Tampa, Raleigh, Baltimore, Buffalo, Seneca Falls, Rochester, Home

Well my last trip was interesting. I actually had to travel two weeks in a row which was a bummer. The first week I won't blog about but it was to our corporate office in NY...again. The following week was to Tampa, well really St. Petersburg Florida to deliver a presentation to 150 supply chain professionals where the subject was "Influencing in a Matrix environment". I know, riveting stuff but believe it or not after 45 minutes I had 25 minutes of questions. I spent a wonderful evening there in a karaoke bar where I drank my virgin pina coladas all night and yes, did sing "Fat Bottomed Girls" by Queen. Everyone was dancing up until my song. Once they heard what it was EVERYONE literally sat down. The song was a bit reflective of the audience but I didn't pick it! I didn't sing again. I learned the more drunk those around you get the more fun karaoke is. The singing just got worse and worse and louder and louder but it made the whole experience so much better. One guy sang "Hit me baby one more time" by Brittney Spears. I think it was the highlight of the night.

From there I had the worst schedule. My travel agent booked me on a flight that connected through Raleigh then Baltimore. I never got off the plane at either stop though. After sitting on the plane for a total of 6 hours for what could have been a 3 hour direct flight I was exhausted. On the last leg of the flight, the guy sitting next to me literally brought in 3 newspapers and two magazines. I timed him and he literally did not look at one page for more than a minute at a time. He was flipping and flipping and flipping pages non stop and as I was beginning to suffer a bit of cabin fever I almost ripped everything out of his hands. Needless to say I remembered the guy who got thrown off the plane from my trip home from London and resisted.

My real stop was Buffalo NY. I had to deliver a different presentation to our IT leaders who incidentally don't karaoke and enjoyed talking about our active directory and messaging services...It was too technical for me. A great bunch of people but just a different atmosphere. But the highlight of that stop was I was able to go to Niagara Falls after work. I couldn't image what 75,000 gallons of water per second falling over the falls would look like until I saw it in person. And people still go over the edge in barrels from time to time just for kicks. It was raining, cold and the falls created a huge mist but we were given this $.99 clear poncho that saved the day. It kept nothing dry but I looked cool with it on. For some reason no one would pose for a group picture...

So after Buffalo, I drove almost 2 hours to Seneca Falls to work in an office we have there for a day. No speeches just long meetings talking about business, finance, strategy and HR stuff. Good times. From there I had to drive an hour to Rochester because that was the closest airport to get me home. My 6:00 a.m. flight went off without a hitch.

Next stop...NY (again) and then 3 weeks after that it's off to China.