I've enjoyed reading these reports as well. Keep up the good work! :)

Enjoying this greatly... I can relate to so many of your adventures!

Funny, 1993gt40's experience was the first thing I thought of when I knocked the side mirror off. I figured if he survived THAT, I could survive this :)

Thanks :) glad to hear you are enjoying it!

You have PM :)

Yes, it's going to be in Austin in September (which means a trip for the two of us), and I've got friends/family coming in from all over the country. So I'm sure we will have some travel stories to tell. We also just booked the honeymoon this week... a cruise from Seattle to Osaka via Alaska (definitely NOT a sunbathing cruise, especially in September!) and then home on first-class award tickets :D. It will be our first time in international F, and I'm almost looking forward to that more than the cruise ;)

I'm working through your TR... great reading!

Lately, it's been harder and harder for me to go on the road.

There is this moment in the morning when I wake up, wedged between my fiance and our cat, snug and warm under the covers, in our enormous king bed, totally content. And then I remember that I have to get up and go to the airport, and it makes me so sad.

I used to love the travel, even though I did miss home when I was gone. Now, it's getting to be a drag. I think this mostly stems from my dissatisfaction with my job. I got a new manager when I moved from Texas to California, and for a variety of reasons, we just haven't "clicked" yet. I feel like I have no direction anymore, and like the work that I do is completely unappreciated. It is really wearing on me. It's hard enough to go on the road for a job you love; it's almost unbearable to go on the road for a job you're starting to actively dislike.

Yet last Sunday, I found myself comfortably ensconced in a first-class seat on a 767, en route to Dallas. Of all my trips lately, I was most looking forward to this one, an easy trip that would afford me plenty of time to catch up with my old friends. Still, I had had that moment in the morning. As if sensing my mood, iTunes' Party Shuffle picked a song I haven't heard in a while, "Right Where I Need to Be" by Gary Allan. The gender isn't right, but the sentiment is right on:

Sometimes, I wonder.

We landed in Dallas, and I collected my bags and headed off for the rental car center. As soon as I started driving down 161 towards Las Colinas, where I used to live, work, and play, I felt at home. I miss Texas. California is beautiful, and being with my fiance is THE most important thing in the world to me, but it is rather lonely for me. I have, literally, two friends out there (besides my fiance), a couple we met on vacation last year who happens to live in San Jose. Since I work from home, I don't even have work acquaintances, people who I can at least chat with during the day. Texas is where most of my friends are. If my fiance wanted to move back, I'd go with him in a heartbeat.

My first stop was the Campion Trail, a bike/run trail that starts near the intersection of 635 and Valley View. I had to get a 1-hour run in for my triathlon training, I knew this trail well from previous workouts, and it's extremely convenient to the airport. After I got that out of the way, I stopped by Daddio's Taqueria, which is right down the road from my old apartment, and a recent addition to the AA Rewards Network :). I always get an order of tortilla chips and guacamole -- their chips are the best I've ever had, served hot and lightly seasoned. Then I swung by the house of my triathlon coach. He's been hanging on to one of my older bikes since I left, precisely so I could pick it up and get a ride in during trips to Dallas. We also chatted about how my training is going, and what I need to work on.

I headed back to my hotel late, feeling quite content with my day. I stayed at the Hampton Inn downtown in the West End. This is one of my new favorite hotels. It's the only high-rise Hampton Inn I've ever stayed in (I was on the 17th floor, with a great view), and the staff was exceptionally friendly. It was also reasonably priced, especially considering the location. Best of all, I was only a block away from my customer the next morning.

Unfortunately, I got in a huge fight with my fiance that night. He really struggles when I'm on the road a lot. He's frustrated right now because we don't get to spend a lot of time with each other -- I'm on the road all week, and then I have to spend a lot of time on the weekend training for my triathlon... plus it's lacrosse season, and I both play and officiate, so that chews up even more weekend time. So that was the crux of the argument. I know it's hard on him, because he wants to encourage me to succeed at my job, and he wants to encourage me to do Ironman and do lacrosse (two of my only outlets for my frustrations in California), but we also need to spend time together. Sometimes I wish I didn't travel, because then I wouldn't be trying to cram a weeks' worth of STUFF into a few days, but this is what I do now. We ended up staying up till past 3 AM CST, talking it all out, not really reaching any conclusions other than we love each other and want to keep working at finding some sort of balance in our lives.

