Hello everyone!
Not sure how many people still read this string but I thought I'd introduce myself.
I am supposed to be working from home today but instead spent the last 3 hours reading Who We All Are 1-6. Every post, no kidding. I now know all of you better. What a super interesting group of people from around the world!! And all with a variety of interests!
Here's my mini-bio:
32, single (never married). Work like a slave at Intel where I figure out how to get "chips" to computer manufacturers (all of em like Dell, Compaq, HP, IBM, Gateway, etc etc)
Been there since I graduated college where I got a B.S. degree (BS is my specialty) in Bus. Management with minors in Psychology & Music.
Grew up in the Bay Area (Karen2...I grew up in Saratoga, CA) college in So. Cal at Univ. of Redlands (near Palm Springs), then back to Bay Area, until I got transferred in 93 to this great town near Sacramento, CA.
LOVE to travel but since I do zero travel for business it is all on my dime. I am combination jealous/happy for all you frequent travelers. I would love it, but also hate it as some of my travel experiences have exhausted me.
I don't rack up FF miles at any quick pace so I am stoked I found this website. (by accident) I have frequent traveler accounts with United (primary), Delta, American, NW, AmericaWest, Alaska, TWA, Continental, Hyatt, Marriott Rewards, and Holiday Inn.
Pretty hilarious given I've traveled on business exactly 1 time in 10 years.
One of the benefits to my company is we get a paid sabbatical every 7 years of 2 months off. Cool, huh?? In 1997 I took my 1st sabbatical where I mooched off people I knew working in other countries. I went to Seattle for a week, Japan for 10 days, and France, Germany, Austria & Switzerland. Travelled 6 weeks and only spent 4 days in hotels. I couldn't have afforded it otherwise. I went to Seattle with 7 girlfriends for our annual "girls" trip and did the rest of the travel solo. Spent my 30th birthday on a train from Salzburg to Basel, Switzerland in which I missed lunch because I didn't understand the reservation system and spoke to no one all day because I thought they didn't speak English. Not a good way to have a traumatic birthday, thinking of how old you have gotten for 10 hours straight with no one to talk to.
Anyways, my interests are travel (I am known in the office as the travel person so I help people schedule trips on the internet...I never use a travel agent), Music (I am a singer and sing in 2 local groups), Cooking, Reading, Playing Bunko (a dice game...I and 11 other women play once a month for money & the competition gets ugly...it's like poker night for men) and Movies (I go to tons of movies)
I am the organizer of the aforementioned annual girls trip (this year is Santa Barbara) and that same gang and their families also have an annual camping trip.
I visit my sister annually who lives in Wash DC and will go to England this year to visit a colleague who will be working over there for 3-6 months. I cannot resist free lodging anywhere!
I have a cat named Honus Wagner (after the baseball player).
Let's see...I won 2 ClickRewards sweepstakes this year, one for 25,000 miles and another for 10,000 miles yesterday. I am really enjoying this winning miles thing.
Just wanted to thank you all for such great information. As soon as I found this website I got accounts at greenpoints, trocamania, milesource and milesmall.
I can't believe I met miles obsessed people like myself (Wanderlust...you killed me with that email about Bob). I never had AOL or anything like that so I am loving this community-on-the-web thing.
Since I plan my own travel I am always wondering when faced with a list of lodging or destination options what would be best. I now have found a place where people can actually recommend something that don't get anything in return (like a travel agent, or similar)
So once again, thanks.
A final thought:
Since I have always traveled randomly, just when I thought about it, and never for miles, always for a specific vacation, I decided recently that if I was going to see as much of the world as I would like to, I'd better get on with it. Someday I'll have kids and get busy and it will be harder and harder. So I just bought an Atlas and some trip planning software and I'm going to sit down and map out every trip I'd like to take sometime in my lifetime. I'm going to put them all in a spreadsheet or something (us tech people are spreadsheet obsessed). Then I'm going to get a rough idea of how much all these jaunts will cost me and start budgeting out how many times a year I'll have to travel, how much it will cost, etc.
And now I have all sorts of sly ways to get ff miles to pay for some of it.
Thanks for inspiring me everyone!
