Movie Day in PA

Here's the joke of the day (this one's a classic):

Q.  What's the difference between roast beef and pea soup?

A.  Anyone can roast beef, but nobody can pea soup!

So, Happy Sunday!!  I had quite a day.  I went to the site this morning at 8:00 and helped two users in picking up their computers, and then I had to move a computer.  My site contact verified no one else was coming in today, so we left close to lunch time.  Since I had the whole afternoon, I drove over by the mall and ate lunch at an A&W and saw a movie.

I ended up watching The Rite.  It was pretty good.  I guess I would give it a 3 star rating out of 5 as it started off kind of slow.  Not bad though.  I had some time after lunch before the movie started, so I went to an Ollie's Outlet Store next door and looked around.  They were having a sale that I'm sure Andrew would have had a comment on, so I took a picture:

You have to know my son Andrew to know what I'm talking about.  He's really a funny kid.  

I guess that's really about all I got.  I'm thinking about Subway for dinner, or maybe ordering a pizza, but I'm really not that hungry.  I guess sometimes when you are alone sitting in a hotel, dinner is all you have to really look forward to for the night.  If that makes any sense.  Tomorrow should go smooth (knock on wood), and I'm heading back home tomorrow night after we're done.  Next Thursday I leave for Scottdale, PA which is also a suburb of Pittsburgh.  

Until then...May the force be with you.  

...and I'm missing my family!!!

Good Day

Joke of the day...

Q.  What is green, and if it falls out of a tree, can kill you?

A.  A pool table

 There has to be a better answer to that question besides a pool table.  I'm sure there are some other really big heavy things that are green.  Anyhow, that's the joke...sorry

It was a good day.  We actually finished the site this afternoon a little after lunch time.  All the computers are complete, disposal inventory is done, and the "majority" of the paperwork is done.  The only thing really left is the users picking up their computers.  We contacted a lot of them today, but no one really wants to come in on the weekend.  I stuck around this afternoon for one person to come in, and tomorrow a few people are coming in, but most are still Monday.  I sent the contractors home a little after 2:00PM, and I told them they didn't have to come in tomorrow at all.  They'll come in on Monday and help with the users coming in and final clean up.  It will be nice to be on my way back home Monday night.

I went and picked up a pizza tonight.  I ordered a "Buffalo Chicken" pizza.  It was good, but nothing like Buffalo.  I swear, I should open a pizza shop somewhere other than Buffalo and sell REAL buffalo wings.  The pizza was good, but not enough buffalo wing flavor (if you know what I mean).  On the way to pick up the pizza, there were some interesting signs.  So on the way back, I took some pictures.

In case you ever want to buy a planet...(or some gas)

Guy at work (on up the management ladder a ways) is Mike Kelly - I guess he's doing a little side business

Took this one earlier today

...I'M MISSING MY FAMILY!

The Dreaded Friday

Here's the joke of the day:

Q: Why is it dangerous to do math in the jungle?

A: If you add 4 and 4, you get 8!

Get it..."You get 8"! Ha ha....

Happy Friday!  It actually turned out to be not too bad of a day.  Everything went really smooth at work.  It was a long day for sure, but everything really fell into place nicely today.  We almost have half of the computers installed on day 1, which is unbelievable.  The only problem now is the contractors are all wanting to work slower because they're worried if we run out of things to do, they won't get paid for working as long.  It makes me think that there is something wrong with a system that rewards inefficiency.  I can understand where they're coming from, and I've been in their shoes before.  I don't have the solution, but I wish it didn't work that way.  Unfortunately though, it does. 

One of the people from the site was going on maternity leave after today, so everyone brought in a bunch of food.  They let us take part in the feast as there was a TON of food. (2 tables full)  So, that was nice, but I ate too much junk food throughout the day.  It's hard not to walk past a table of donuts, cookies, and treats not to just grab something small.  Here's a picture at the end of the day, after everyone had eaten all day.  You can still see almost a full dozen donuts on the back table.

Well, I'm tired and I'm going to bed.  Good night everyone!!

I'm still...missing my family...

Welcome to Butler, PA

It was a nice break, and I enjoyed spending time with my family.  It was hard to leave today.  Over the break, Jayna (in her 9 year old wisdom) told me that my blog was boring.  Now, I never claimed to be an entertaining writer or anything, but I'll try to do a little better.  I'm thinking probably too much work stuff and not enough day to day life stuff.  So, in the spirit of trying to be a little more entertaining, I'd like to start off with a joke:

Q: What did the police say to the crook?