I woke up the next morning feeling like I'd been run over by a truck. How can talking be so incredibly exhausting? It was definitely good that this particular trip was not too intensive. I just had to do yet another workshop delivery. I'm getting a bit tired of them, to be honest, but any excuse to come out to Dallas. Plus, workshop deliveries mean free time at night. I took full advantage of this on Monday, getting together about 15 of my friends for dinner at Boston's in Las Colinas, a restaurant that I frequented quite a bit during my years in Texas. It was heaven, being surrounded by all those wonderful people. As if I didn't miss Texas enough already. I ended up staying till almost midnight, drinking margaritas and chatting with my best friend, who I have missed terribly, and just getting a lot of stuff out. I left with a little more clarity and perspective on, well, everything -- my best friend always seems to be able to give that to me. (Best friends usually do.)

After finishing up my workshop on Tuesday, I had another special treat: I got to watch the high school lacrosse team I used to coach in one of their games. One of the hardest parts of moving away from Texas was leaving "my girls." They were the first team I ever coached, in any sport, and I was really sad that I only got to work with them for one season. I promised them that I would come back for at least one game, so this was the fulfillment of that promise. For some reason, the weather turned horribly cold -- temperatures dipped into the 40s, with a wicked wind. I was completely unprepared in a windbreaker and a t-shirt, but my girls and their parents came through with letter jackets and blankets, so I was nice and warm as I watched them easily beat one of the better teams in the area. I was so proud of them and so happy I was able to be there.

On Tuesday night, I checked into a new Hampton Inn, in Arlington (midway between Dallas and Fort Worth). This was partially because it was more convenient to the customer I'd be visiting on Wednesday, who was located in Fort Worth, and partially because it got me one more Hilton HHonors stay -- with the new "rolling" elite qualification program, I'm just a few stays away from Diamond.

Wednesday was a particularly easy day. Since I was already scheduled to do the workshop delivery, the managers figured I could drop by another customer who needed some assistance. All I had to do was meet with them for a few hours in the morning, and then I was free for the rest of the day. I checked into yet another Hampton Inn (racking up the stays), closer to Las Colinas, and caught up on some work before meeting up with my old triathlon team for their regular weekly run. Once again, I enjoyed seeing familiar faces, and having other people to work out with. It's been lonely in California, training on my own.

Afterwards, my best friend and I went out for drinks. Wednesday at Jack Astor's was a tradition for us well before I moved, and I purposely stayed through Wednesday night to get a chance to do it again. It was even better than before, because I didn't have to be at work the next morning :). I did end up going into the office anyway, just to say hello to my old teammates, before I headed off for DFW to catch my return flight home.

All in all, it was a wonderful trip. Work certainly didn't stress me out, and I can't even describe how great it was to see all my old friends. Still, I was so happy to board my flight HOME. As much as I knew I'd miss my friends, I couldn't wait to see my fiance.

"Cause I finally got all my priorities in line, I'm right where I need to be..."

Long time reader, first time poster (to this thread). Thanks for the great read ^^

Flyer23, I think that anybody reading this thread who's in a relationship and travels can relate directly with your feelings in your post. I know I can..similarly, I'll also text my wife when I land anywhere and always try to ring at night to find out what happened in her day.

The most important thing you did with your fiance was communicate. Even though you didn't feel like anything was achieved, you both understand how the other feels when you are away from each other. It's impressive that he is able to "talk it out" with you - women communicate on an emotional level better, whereas men comminucate on a logical level better (well, sometimes).

I must be just in touch with my feminine side o:

Another great post. You really are hitting the nail on the head with the up and down emotions of balancing consulting travel, relationships, fitness, etc. I find it refreshing to hear someone talk about the "down" aspects of travel.

