04.24.09
Getting on a Jet Plane
My travel schedule this week:
NYC to Las Vegas to Minneapolis to NYC to Houston to NYC.
07.11.08
Nebraska, I love ya but give me Park Avenue
I’m finished with my onsite work in OmaHaHa, finally. New York bound for at least a few weeks while we finish up with the final report and then who knows. It sounds like Fort Lauderdale next, at a similar kind of engagement but different kind of health system. I’m thinking there are more Gays in Ft. Lauderdale than in Omaha. I really, REALLY got tired of everyone wearing a wedding band.
Also, I want hotel status so bad that I think I’ll never not stay at the Courtyards which are becoming more plain by the visit. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing as it prompts me to want to go out and explore.
06.27.08
Trapped!!! In Omaha!
So the thing is, anyone who has the misfortune of following me on Twitter already knows the travel drama I’m having. But because I’m Trapped! In Omaha! and have a viable Internet connection, I’m going to bitch and complain about it again:
I’m Trapped! In Omaha! which is the follow up to the earlier Rainbow Tour that started the week off. The Rainbow Tour was suppose to come to a stunning conclusion yesterday evening with my direct departure to EWR however weather, somewhere in the continental US but not actually in or around Nebraska cancelled the flight a full 10 hours before it was scheduled to leave. That bit of precognition left all my more travel-experienced team perplexed. I had been automatically rebooked to a 7am flight this morning. So I booked a room, went across the river into Iowa and played a little black jack and won some cash. Score! So really I was feeling fine and even picked up a little of the local flavor when the pit boss asked me if I’d been to the Playhouse yet. Why no, I hadn’t been to any theater in Omaha yet but if there was something he was recommending, I’d be sure to check it out.
Um, yeah. According to the pit boss, the Playhouse has the hottest, totally-nude bitches around these here parts. So that’s kinda nice to file away whenever that opportunity presents itself. I LOVE hot, totally-nude bitches. I AM one, for God’s sake.
So I’m up at 4am this morning to take the one available shuttle back out to the airport with a flight crew staying at the hotel, and get to the airport JUST as they cancel my flight this morning, finding myself rebooked on the next direct to NYC…at 7pm tonight. I did manage to fanaggle myself onto the standby list for an 12noon flight but that one is now on its second delay so, right, I’m thinking that one isn’t happening either.
On the plus side, I’m set up at Starbucks with a good, strong connection and Twittering the hell out of my encampment, giving running color commentary on the weirdness of the downtown coffee clutch crowd (mounted Omaha Police in big, black boots are hotness). Feel free to hook into and follow me on Twitter. It’s not always as much fun today, but I do try.
06.09.08
Where Do We Go From Here…
My time in Philadelphia is drawing to a close. After six weeks and two engagement extensions, we’re wrapping up the project and bugging out. My weeks have gone from reasonable hours to excessive, excessive to the point where my performance mentor has called twice to let me know I’m working at about 136% utilization. Supposedly there is some point when utilization hits a certain point and an email, I’m guessing, is generated so that the people who care are notified and can “reach out” as we say in consultant land. I appreciated the gesture, both times really, but honestly, you don’t think I don’t know that I’m working the kind of hours that equate into 136% utilization? I’m just saying.
But Philadelphia has been good. It’s a city I hadn’t spent much time in though honestly, I guess I could still say that since I haven’t hardly left the gayborhood except for a martini run at the Continental diner that one time. So for me, Philadelphia is the gayborhood and that’s OK. Good food, good architecture, good-looking menz, and street cruising. I’m even a regular at a bar and I haven’t ever had that, anywhere, not even (or, especially) in New York, where I’ve lived since 1996.
So I’m departing Philadelphia this week with another engagement under my belt, this one challenging and difficult in ways that I hadn’t expected, but better for it…always better for new experiences, pleasant or not. I’m NYC bound next week and slipping in a short 5K corporate run next Thursday then it’s off to my next assignment the week after which will carry me through until the end of July. I understand jealousy can greet me, even from the best of friends, because of my cosmopolitan consultanty life-style, getting to jet off to strange and exotic places, seeing and meeting new people. This of course is always the “one-after” engagement meaning the one after this next one coming up, which for me just happens to be in Omaha, Nebraska. I mean, Omaha, Nebraska in July…all of July. And me with my whole humidity issues and East Coast mentality; a recipe for disaster, I’d think. In preparation, I’ve shaved my head down to my buzz cut so I don’t have to deal with hair product and the perfect zshuzz of curls styled ever so carefully to look like they effortlessly fell that way out of the shower. As far as the East Coast mentality, I’m not sure you can even get a 136% utilization rate west of the Mississippi, even if you find that elusive 25th hour in the day. But I understand Omaha does have some gentlemanly pubs of a certain caliber and I was raised in farm country, after all, so I’m sure I’ll be able to slip in, under the radar, and figure it out.
05.23.08
Get your workday under control
Last year in an expanding search to get myself somewhat organized at work, I happened up Total Workday Control and have been foisting it off on anyone willing to listen. It uses MS Outlook (don’t be a hater! Some of us have to use what our employers tell us) to work the Get Things Done work philosophy. I had to do a fair bit of reading to find out all the skinny but of course that led to finding a huge community of organizers and work people who live and breathe this shit. So I gave Total Workday Control a whirl and I have to say, for me (and remember, I’m a simpleton), it’s a very good thing. I manage to keep my inbox completely empty each day, I have a better handle on all my tasts and responsibilities, and my overwhelming since of impending doom from forgetting something important has disappeared. It’s a process, of course, and it takes some constant, gentle attention, especially for me who’s nature state is to be porky, slothful, and day-dreaming, but it’s working out just peachy. If you need a helpful system, give it a look-see.
05.15.08
The City of Brotherly Love
I’ve been traveling quite a bit for work lately…ranging from Michigan to San Francisco but have really been in Philadelphia for the most part. Strange that all the time we’ve been in New York, I’ve spent so little time in Philly but I’m finding the city fantastic. Of course I’m only seeing about a 12 square block part of the city and it just happens to be the gayborhood, but still, fantastic. Great restaurants, great buildings, and a great city just to walk around in. Even though my work hours are stretching into the ridiculous range each day, I’ve managed to end up at the local neighborhood waterhole for gentleman for a night-cap and meeting really nice people. Definitely a keeper city.
11.20.07
Transitions
So after 12 years of being at the same institution, I’ve finally embraced one of my biggest fears which is, for anyone who doesn’t know, taking risks. I went out and found a great new job and resigned from what has been my home for a long, long time. Change is hard and I’m not one to crawl out from under the warmth of a super security blanket, but it’s time to grow and try something new and risk failure but also risk actually making it work.
Being at an academic medical center for so long, I’ve grown accustomed to the environment, people, and how things operate so moving out into a for-profit industry is something completely new to me. Also, I’ll be traveling 4-5 days a week all over the US. That was really a big selling point for me as I’ve always had the wanderlust. So now I get to keep Jeff AND travel. I could be coming to a city near you! We’ll hang out and have drinks and you can discover that I’m much more boring then my blog would suggest.
So I’m in the final four weeks of my departure and the blog is back up and running. Yay me!