A: We are police to meet you!

I feel like there should be some drum rim shot or something after that....

The drive here was OK.  At one point I got behind a dirty grimy truck that threw a bunch of junk on my car.  So, I stopped by the coin operated car wash, and gave it a bath.

Here's Before

 Here's After (much better)

I drove by the site before coming to the hotel.  Which was good, as it was terribly hard to find.  I sent out a quick e-mail to the contractors, so hopefully they'll get the info.  It turns out, there really isn't a street that exists with the address given.  It's a plaza off of another street next to a K-Mart.  Kind of tricky...

As there are no Sheetz gas stations in New York, I always enjoy stopping at my favorite gas station of all time whenever I'm in PA or Ohio.

They have EVERYTHING! 

I got to my hotel, and it sets on top of a hill.  It's really fairly hilly here.  

That's it up there by the water tower

Once I got to the top of the hill

 

Well, here's hoping for a smooth day tomorrow.  Fridays are always the hardest as it's 8:00AM-10:00PM.  This isn't a very big site, only about 27 computers to refresh and only 3 contractors. (I had 6 at my last site and almost 50 computers).  Wish me luck!

I'm really missing my family...

  

Goodbye Georgia!

So, I'm done with the site here in Atlanta.  Everything went pretty good, and I think the site was happy with the results.  We ended up doing more computers than were scheduled due to employee transfers, but we got them all done but two users who refused to come into the office to let us upgrade their computers.  I have to say, if work told me I had to do something, and they would upgrade my computer, I would be the first one in line.  (especially if part of the upgrade was Verizon broadband service).  Anyhow, I took in donuts again this morning.  The site was a large site, so it cost me a little more than it did last week.  I get $50/day for food, and I spent $38 on "breakfast", so I grabbed a couple of granola bars and a banana from the hotel breakfast on my way out for lunch.  Then I had subway for dinner and ended up spending a total of $49.25 for the day.  It worked out though, and I'm going to continue doing it at all the my sites.  The sites seem to like the gesture, and if it happens to help when the customer satisfaction survey goes out, well...

I got to talk to the whole family tonight, so that was good.   I can't wait to see everyone.  Tomorrow my flight leaves at 7:15AM.  Since the Atlanta airport is a small city in itself, I plan on getting up at 3:30AM to get there.  I'd rather sit there for awhile and be early, than be stressed out and worried that I'll miss my flight.

So, I'd better get to bed as it's a little after 10:00PM now.  No sites next week, so probably won't post anything until the 27th of January, as that will be the day I'll be leaving for Butler, PA.  I'll be driving from now on...WooHoo!!

Can't wait to get home because I'm ...missing my family!!

One more day to go!

The weather here was beautiful again today.  The car said it was 54 degrees when I went to lunch and sunny.  The snow has pretty much melted, but there are some spots in the shade that are still icy.  I walk outside to go to lunch, and I'm tempted to just sit outside for an hour.  I think tomorrow and Tuesday it's supposed to rain, so probably the last day of sun was today. 

Work is going good. I'm feeling a lot more relaxed as the site is winding down.  We had some people bring in more equipment today, and we have 4 bringing in for tomorrow.  We have everything else pretty much wrapped up.  So, we have those 4 to do, help some users pickup their new stuff, and cleanup/paperwork for tomorrow.  I'm really looking forward to heading back home for awhile.  I'm not scheduled for a site next weekend, so I've got a week and a half or so before heading to Butler, PA.

Not much else happened today, and it was pretty uneventful.  I usually like going to local places to eat as I can always eat at "the chain" places at home.  I've been doing pretty good, but today I had Wendy's for lunch, and IHOP for dinner.  (I really do like their pancakes) ...and my opnion on Wendy's "fresh cut fries with sea salt" is that they are just as good as their fries were before.  They always had the best fries of all fast food, and they still do (just not much different than their old ones).

I got back to the hotel around 6:00 tonight, and took a picture:

There was a cool sunset tonight, but really can't see if from the picture.  It doesn't look much different than the hotel in Oklahoma.  I signed up for rewards with Choice Hotels, so my plan is to stay in a Choice Hotel for the entire project and collect at least one free night stay along the way.  We'll see how that plan works out.  I signed up for airline miles too, but I'm not flying anymore for any future sites scheduled as they are all within 5 hours drive from home.  I hate flying...

Anyhow...I'm MISSING MY FAMILY!