Its probably also a bonus that I regularly frequent all of the places you mentioned in your report (although I blade the Campion as opposed to running!).

I've got him pretty well trained :D

(heh... I wish :))

I've been booked solid at least two or three weeks out, pretty much every week since New Years. But when I returned home from Dallas, I found myself in the unfamiliar position of having no trips scheduled for the foreseeable future.

This is where my job differs from being a "traditional" consultant. We do have a concept very similar to what consultants call "billing" -- we have to track all the time that we spend working for our customers, and we have goals for the percentage of our time that we need to spend doing this (65%). But we don't have to be onsite, or even doing research for when we go onsite, in order to "bill." Customers can open cases with us when they just want to work via phone/email, so I can sit at home in my pajamas and "bill."

(Another nice thing about my team's concept of "billing" is that travel time counts. We don't charge the customer for it, but it does count towards our 65% goal. That's why it doesn't upset me too much when I get stuck on a 16-hour airport odyssey to get home... because when I get there, I can basically take two days off to compensate.)

So I wasn't stressed out about the downtime, and was actually looking forward to it. I picked up a case on Monday morning and spent a good deal of time working on that. I also got the chance to take care of some pressing errands, like finding my wedding dress. (For those of you who have never had the pleasure of purchasing a wedding dress, the darn things have to be ordered about 4-6 months before your wedding date. With my wedding just over five months away, all the bridal salon ladies were breathing down my neck, saying, "You have to order this dress TODAY!" "Ummm, can I sleep on it, and maybe talk it over with my mom?" "No, you really need to order TODAY!")

Still, it didn't take long for our trip coordinators to figure out that I was available and try to send me off again. Two potential trips didn't pan out, but they finally cornered me on Tuesday evening with a trip to Seattle, starting Thursday morning. The customer had been experiencing serious problems with one of our products. Fortunately, those had been resolved, but they were still seeing some errors that concerned them. The product in question is one that I'm just starting to learn, but I did a bit of research and decided I could help them figure out the errors.

Leaving for this trip was easier than usual. I insisted on departing Thursday morning instead of Wednesday night, which meant only one night away from home. Besides, my fiance had a business trip of his own on Thursday and Friday, so I knew he wouldn't be home anyway. So early on Thursday morning, I found myself at SJC's Terminal C, facing another joyous ride on Alaska Airlines. Terminal C is the non-AA, non-Southwest terminal. Apparently, it is also the non-jetbridge terminal. There is something so quaint about boarding a plane, especially a normal-sized one, via stairs. It makes me feel like I've been transported back to 1950.

I arrived at Seattle on time (the benefit of flying Alaska early in the morning), picked up my rental car (an Impala... after my side-view mirror incident, I guess Sea-Tac's Avis operation does not deem me worthy of a Grand Prix anymore), and headed off to the customer site. When I got there, I quickly discovered that the description of the visit that I'd been given was completely off-base. I was expecting to fix the specific errors that our product was giving. Instead, the customer explained that they had been having a ton of problems with the product over the last year, and they basically wanted me to review their setup and make sure there were no fundamental issues. As I said, this product is a new one for me, and I have been trying to avoid precisely these types of reviews because I simply don't have enough experience to say what is "good" and what is "bad."

It got worse. I had specifically told the trip coordinator who sent me to Seattle that I needed to be back in San Francisco by Friday afternoon for a meeting with my manager. My manager does not work in San Francisco (it is very common for my team to have "remote" managers), so it is rare for me to meet him face-to-face. I mentioned in my previous entry that my manager and I have not really "clicked" yet, so I was looking forward to this meeting as an opportunity to get on the same page a little more. Unfortunately, when I got onsite with the customer, it quickly became clear that they had not received the message that I needed to leave early on Friday. They expected me to be there for the full two days.

Still, I was there, so I couldn't exactly say, "Ummm, sorry, you have the wrong person. I'm going to go home now." So I just listened to their problems, and did my best to help them out. To my surprise, we actually managed to knock out a few problems while I was there on Thursday, and I left with notes on some more issues to research.

