Saturday, August 18, 2007
Road Warriors
The Reluctant Road Warrior writes again. I say reluctant, because as I have stated before, I would rather have a non-travel or rarely-travel job back home. But as I don't have any apparent options at this time, here I am.
And here are my essential Road Warrior tools:
1: Laptop with wireless - Good for entertainment purposes like games, movies and internet. Also good for when you need to pull over and snag a wireless signal from a hotel to get directions as to where the heck you are going.
2: Portable MP3 player - No iPod here, a 30GB Creative Zen Vision:M. Good for flights, walks, and long car trips when used with number 4.
3: Cell Phone - Essential for calling home. Or if I need to call back to the office.
4: FM transmitter - Good for playing MP3 player through the car stereo.
5: Portable Hard Drive - Good for when your laptop runs a bit full. What do you do though when your portable drive is almost full too?
6: USB card reader - for when you forget your digital camera's cable.
7: Knife - Good for opening boxes, and for when your hotel is in the bad part of town.
8: Portable Media Center - aka $5 set of computer speakers. You wouldn't believe the difference these things make when watching DVD's, listening to music, or playing gmaes.
Also, just got back from Jersey where we set up a 1 day show in Wayne. I noticed on the map while we were driving up to there that NYC wasn't too awful far, and thought I might take a trip there. We got there on Saturday afternoon. Do I go then? Nope. Sunday? Watched the NASCAR race (at least that was in NY at Watkins Glen, I was there last year) then had to set up for Tuesdays show. Monday was wide open after the guys from Boeing gave their OK for the display being set up they way they want it, but they didn't show up till almost 5PM. Had I known it would be that late in the day I'd have gone into NYC before work... But I ended up gong over at about 830PM, you know, in the dark to a city I had never driven in before trying to find a place I'd never been to. I never did find the World Trade Center site, but I guess I drove past it like 3 times. The first time down RT-9A South I ended up on the FDR highway thingy and started seeing exits for streets I'd passed once already, so I got off at 42nd, wondering if it was *the* 42nd. Later I realized the FDR makes a "U" back to the North. Oops. I wanted to drive the Times Square vicinity anyway. I just wish there was a place to park around there so I coulda took pictures without driving at the same time. Though I got 1 whole picture to turn out good.
All in all a decent couple hours, a nice night for windows down driving, didn't run over anybody, didn't ram any of the billion and a half taxis that weren't obeying aaaany of the traffic laws...
Next time? Get dropped off and walk. Or Bike.
Ok, I think I wasted enough internet real estate with that there, have a good night.
(0) comments
And here are my essential Road Warrior tools:
1: Laptop with wireless - Good for entertainment purposes like games, movies and internet. Also good for when you need to pull over and snag a wireless signal from a hotel to get directions as to where the heck you are going.
2: Portable MP3 player - No iPod here, a 30GB Creative Zen Vision:M. Good for flights, walks, and long car trips when used with number 4.
3: Cell Phone - Essential for calling home. Or if I need to call back to the office.
4: FM transmitter - Good for playing MP3 player through the car stereo.
5: Portable Hard Drive - Good for when your laptop runs a bit full. What do you do though when your portable drive is almost full too?
6: USB card reader - for when you forget your digital camera's cable.
7: Knife - Good for opening boxes, and for when your hotel is in the bad part of town.
8: Portable Media Center - aka $5 set of computer speakers. You wouldn't believe the difference these things make when watching DVD's, listening to music, or playing gmaes.
Also, just got back from Jersey where we set up a 1 day show in Wayne. I noticed on the map while we were driving up to there that NYC wasn't too awful far, and thought I might take a trip there. We got there on Saturday afternoon. Do I go then? Nope. Sunday? Watched the NASCAR race (at least that was in NY at Watkins Glen, I was there last year) then had to set up for Tuesdays show. Monday was wide open after the guys from Boeing gave their OK for the display being set up they way they want it, but they didn't show up till almost 5PM. Had I known it would be that late in the day I'd have gone into NYC before work... But I ended up gong over at about 830PM, you know, in the dark to a city I had never driven in before trying to find a place I'd never been to. I never did find the World Trade Center site, but I guess I drove past it like 3 times. The first time down RT-9A South I ended up on the FDR highway thingy and started seeing exits for streets I'd passed once already, so I got off at 42nd, wondering if it was *the* 42nd. Later I realized the FDR makes a "U" back to the North. Oops. I wanted to drive the Times Square vicinity anyway. I just wish there was a place to park around there so I coulda took pictures without driving at the same time. Though I got 1 whole picture to turn out good.
All in all a decent couple hours, a nice night for windows down driving, didn't run over anybody, didn't ram any of the billion and a half taxis that weren't obeying aaaany of the traffic laws...
Next time? Get dropped off and walk. Or Bike.
Ok, I think I wasted enough internet real estate with that there, have a good night.
Thursday, August 02, 2007
I've been everywhere
Sometimes I think that should be my theme song, as I've been everywhere, or at least it feels like it.
Since last writing though I haven't been too many places. After the Capitol show, I had alot of "shop time" in Mooresville, except on the 21st when I delivered some wheels to Bristol Motor Speedway for testing. And I just got back from a 2day show at Scott AFB in southern IL.
And tomorrow I get on an airplane and go HOME! YAY!
And I have completed the 3 things I had wanted to do this July:
Transformers the movie - This was a good movie, a pretty good modernization of the classic.
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix - This was a really good movie, though I wish they would have made it longer to include all they had to cut in order to make a not *too* long of movie.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Holy wow! Best book of the series (according to me.) Some of the people I work with keep asking me "Does Harry live/die?" I tell them they should read the book, just like I'm not saying here, either, in case someone hasn't read the book yet. I don't want to be a spoiler.
Ok folks, that's all I got tonight.
(0) comments
Since last writing though I haven't been too many places. After the Capitol show, I had alot of "shop time" in Mooresville, except on the 21st when I delivered some wheels to Bristol Motor Speedway for testing. And I just got back from a 2day show at Scott AFB in southern IL.
And tomorrow I get on an airplane and go HOME! YAY!
And I have completed the 3 things I had wanted to do this July:
Transformers the movie - This was a good movie, a pretty good modernization of the classic.
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix - This was a really good movie, though I wish they would have made it longer to include all they had to cut in order to make a not *too* long of movie.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Holy wow! Best book of the series (according to me.) Some of the people I work with keep asking me "Does Harry live/die?" I tell them they should read the book, just like I'm not saying here, either, in case someone hasn't read the book yet. I don't want to be a spoiler.
Ok folks, that's all I got tonight.