Saturday in Georgia

Today was a relatively easy day (especially compared to yesterday).  We should have had more to do, but most of the day we spent sitting around as the users weren't coming in to drop off their equipment for us to work on.  I escalated the issue, and we did what we could around the office.  The good thing is, is that everything is pretty much done except for the 20 or so computers we've yet to receive.  The weather here was wonderful today, as it was sunny in the mid 50's.  The car thermometer said 53 when I went to lunch today.

 My rental car outside of the office building I'm working in this week

I'm looking forward to watching the Atlanta Falcons/Green Bay game tonight.  Everybody is talking about it down here.  I don't really care too much who wins, maybe if Atlanta wins, people will bring in their computers tomorrow?  I just ordered a pizza, and I'm going to chill out in the room and watch the game tonight.

The hotel here serves a pretty nice breakfast: waffles, biscuits, sausage, eggs, and then all the other normal hotel breakfast stuff.  Last night, I didn't eat as I was too tired, and it was too late.  So, I was really looking forward to that breakfast this morning, but I timed it wrong.  I got down there and there was this guy that had 2 plates of waffles, and a HUGE plate of eggs and sausage.  He had pretty much cleaned out all the food.  So, I ended up with a danish and a bagel.  Oh well...

Here's a picture of the "art" in front of the office building.  The little gold sign says it's called "Blade with Tear Drop" - Very original

I took the "Blade with Tear Drop" picture when I was waiting for someone to come down and let me back into the building after lunch.  They lock up the office building on the weekend.  

Hope everyone is having fun...I can't wait to come home - ...missing my family...

Holy Cow!

OK - I'm declaring Fridays the hardest day of the week!  (At least until this project is over)  Working 13-14 hours for the day is hard enough, but dealing with all the issues on top of it is indescribable.  Part of me feels like so many things got changed in the project in one week, that I had to learn what needs to be done all over again.  Another issue was the office was closed all week due to the weather here, and the office manager just found out about the refresh yesterday.  So, we only had a small handful of computers dropped off today.  We have the majority coming in tomorrow, a couple for Sunday, and one for Monday.  At the end of the day though, we got a fair amount of computers done by doing the office computers, and we got pretty much all the computers done that were dropped off. 

Enough about that...I'm tired and going to bed.  Sorry no pictures today.  It was good talking to Sue, Andrew gave blood today at school (Yay! Andrew) - Whitney is watching Fame! as I write this - ...and Jayna is looking forward to going to the pancake breakfast tomorrow at school.  Jayna, eat a pancake for me!

...Missing my family...

"Georgia On My Mind"

I'll start off by saying it was nice being home for a couple of evenings and seeing Sue and the kids.  It was hard leaving this morning.  I got back home Tuesday night about 6:30-7:00PM.  On the way, there was a lot of snow in Chicago, but I was only delayed a couple of hours overall.  I was glad to be home.


I'm now in Atlanta, GA.  It was kind of a crazy trip here.  The flights weren't too bad, but I had some crazy work stuff going on.  One of the contractors for the site down here said he wouldn't be able to make it because of the snow (more on that in a minute), so I was finally informed of a replacement for him.  I called him and got all the contractors in line.  Then I tried calling the customer site, and was told by the director of operations at the site, that they weren't informed of any computer work this weekend, and they would have to reschedule.  At this point I was 3/4 the way here!  I escalated the issue, and I got an e-mail back pretty much saying I didn't know what I was talking about.  So, I called the site again only to be told the same thing.  That's when I started asking more questions and found out that when they gave me my work order, they also gave me a phone number for a different office.  Once I got the correct number, and called the correct office, everything was fine and dandy.  


The plane landed in Atlanta around 1:00PM, but I didn't even get to my rental car until about 2:30.  The Atlanta airport is HUGE.  Part of it was my fault...Once I got off the plane, I started following signs pointing towards baggage pickup...and I walked...and I walked.  I think I walked a couple of miles before I noticed there was a train system headed towards baggage pickup.  I got on the train, and the rest of the trip to baggage didn't take quite as long.  Then I'm standing there at the belt thingy waiting on my luggage, and it doesn't show.  I go over to the claim area with my ticket, and they told me it was scanned in, so they start calling around looking for it.  (I'm standing there at this point trying to figure out why the customer was saying they weren't willing to do it this weekend while waiting for a response from the baggage person)  I happen to be looking towards the chute for baggage, when BLAMO! - My bag pops out of nowhere.  I have figured out the customer issue at this point, I grab my bag, and thank the "nice" lady in the baggage area.  I now have to get on ANOTHER train to get to the car rental area.  (...and people wonder why I don't like flying)

Here's looking out the front window of the train going towards the car rental area (why the windshield wiper? - It's not like I'm driving the thing)

 

The snow here is not much to be honest.  The problem is that there are areas where it hasn't been cleaned off the streets at all.  99.8% of it is clear and dry.  .1% is wet from melting snow, and .1% is actually snow covered.  It's not really anything to fret about, but I was listening to the radio, and they already canceled a ton of schools tomorrow because they are afraid that the wet areas will freeze overnight.   I plan on leaving early tomorrow morning just in case.