I was staying at the same Hampton Inn that I had used two weeks earlier, during my previous trip to Seattle. It's less than three miles from the customer site. Unfortunately, I ended up on the wrong side of a major north-south highway (Aurora Avenue) that bisects part of downtown Seattle. After trying a few times to find a street that would take me to the other side, I gave up and got on Aurora Avenue northbound (the opposite direction from my hotel) and went to the Queen Anne Turnaround, which, I hoped, would let me Turnaround and go south. Apparently, a lot of other people were on the wrong side of Aurora Avenue as well, because it took me about 10 minutes to get through the turnaround, which could not have been much more than a quarter mile long. I finally made it onto Queen Anne Avenue, which runs parallel to the street that my hotel is on. Then, I had to find a street that would allow me to cut over, which took some time. Finally, I got on North 6th Avenue, drove down a ways, and realized the hotel was on North 5th Avenue. Sigh. It was back onto Aurora Avenue for a little bit, until I managed to cut over on Denny Way and find my way to North 5th Avenue and the Hampton Inn. All told, the less-than-three-mile trip took just under an hour. Ah, the joys of traveling.

The Hampton Inn Seattle Downtown is another of my favorite Hamptons. I asked for a room upgrade when I booked it, and ended up in what I believe was a handicapped room. It had a huge sitting area, with a couch and a chair, as well as a small table with chairs and a little kitchenette with a sink, microwave (and popcorn!), and mini-fridge. It was up on the fifth floor, with a great view of the Space Needle and the Seattle skyline. I was sad to only be staying for a night.

I quickly emailed my manager to let him know that I would not get back to San Francisco in time for our meeting the next day, and he asked if we could do it over the phone that night instead. No problem! We scheduled it for 9 PM so I'd have time to get my workout in first. My bike ride was less boring than usual because the University of Washington's NCAA tourney game was on, and the entire gym was cheering at every basket. Too bad the Huskies ended up losing, but it provided good entertainment for the first 45 minutes of a 60-minute bike ride. I jumped in the pool for a long swim, then grabbed some dinner on the way home, and ate it sitting at the table in my room! How civilized! Usually, my bed is the table.

My meeting with my manager went really, really well. He told me that I'm performing well, which was quite a relief for me, because I really haven't been getting much feedback from him on my performance, which made me very nervous. He noticed that I've been billing at right around 100% for the year, and asked if it was too much for me. He encouraged me to take some time off, if I felt like I needed more time at home. (We can mark ourselves as "unavailable" for trips for a few days, if we're getting burned out with the travel.) We also talked about setting aside some time to work on some little projects of mine, which tend to get pushed to the side when I'm traveling. I came away from the call feeling a lot better about my job.

Friday ended up being a great day too. For starters, it only took me about 5 minutes to get from the hotel to the customer site :D. Also, I had done some research on some of the problems we had looked at on Thursday, so I was able to present some solutions to the customer. By the time I left for the airport, we had resolved about four or five issues that had been bugging them for over a year. They were thrilled! I had a huge smile on my face as I left. It's been a long time since I've had that feeling after an onsite visit -- the feeling like I've truly accomplished something, really helped a customer. It's wonderful. It's what makes me love my job. I'd forgotten that.

I came home in a great mood. It's amazing how your whole outlook can change in two days. I felt refreshed, ready to tackle the ups and downs of my job (and business travel) again. I still don't love it quite as much as I did when I first started, but that is to be expected, after a year and a half of doing the same thing. I take the good of my job with the bad, and for perhaps the first time since moving to California, I feel like the good is outweighing the bad. For that, I am thankful.

Coming home from Seattle, I found myself with no trips scheduled again. This time, I actually managed to spend the entire week at home, for the first time since early January. It was wonderful. I stayed very busy, finishing up expense reports, working with customers over email, etc... but I could do it all from the comfort of my recliner, and eat dinner with my fiance every night. Building on my good feelings coming out of Seattle, this was just what I needed.

