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Showing posts from June, 2008
I did it! They are not the best academic papers but the things are written and out of my life. It is a laptop free trip but I'll still have to go to Netcafes and login to do the daily posting but that's fairly easy to do while traveling. Still connected but not with a 5 lb. pack. Now that the trip is 48 hours out, I'm finally excited. I have most of the logistics figured out but until yesterday, it hadn't entered my mind that I had no idea how we were getting from the airport in Prague to the hotel. Now I know what method of transport to use, I have to make a reservation otherwise, it's the dreaded $60 taxi ride that all guidebooks warn you away from since meters are rarely used and the amount can escalate depending on the driver. Packing will be easy. I've accepted that no matter how many clothes I bring, I wear the same things over and over, so the bag will be carry-on only.
Saturday morning and the fog has moved in for the morning in Carlsbad. It's as if the universe has given me the reason to stay in and do homework. That and the gas prices. This week I had to rent a car to host work guests since my car wouldn't hold them all. I'm glad I did because yesterday when I filled the tank of a mid-size car, the gas was $52. All I could think of was that if I had brought my car, I would have paid that charge instead of work. So it's a good day to stay put. That and I have two papers to write this weekend if I want to enjoy a laptop free Europe vacation in the coming days. I have 4 wonderful days in my own house and then LJ and I are off on summer holiday to Copenhagen and Prague. Laptop free means the photos will be delayed but I should be able to post from Denmark. Everyone keeps asking if I'm excited but I'm always so busy right up until I'm driving to the airport that I don't really think about it. I get excited when my butt
Just a quick check-in. I've got the LA/Anaheim circuit going on this week with two different parties from Mexico. No cosmos this week for me!
A weekend at home! Yesterday Mondo and I went to LJ's for a BBQ and Stargate . A simple day but perfect for relaxing! Today, it's back to homework for me and a day of freedom. This week is another LA/Anaheim circuit but with visitors from Mexico who are less stressful than the Russians. OB is off to Taiwan tomorrow and I really wanted to tag along but the way the universe works, my Taiwan weekend will have to wait for another time.
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Guadalajara - it's a city. Pretty much like any other one. I'll be glad to be on the airplane home tonight.
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Veracruz - only a short distance but totally different. Merida is much closer to central America and it has that jungle feel of Guatamala . Veracruz has less trees and is more ocean tropical in look and feel. Merida is more used to foreigners and Veracruz is still a resort for Mexican's . I have to practice my Spanish here while in Merida I could be lazy. I'm spending the day here and tonight it's off to Guadalajara!
I think I might be inclined to like Merida if I had seen more of it than my hotel, the two main streets, and downtown. Yesterday was a series of training, restaurant visits, potential restaurant site visits, and back to the hotel. I know the beach is nearby because I can see the ocean way off on the horizon. Maybe I'll get a glimpse of it from the airplane later today. No pictures and nothing of interest to report. Today's a travel day from Merida to Veracruz. You'd think you could fly non-stop but no, it has to be hard. We have to go to Mexico City to change planes to get to Veracruz. It's like flying from Denver to Phoenix via Los Angeles.
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Merida, MX - view from the window
I'm on my way to Merida, MX today. This week it's a 5 day/4 nite trip to Merida, Veracruz, and Guadalajara.

Dinner at Poseidon Del Mar

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When life gets you down - go to the beach. It's always worked for me but sometimes the experience is exceptional beyond belief. In the roundabout way that life works, LJ's friend Chef Tim is the Executive Chef at the Poseidon Restaurant in Del Mar. Lisa has wanted to go there for years (unknown to me) to try the food and about 6 weeks ago, she asked if I would join her to check out Chef Tim's cooking. I knew we'd have a good meal but I had no idea what we were in for - starting with one of the best seats on the beach! The food was great so a couple of times I forgot to take pictures as I dove in straight for the food. We were able to sample on and off menu items until we popped. First up, above, was the cleanser shot - a cucumber mango something that I can't spell or pronounce. It tasted like cucumber. Below, my favorite of the night. A Grilled Ginger-Pesto Day Boat Scallop with purple potatoes, sautéed spinach, ginger cream & pomegranate molasses. (I'm