That's about it.  I got into the hotel room, went and got something to eat (very delicious Mexican place), and I don't plan on going anywhere else tonight.  

Looking out my hotel balcony

I'm already...missing my family...

Done here in OK

Finished up the project here today, and it all went pretty well.  It will be interesting next week, as I'll be more on my own, but it should be good.  It was a busy day.  Everyone came in this morning to pick up their computers, so it was kind of crazy.  Then we think that the customer did something to their network last night, because there were a lot of people who were having the same problem.  One lady was having the problem, and we didn't even touch her computer.  Anyhow, we got them all taken care of, and the customer seemed genuinely happy at the end...(Maybe they were just glad that we were leaving)  

Anyhow, I'm already getting nervous for next week, and worried about all the things that could go wrong.  I'll be leaving for Atlanta, GA on Thursday.  I must say I'm looking forward to going home for a day or so.  My flight back home is tomorrow morning 9:09AM.  I'm worried about the snow.  I don't think it'll be a problem here in Oklahoma City, but Chicago is where my connecting flight is.  It appears that right when I'm supposed to be there, the snow is going to hit the city. 

The big blue area should be right over Chicago when I'm supposed to be there

Well, can't worry about it now.  I'll check the flight in the morning before I head to the airport.  Cross you fingers.

Ordered Domino's for dinner tonight.  I love ordering online.  It's so cool...You get to pick out your food, then it lets you know when they are making it, baking it, and when it goes out for delivery.  They make it fun.

I enjoyed talking to my kiddos tonight.  Whitney even talked with me tonight!!  Can't wait to come home tomorrow!

...Missing my family...

Fairly Easy Day

So, I had a fairly easy day today.  We spent most of the morning just finishing up some small issues here and there, and configuring a laptop that a user brought in.  Then went to lunch at a Mexican place, came back, and organized the place to get ready for when all the users come and pick up their equipment tomorrow.  I have some inventory stuff to do tomorrow and clean up after all the equipment gets picked up, but it shouldn't be too bad (as I knock on my fake wood desk here in the hotel).  

I plan on taking in some donuts for the site tomorrow morning, so I Googled donut places around the hotel, and came up with four different places.  None of them were too far, so I thought I'd take a drive and check them out.  Good thing I did, because they were ALL out of business.  The guy at the hotel told me that Walmart was the closest for donuts.  So, I guess it's Walmart for donuts in the morning.  

If you have a Booze & Bait store in your town...You might be a redneck

 

Anyhow, I thought it was funny that I have to go to Walmart to buy donuts!  I posted about how friendly the people are here earlier.  We went to lunch today, and the site employee that was staying on site for the day, made us a plate of cookies for desert while we were at lunch.  We came back from lunch to fresh out of the oven cranberry/chocolate chip cookies.  They were AWESOME!  

Anyhow, that's about it for the day.  Here's my rental car and my hotel...It's the nicest rental car I think I've ever received for work (Honda Accord).  Usually I end up with a Hyundai Accent or something.

...MISSING MY FAMILY!

Oklahoma - ...What day is it?

Today was another long day, but not as long as yesterday.  Everything went pretty good, but had a few issues with some wireless card activations the last part of the day.  I finally had to call it quits for the day, and I'll start again tomorrow.  Sue always says I need to walk away from problems sometimes and then come back fresh, so I figured after working over 9 hours I needed to walk away for awhile and take my wife's advice.  


The place we're working is located on Main St. in Stroud, OK.  Main St. is old route 66, and for lunch today we all went to a cafe that has been around since the route 66 days.  It as pretty good, but I thought a little overpriced for what you got.  Stroud is a very small town, but one of the bigger towns in the area.  Here's a picture I took when walking back down Main St. after lunch.

Hopefully not much to do tomorrow.  Once I get the wireless cards working, we just have a few things to do on those computers, then another computer to set up and configure, and that's pretty much it.  I'm hoping for an easy day tomorrow, and then Monday the users show up for some training and to pick up their new laptops.  