Of course, it was not to last. Early in the week, I got another engagement scheduled for Tuesday through Thursday of the following week. This one was in San Diego. I would be working side-by-side with a couple of consultants to help write up a migration plan for a customer who planned on moving to new versions of a number of products, including some of ours. I was very interested to see what "real" consulting is like -- it is something that has intrigued me for quite a while, and I recently noticed that there are some open consulting positions with my company in the Bay Area.

I arrived on Tuesday morning and met the consultants, as well as the customers. I was ready to "hit the ground running" and start working on my piece of the migration plan. I soon learned that the more people involved in a project, the longer it takes. When I come in to a customer site, I'm usually on my own. I talk to the people I need to talk to, write the reports I need to write, and get the heck out of there. This time, working with two other people, I spent most of Tuesday in meetings of various sorts. Orientation meetings. Status meetings with the customer. Meetings to discuss our still-very-much-in-progress migration plan. Lunch meetings. Etc. etc. In between the meetings, the other consultants chatted with me about privatizing social security, the real estate market, their hobbies, and so on. By the end of the day, I had hardly accomplished anything.

I stayed in a hotel called Park Manor Suites, which was pretty cool. It is an older hotel (built in the 1920s), but very cute. I had a one-bedroom suite, which consisted of a large sleeping area, a separate dressing area, bathroom, full kitchen, and small dining room. It's right across the street from Balboa Park, so as soon as I checked in on Tuesday, I laced up my running shoes and went for a fabulous one-hour run, enjoying the park and the perfect San Diego weather. The hotel is also a short walk from an area called Hillcrest, which has a wide variety of restaurants; I found a fabulous little Thai place called Celadon. In the mornings, there is a continental breakfast on the seventh floor, which has fantastic views of Balboa Park, downtown San Diego, and the harbor. All in all, I had a very enjoyable stay at Park Manor, and it was very reasonably priced too ($109/night, with discounts for long-term stays). I wouldn't recommend it to people who like their hotels to be shiny and new, but I really liked it.

Anyway, we had hours of meetings again on Wednesday. Around mid-afternoon, the lead consultant asked me when I thought I'd be able to have a rough draft of one of the deliverables ready. I said, "I'll have it by the end of the day tomorrow, at the latest," and had to bite my tongue hard to keep from adding "...that is, assuming you leave me alone and actually let me work for a few hours."

Fortunately, the lead consultant left shortly before lunch on Thursday to drive back home to LA, leaving me alone with the other consultant. This other consultant is the one who brought me into the project, and I like him a lot more than the project lead. For starters, he knows when to shut up and get to work... allowing me to do the same. Consequently, I had a very productive afternoon, knocking out all my deliverables for the week and nearly finishing the next deliverable as well, which is not due till early May. Amazing what you can do when you're not stuck in meetings all day.

Around 4 pm, I was surfing the Internet, trying to look busy, when the trip coordinators figured out that I had a gaping three-day hole in my schedule (including Saturday and Sunday), and started trying to fill it. I was in the middle of telling one guy that no, I could not go to Portland on Saturday to help with a product I know nothing about, when another coordinator emailed to ask if I would be available the next day to, um, "go" to San Diego. (She didn't realize I was already there.)

Well, I wasn't thrilled about the idea, to be honest. All day, I had been looking forward to seeing my fiance that evening. Plus, I had a lacrosse game to referee on Friday afternoon, back in the Bay Area. (One of the cruelest aspects of my job is that I'm home just enough to start building a life at home, but I travel just enough to make that fledgling life hard to sustain. I love lacrosse refereeing and don't want to give it up, but trying to balance it with travel, especially last-minute travel, does stress me out quite a bit during lacrosse season.) But I knew it didn't make sense to fly someone in from a faraway office when I was right there in San Diego. I agreed to do it, as long as I could get on a 2 pm flight back to SJC so I could make it to lacrosse.