A day in the life of me

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Normally when we host people from other countries, we take them to Tijuana where no Visa's are required. The Russia group was going to Monterrey and that requires a Visa for them. To make everyone's life easy, we decided to drop off the passports and paperwork ourselves. This day started off bad as we got to their hotel at 9:00 am and the paperwork wasn't ready and someone was late. We were supposed to be at the consultate by 10 but so much for that. We left the hotel at 9:45 and had to drop one of the Russians off at work and do a quick orientation there. Because we had skipped breakfast thinking we'd have plenty of time to eat, we were starving. Arrival at the consulate is like arriving anyplace in Mexico. Street vendors were selling the exact same crap that you'll see as you return across the border in San Diego. The only thing missing was music and that was probably because the consulate workers didn't want to have to listen to it all day. Arrival inside a
Home again. This time, I actually documented a day in the life with photos but I haven't downloaded them yet. The activities this week were so off the normal that I figured, why not? Stay tuned for the Mexican Consulate, Kinko's, and a side street barf (mine) and how they all played into a day's work!
The joy of stress. I have to be the most healthiest messed up person in an invisible way right now. TMJ has taken over my jaw and it feels as if my lower jaw is being pressed by a winch from both sides. My stomach hurts and it's not from hunger or over eating. I'm dizzy but that might be from not eating. I want to cry but life is so funny that I can only laugh. Sad but true. Crazy electronics week continued. Bad decision week increased. I was going out of the hotel parking garage and the key didn't work. I didn't want to take the extra time to call for help so I followed a co-worker out. He didn't drive fast enough and Whack! the gate guard slammed into the Subaru's spoiler. Paint damage and some scratching. Bummer. The key didn't work to let me in and when the front desk fixed it, I was then locked out of my room. Back downstairs. So this whole unexpected trip to LA is already turning into a comedy. The Russians decided to take a side trip to Vegas and ca
Electronic applications gone wrong was the theme of the day. Part of it was the day and part of it was my inexperience. First, I had to learn how to use Microsoft Live Meeting. For such an easy application it was the cause of all evil today. I couldn't get it to install correctly, the IT dept couldn't do much better and when it finally worked, only myself and the admin could use it. Trying to have another person do the install was a 90 minute repeat without internvention so I'm surrendering for the night. At Task didn't go much better but it worked. How do you suddenly become an expert after 2 hours of training? Beats me. Trial and error and the whole thing was daunting until Live Meeting didn't work at all and the At Task suddenly looked pretty good since it functioned and behaved as needed. 8:24 pm and I'm finally ready to quit work for the day. I'm in a LAX hotel but not getting on a flight. This is one of those host visitors around the various offices a
A normal weekend at last! I was back to the school routing and got two papers done and started the outline for the third. Home & I went to Karl Strauss where this time the food was great but the beer choices were lame. I exercised at the beach and then did nothing. With the cost of gas it was hard to randomly wander about and with my hitting the road again soon, I didn't see the point of stocking up on food either.

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A little grapefruit beer.
Home. I arrived in LA last night but since I only had 10 minutes of sleep on the 24 hour trip, I opted for a hotel stay rather than risk running into a nice Belgium couple. At 2:30 am, I woke up wide awake, powered down some coffee and was home at 4:30 am. I got to experience the new high price of gas around 3:30 am where the $4.55 per gallon in San Juan Capistrano almost did me in until I saw Carlsbad was at $4.65. More coffee is going down me now and I'm taking advantage of the buzz to balance my checkbook and see how rich or poor I happen to be. UOP raised their tuition but you can pre -pay classes before July 1 and bypass the fee increase. I'd rather be poor than help make UOP rich so that's next on the list. First post office stop (PO Box) has been done and that mail is sorted, filtered and filed. In three hours I can retrieve the held mail at the other Carlsbad post office and go through that process again. I expect to crash hard around 10:00 am today but for now,
I lucked out and was able to change my ticket home. Tomorrow I travel to Frankfurt and then Frankfurt LA. Since I get in late in the day on Tuesday and I'm sure my jet lag will be great, I'm staying overnight in LA and then driving home early Wednesday morning. I forgot to fill up the gas tank so I'm in for price shock the first thing then probably grocery store shock the second thing. Today I had work to do so the day has passed by fast and I'm ready to be home but not for the 16 hours of flight plus the transit time. Tomorrow I'll get into the airport zone and it won't be an issue. I'm hoping for some good movies and I have my back-up book just in case.
I'm bored. Not just a little bored but completely and totally bored. The ice cream is still in Customs and the emergency samples are still sitting in Dubai. The likelihood of me doing my job are getting slimmer and slimmer. I had meetings today at my hotel and afterwards, I returned to my room and set about booking travel for Mexico in a couple weeks. Now I'm in the hotel lounge drinking red wine, eating cheese and nuts (no food safety issues) and more or less doing homework. After homework I'll do normal work. Tomorrow I'm off to Lufthansa's airline office to see if I can leave. But I checked the fare and my $3000 ticket is now $9000 so it's unlikely that I can make an even swap and so I'm stuck. You might wonder why don't I do something but I'm sort of on call and it's not like I can easily wander off to sight see when I've seen everything within city limits before. So I've become a fixture and the staff from the desk clerk to the sho