Not much else happened today.  It was good talking with some of my kiddos tonight...missing my family...

Oklahoma - "What a long day"

I know my goal is to write something every day.  Well, so far I'm good as it's 11:20PM Central Time, so I'm still good for about another 40 minutes.  Today I worked from 8:00AM-10:00PM.  I took an hour for lunch and about 1/2 hour for dinner, but my butt is dragging right now.  I think I'm going to bed after I write this, and I still have to get up and be on site at 8:00AM tomorrow.


Everything went good today though.  We got a lot done, and we're ahead of schedule.  The picture is of our work area.  We have this HUGE conference room.  You can see the laptops everywhere.

I have to say that the people down here are super friendly.  From the customer I'm working with to the guy at the gas station.  They are genuinely friendly.  I've found that when you constantly come across friendly people, it makes you feel friendlier yourself.  When I come back home, I'm going to try to be an overall friendlier person.  It really is amazing.


I also found something out today.  Before I left, I went through my computer bag and tried removing all the tools and everything that would get flagged during checking in through security at the airport.  I was keeping it with me as a carry on, and I didn't want to have any problems.  I did remove all the tools, but I found I left my cleaning supplies in my bag which included a rather large spray bottle of window cleaner.  I'm surprised it didn't get noticed.  I'm going to put it into my checked luggage on the way home though.


OK - I'm going to bed - Good night everyone!!! - ...missing my family...

Day 1 of Oklahoma

Well, I left home this morning and the taxi picked me up around 6:00AM and shipped me off to the airport.  I have to admit, for flying...things went smoothly enough.  All my flights were on time, and I even had a seat all to myself from Chicago to Oklahoma City.  I had given myself plenty of time for my connecting flight in Chicago, but I didn't need it, as my flight from Buffalo to Chicago was 30 minutes early!  The pilot must have had somewhere to be or something.  So, I spent a lot of time in Chicago just sitting there watching people go by.  There was a young boy about 6-7 who had those roller skate shoes on, and he was just going everywhere.  (Why can't adults use those? - It looked like a fun way to get around)  What drove me nuts were the carts the airport people drive around to transport people to their gates.  They have this constant annoying beeping to let people know they are there.  Then every once in awhile the driver would actually beep the horn on the cart to get somebody to move.  I started calling them "beeping carts" and "beeping drivers".   Here's a picture of the Chicago airport...

 

I still had to do some work while traveling.  The site was calling me to ask questions, then I had to call someone else to get the answers, contractors were calling me, customer project managers were calling me, etc...Finally stopped working just a few minutes ago.  I did order one of the best dang calzones I've had in a long time.  There's a BBQ place down the street I'd like to try some night too.

The weather here is beautiful (at least it was today).  Very sunny and about 55 degrees.  I even drove for awhile with the window down.  As you can see from the above picture how sunny it was...and the speed limit was great too!!


Anyhow, that's about it for the day...Missing my family...

"The Beginning"

I've started a new project for work starting this week.  I've been tasked with traveling to different customer sites over the next couple of months to manage teams of technicians as they install new computers.  I'll be leaving for my first site on Thursday of this week (Jan 6th), and should be finishing the first week of March.  Now, I know the project "officially" goes to the end of March, but my schedule ends March 1st.  We'll see as it goes if they need me to go to other locations.  I also don't have a site scheduled for the 3 weekend in January, so I'm not sure what's going to happen there yet.  What I do know is that I'll miss my family a ton.  So, I've started this blog in hopes to have another way to keep in touch.  I should be able to be home at least a day or two every week as the sites run from Friday through Monday with some travel time before and after.  So, my weekends during the project should be Tuesday/Wednesday. (Which will be a little different).


I only have 2 sites where I'll need to fly. (I hate flying by the way...It's not the flying itself, it's the constant hassle from beginning to end).  Here's my schedule:

Kendrick (Stroud)	OK
Northlake	GA
Butler	PA
Scottdale (Connellsville)	PA
Masontown	PA
Fredonia	NY
Mentor	OH

I'm flying to Oklahoma this week and Georgia next week.  The rest of the sites, I should be able to drive.  The Fredonia, NY site, I should be able to even stay at home as it's 45 minutes from home.  Which works out great as it's during Whitney's Birthday. 


I'm getting a "small" bonus at work for taking this on.  Honestly, it's probably a wash as they really aren't giving me any more than I would make for other tasks I would do that I'm missing out on now.  But, it is a good opportunity.  We'll see how it goes, but I'm going to miss my family.