I caught a cab to the airport with the other consultant shortly afterwards, but instead of getting on a plane back to SJC, I picked up a car at Avis and headed north, towards my new customer. I selected the Doubletree San Diego/Del Mar, rather than the Hampton Inn across the street, because they were about the same price and I was in the mood for a chocolate chip cookie. I had time to squeeze in a 1.5 hour bike/run in the fitness center before heading up to my room to relax, order room service, and figure out what to do about the fact that I had no clean clothes to wear the next day. (I'll spare you the details of what I eventually decided. :))

My "new" customer was actually the same San Diego customer that I visited back in January (I wrote about that trip in one of my earliest entries), although I was working with a different group within the company this time around. They were getting an error in one of our applications, and they had been working with our support people over the phone for two days, without much progress. But once I got onsite, we were able to knock out the problem quickly, and I was out the door by 11 AM. I often get sent onsite for issues that I feel could be easily resolved over the phone... but trips like this one serve to remind me of the value of onsite support.

Needless to say, the customer was thrilled. One guy said he had resigned himself to having to worry about the issue all weekend, so it was a huge weight off his shoulders to have it resolved on Friday morning. Once again, I had a big smile on my face as I left the customer site. Best of all, I was able to hustle out to the airport and make it onto the 11:50 AM flight, which got me back to SJC in plenty of time for my lacrosse game.

Talkative consultants notwithstanding, it was a very good week.

Don't you just love people who love the sound of their own voice....thanks Flyer23 for yet another "week in the life".

Thanks for the window on your life.

Keep writing, it's good reading.

As is so often the case, I had barely unpacked from my trip to San Diego when it was time to hit the road again. This time, I was headed off on the rare international trip, to Mexico City. Since starting my current job, I've had about 40 onsite visits, all domestic with the exception of four -- two to Toronto, one to England (an extremely rare opportunity), and now one to Mexico City.

My itinerary took me from SFO to LAX on American, where I would transfer to Mexicana for the flight to MEX. I put in for upgrades on the SFO-LAX and LAX-SFO segments, and received an upgrade notification email on the morning of the flight for SFO-LAX, so I went out to AA.com to select my new first-class seat. To my surprise, the SFO-LAX, MEX-LAX, and LAX-SFO segments showed up properly, but the LAX-MEX segment had mysteriously disappeared. It took about half an hour on the phone with AA to straighten it out, and I'm still not sure what the problem was -- something about LAX thinking I had already left SFO, and LAX insisting that the Mexicana flight was no longer an AA codeshare, and maybe some other stuff. Anyway, at the end of it all, I had a flight to MEX again, which was all I cared about. I got a quick workout in, packed my bags again, and headed off to SFO.

Whenever I take off or land at a Bay Area airport, it makes me sad that I can't recognize where I am. I've flown into and out of DFW so much that now I can easily pick out personal landmarks -- my office, Joe Pool Lake (where my triathlon team often held swim practice), each of the two fields where my lacrosse team used to practice, my usual bike route around Lake Grapevine, even the balcony of my old apartment. I don't have that familiarity with the Bay Area. But on this trip, I discovered that I'm getting better. We took off to the northeast, made a big loop, and headed straight down the peninsula. I was able to pick out US-101 and I-280, the major highways that run down the east and west sides of the peninsula, respectively, then I-380 connecting them, the San Mateo bridge and CA-92 heading towards Half Moon Bay, the Stanford campus, and then up and over the mountains that I bike up when I need a good challenge. It made me smile. It gave me hope that one day, California will truly feel like home.

I played my usual game of spot-the-cool-airplanes at LAX. This time, I was fascinated by four Qantas 747s lined up in pairs, tail to tail, right next to an Air Pacific 747. I've probably flown on that Air Pacific plane -- I've definitely flown on one of their 747s, and they only have two. There's a story behind that trip, but I'll leave it for another entry.

It was a quick walk from AA's Terminal 4 to the Tom Bradley International Terminal, where I checked in for my Mexicana flight. I love TBIT. It has an enormous check-in area, home to just about every international airline that flies out of LAX, and there are a lot of them, everything from British Airways to Aeroflot. A huge board towers above the check-in counters, showing where all your fellow travelers are going, and you can't help but dream about flying to Singapore or London or Nadi or Melbourne, instead of Mexico City. The place is hushed, reserved; it's the feeling of thousands of travelers collectively settling in for a very long trip.

