not latch correctly. There's about an inch of space between it and the fastener on the housing. I might have assembled it wrong, but I don't think so. So there's that to figure out. I want to learn to 'Can' vegetables, I can't on my current schedule. I also really want to rent a French Horn and see if I can still play, see if it still has the draw on me it had 55 years ago. Speaking of fatigue. Even when on the road, I'm very tired at the end of a day. I go to dinner somewhere near work or hotel, then collapse in my hotel room. I spend very little time here, very little time chatting with my anyone. And to add to it all, I will be cross-training a new instructor. He has been doing very good so far. Then again, he's delivering 2 courses, courses that deal with the equipment he maintained before coming to us. I get the pleasure of cross-training him. It will be a pleasure too, because then someone besides me will be able to travel and deliver classes that only I can deliver right now. However, that means he may get to go to Cavalier AFB in place of me. I want to go mainly for one reason. This is where Space Force is! I will spend most of the week of July 4th cross-training him to deliver that course. It will be a little bit of a stretch for him because this will be a highly tailored course, and he has quite a bit to learn to be able to deliver it. Only time will tell.My upcoming schedule, as of now Week of: 6/3 and 6/10: I'm on VACATION! June 17: Brentwood, Tennessee June24: Halifax, Nova Scotia July 1: Holiday week (Cross-train my co-worker) July 8: Fort Bragg NC July 15: Work From Home (Cross-train my co-worker if he's not delivering a class) July 22: Los Angeles July 29: Schaumburg Illinois Aug 5: Cavalier AFB (NE Corner of North Dakota) Aug 12: Los Angeles Aug 19: International Travel Aug 26: Frankfurt, Germany Sept 2: International Travel/Labor Day That's all for now. Til next time, keep on writing, most of all, keep on loving those special people in your life! Sum1 |
San Francisco, Ca. The week of 5/20 found me in San Francisco for a class. I've spent some time in San Francisco, but it was long ago. I've been there on business 2 or 3 times now, but never in downtown San Fran. And, I wasn't this time either. I was in south San Francisco this time, just north of the airport. It was a fun, but tiring week for me. It didn't start out the best either, but it wasn't due to something I didn't do, or did. Let me explain. The class this week was another of those Networking classes. I have finally taught it enough recently to get the flow of it. What? I don't have the flow down yet, even after teaching it for so many years? Well, it's been modified so much that the flow has changed. Not only that, the course now contains a lot of information about the new router in the system. For some reason this, I found it difficult to really get this router into my brain properly. But I have it now. All we need to do in the training department is straighten out a couple of steps in the hands-on activities. So what happened that wasn't my fault? We ship a large Pelican Case to the customer for this class. In this case, it can be one that contains the router we manufacture, or the new router made by Juniper. Evidently the Project Manager asked for the router we manufacture, since they currently have this router and will for the next year or so. However, the customer wanted to be trained on the new Juniper router. It wasn't until we opened the Pelican Case that we discovered this. As a result we had to scramble a bit and get the correct case sent to us. My support team was fantastic and had the new Pelican Case shipped so we could use it when needed. I enjoyed my time there, but found it difficult to drive to dinner. You might think this is crazy, but again, there's a reason behind everything. For example, the students in my class recommended a nice Mexican Restaurant in Daly City. I found the place easily. However, or but, there were no parking places nearby. I found one, but it was about a 5-6 block walk up, or down, hills. (I mean, you know SF is not known for it's hills after all). I decided to go elsewhere. Even then I parked at least 100 yards away.... I know, I know, I have it so tough, huh. It was fine really, but it was like that all week long. My upcoming schedule, as of now Week of: June 3: Vacation! June 10: Vacation! June 17: Tennessee June24: Halifax, Nova Scotia July 1: Holiday week July 8: Fort Bragg NC July 15: Work From Home July 22: Los Angeles July 29: Schaumburg Illinois Aug 5: Cavalier AFB Aug 12: Los Angeles Aug 19: International Travel Aug 26: Frankfurt, Germany That's all for now. Til next time, keep on writing, most of all, keep on loving those special people in your life! Sum1 |
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