I cleared security and headed upstairs to the Mexicana lounge (one of the perks of the AA-Mexicana alliance). It is small, but quiet and comfortable, with self-serve snacks and drinks, as well as an Internet-connected computer. All in all, it was a pleasant time to pass the hour or so before my flight.

I headed downstairs at 5:15, as printed on my boarding pass, to catch my 6 pm flight. 5:20 passed... then 5:30... 5:45... without a peep from the gate agent. Finally, shortly before 6 pm, we started the boarding process, with no explanation for the delay. The flight wasn't too full, so we boarded quickly, closed the doors, pushed back, and got on our way. I was bummed that there were no TV screens on the flight, but pleasantly surprised that we actually got a hot dinner, even in coach.

Despite the delay in LAX, we got into MEX right on time. Immigration took some time for non-Mexicans, but customs was a breeze, and I was on my way fairly quickly. My customer's account manager was waiting for me; he is a full-time employee of my company, but he acts as a liason between my company and the customer who I would be working with during the week. He got me to my hotel, the Radisson Paraiso, at around 1 AM, and I turned in for the night.

The next morning, I woke up and checked out of my hotel! They only had room on Sunday night, and I wasn't able to get in touch with the account manager in time to let him know that I needed to find someplace else to stay. So I figured I would just make a reservation for Sunday night, since I was getting in so late, and then find another hotel for Monday night.

I ended up staying in the hotel lobby for about an hour after I checked out, waiting for the account manager to show up and take me to the customer site. We got there quite late, and got right to work. The goal of this trip was to look over the customer's implementation of one of our products, and make recommendations on what they could do to improve it. I spent most of the first day just trying to understand how their environment worked, a task made significantly harder by the language barrier. The account manager and some of the customers spoke fairly good English, and I can understand a little Spanish, but everything just took a little longer than usual. But everyone was really nice and willing to work with me, so it wasn't too bad.

We walked to a nearby restaurant for lunch. It was so cool to get out and see the street life. There were tons of people out walking around, people selling everything from handmade dolls to illegally copied DVDs, little eateries, a place where an old woman was busy making tortillas by hand. It was much livelier than the streets in a typical American city, a lot more fun.

The account manager took me to a new hotel that night, the Marquis Reforma. They only had suites available, so I ended up in a three-room suite on the ninth floor. One of the rooms of the suite had huge wraparound floor-to-ceiling windows with a great view of the city and the mountains. It also had a jacuzzi tub, although I didn't have time to try it out :). It was pretty amazing.

Unfortunately, I was feeling a little sick to my stomach. I couldn't figure out if I'd accidentally gotten a taste of that infamous Mexican water, or if it was just PMS. (The symptoms are similar... I'll have to avoid Mexico during that time of the month in the future. It's too confusing. By the way, I know you men really wanted to hear all that. But hey, you said you enjoyed the "female perspective" :D) After chatting with my fiance, who has done a couple of business trips to this area, I figured out that it was probably altitude sickness. Mexico City is at nearly 7500 feet, and I'd had barely anything to drink all day (one of the keys to avoiding altitude sickness, for me). Under the circumstances, I decided that doing my planned one-hour workout would be a very bad idea. Instead, I settled down on the couch to get some work down, drink a lot of Evian, and watch the sun set out of those huge windows.

The account manager said he'd come back at around 8 PM to take me to dinner. I was hardly surprised when my phone didn't ring till 9:15 PM. We went out to an area called Coyoacan, which is apparently one of the tourist hotspots in Mexico City. It was really cute! Even though it was a random Monday night, there were lots of people out wandering the streets. There was a drummer playing in one of the main squares, and a bunch of people dancing along to the beat. We ate at a little taco place that specializes in "tacos al pastor." Basically, the "al pastor" meat is cut off a huge rotating block, much like gyros. It was very tasty! I joked with the account manager, saying that yes, it was a little better than Taco Bell :D

I was up late that night, analyzing configuration information that I had collected for the customer during the day. My alarm clock went off at 5 AM the next morning. I had to drag my butt out of bed to get at least a short run in on the treadmill before work. This run confirmed that I was definitely having trouble with the altitude -- normally, I warm up at about 6 mph and go up from there, but on that morning, I started off at 5.2 mph and my heart rate was through the roof! It was all I could do to stay on the treadmill for 30 mins without a) falling off or b) having a heart attack, but it felt good to get my legs moving again. After recovering from that, I rushed to pack up all my stuff (again) and get checked out... only to have the account manager show up an hour late again. After two days of this, I should've known better!

Once I got to the customer site, I finished up my analysis of their configuration and gave a presentation explaining my recommendations. It went well, and the customer and the account manager were quite pleased with everything I'd done. Now see, this is how I operate on my own -- two days, do what I need to do, in and out. None of this consultant meeting stuff! :)

I got to the airport around 6 PM for my 9:30 PM flight to LAX, so it was off to the Mexicana lounge again. Unfortunately, they wouldn't let me in this time. They asked me to use the Admiral's Club, since it was right downstairs. No biggie, I got two free drink chits at the AC, so I was soon surfing FT with a very strong margarita in my hand. The AC did close at 8 PM, which was a bit of an inconvenience. I probably could have asked about getting into the Mexicana lounge again, but by that time, I had a pretty good buzz going from the margarita, and was quite content to wander the airport, purchasing souvenirs and looking for food. I grabbed a quick dinner and headed off to the gate to board my flight. The flight wasn't very full, so I had three seats to myself. It had been a long day, so I stretched out and fell asleep pretty quickly.

Due to a traffic jam on the runway in Mexico City (they had closed down one of their runways, for some reason, so both arriving and departing flights had to wait for the same runway), we were about half an hour late getting into LAX, arriving at around midnight. I cleared customs and called for the Hampton Inn shuttle. I got to the hotel at about 1 AM and conked out immediately. The alarm clock went off shortly before 5 AM. I showered, packed my bags, checked out with the same guy who had checked me in barely 4 hours earlier, and headed back to the airport to catch a 6:25 flight back to SFO.

Once back in the familiar territory of the Bay Area, I hardly had time to catch my breath before I was off to another customer site. My flight touched down at SFO at around 8 AM. I caught the shuttle to long-term parking, found my car, and headed right off to Walnut Creek, which is on the east side of the San Francisco Bay, about an hour from downtown San Francisco. Luckily, this trip turned out to be very easy. The customer just wanted some hand-holding while installing one of our products. We actually spent most of the day on Wednesday just trying to get the product's prerequisites installed and functioning properly. Another group was assigned to handle these prereqs (which should have been installed weeks ago), so while they worked on that, there was nothing for me and my host to do but sit around and wait. Fortunately, this was one of the extremely rare occasions when I was working with a woman (on 95% of my trips, it's me and a big group of guys), so we had a lot of fun just chatting. She recently got married, so she gave me a ton of tips on wedding planning. Overall, it wasn't a bad way to pass a day, although it did mean that I had to make the 1 hr drive out to Walnut Creek again the next day to finish up the install. Still, it went very smoothly, and I was done by lunchtime.

I headed home to pack for yet another trip. But I was looking forward to this one. It was a personal trip back "home" to Texas, with my fiance. I'll leave that story for my next entry.

Wonderful story flyer23 - Mexicans must have a lazze faire attitude with relation to "timing"??

I didn't realise MEX was that high (having never been there), however can understand your body throwing a wobbly. The smaller sleep patterns probably didn't help either. As for your PMT, well, some men can handle it :D

Enjoy the home trip and look forward to hearing about the greeting ;) your fiance got (and gave)!

Yeah, according to one of my friends, the Mexican national soccer team has not lost a game at home (they play in Mexico City) in years. Between the altitude and the pollution (which is terrible), the visiting team just can't keep up!