Off to Wichita, Kansas for work!

I am headed of the Wichita, Kansas tonight for a 2 day work project. This is a new state that I will check off my list. I am hoping for a smooth project completion tomorrow and Friday.

This is my last work trip until September 3rd unless something last minute pops up. I am liking the few weeks of travel and a few weeks at home. I find it to be a good balance but am always welcoming more travel if needed!

Off to Boston for work!

Another travel week for me! I am spending 2 days and nights this week in the outskirts of Boston. I am working on a project that has gone well past the original schedule and it will be nice to check it off the list. I hope everything is ready when I get there!

It is a nice change to be back on the road after a few weeks in the office. I find it a nice equilibrium to have a few weeks of travel followed by a few weeks at home. It keeps things changing and more interesting for me.

Of course I get to rack up some more points and miles for my efforts and see different places around the country I otherwise would not get to see. I have been to the Boston area enough where I am getting used to my "normal" hotels and restaurants while I am in town.

I am not sure if that is a good or bad thing but either way it gives me that extra level of comfort while on the road. It is good to know that I will have a decent bed and good-to-excellent dinner to look forward too as opposed to guessing and hoping all the time.

The office grind

I am glad I get to travel for work next week. The daily grind at the office is starting to catch up with me! I am ready for a change in scenery and people. Working for a small business can be both interesting and boring at the same time depending on what the current projects look like.

I am itching for time on the road and now I have 3 weeks straight including a fun weekend on Key West. I will be turning 30 during this time and plowing ahead with my miles and points balances.

I am fortunate to have a job that gives me a good balance of travel and home time.

More Work Travel: Wichita, KS

I just booked another trip for work. That makes 3 straight weeks on the road (with some time in the office each week). Kansas will be a new state to check of my list. I don't know a lot about it honestly. I am not sure what to expect!

I will be there 2 days. I will certainly take the miles and points to add to my balances!

I still have more work travel to sort out for later too but too early to hammer down dates at this point.

Work Travel: Baltimore before my birthday

I had a semi-last minute work trip at the end of the month come up. I will be headed to Baltimore for 3 days. I don't mind treating myself to a crab cake before Key West!

It will be a lot of condensed travel though. I go to Boston the week before. I leave Monday night that week and return on Thursday night. In the office Friday then straight back to the airport to fly to Miami for the weekend.

I love it though! Miles, meals, friends, fun, and beach. I can live with that.

Work Travel: Boston in July

My Boston trip that was cancelled is now rescheduled. I will be there from July 23-25 for work. It will be nice to put an end to this project!

I still have several more work trips to schedule and am getting closer. They include: DC, Wichita, Baltimore, Detroit, and Scranton. Busy is good!

Michigan Points Bonanza!

This trip will yield me a LOT of points. It so happens that 3 big promotions are being utilized this time. My first night hotel will get me 44,000 points plus the normal points for the night. My second night hotel will get me 50,000 points plus the normal points for the night. Finally I will be hitting my spending target for my new Chase Ink card (or dang close!) and get the 50,000 point bonus there.

This is certainly not the norm but worth noting. I will have lots of points for future hotel stays or other needs and 50,000 more valuable Chase points to add to my pile. At least for now I am earning points faster than I can spend them which is an excellent problem.

I run out of time off work way before I run out of points!

Boston Trip Cancelled

One of my pet peeves is last minute travel cancellation. This happened Monday morning when my client called to delay the project. It was a scramble to cancel all the arrangements and re-schedule my entire week. Ugh...

It worked out as I have plenty I need to get done here anyway. I hate losing the miles and points but I will get them later when I have to actually go on this trip later. I am still also going to Detroit next week for a couple of days.

Back to work!

Work Travel Coming Up!

Next week I am back on the road a bit. I am headed up to Boston again Monday night and will be there through Wednesday. With 2 straight weeks in the office I am glad to be back on the road again. It breaks the day-to-day grind a bit and of course I can rack up some points!

Should be nice weather this time as well. I usually don't travel for work during the summer much but that has changed this year. We have stayed steadily busy which is a good thing. Busy means more travel, more raises, and more points!

The following week I will be in Michigan for a couple of days for another project. I am utilizing a hotel promotion to really bring in a lot of points for both of those nights up there. It will be a lot of driving but that is normal for my Michigan trips it seems. I am also looking forward to more great Lebanese food too!

Raddisson Points Bonanza!

With 2 more work trips booked for Detroit and Boston I booked my hotels and car rentals for them today. Booking these at least 14 days in advance saves money. I also keep track of big promotions from hotels and try to incorporate work travel into them to maximize my points earning.

In this case I will get an extra 94,000 Raddisson (Club Carlson) points for my 2 hotel stays in Michigan. They are running a stay one night, get a free night at any hotel promotion and this 2-night trip worked out perfectly!

It is going to cost me $32 out of pocket since one of the hotels is more than my company maximum allowed. I am ok with that for 94,000 extra points which works out to be $0.00034 per point. I can use these points for my own hotel stays later. $32 now for 2 (or more!) free nights is not bad at all!

Richmond Days 1 & 2

Today was going well for work until the phone rang. A fire came up for a customer and had to be handled immediately. This is hard enough to do at the office but on the road is another animal. Luckily I got it sorted out.

I had to pick up some parts locally in Richmond and ship them overnight to my client. This was all banking on getting a local tech available to install them the next day. It was stressful to say the least. I had to put off my work in Virginia to handle it. Fortunately I was ahead of schedule.

All ended up getting fixed in the end. I completed my work in Richmond by 11AM Friday and headed to the airport to go home. I got lucky and cleared standby for an earlier flight back home. It could have been much worse!

Long Weekend Back Home

I have today off work and am spending the weekend with my family since I was already so close in Savannah. I fly directly from here to West Virginia for work on Sunday. I am looking forward to relaxing and not thinking about work for a while.

I did end up having to do some work today since some things are time sensitive. Such is life.

Now it is time to head to my favorite local places for seafood and drinks!

Savannah Day 2

I ended up at a small taco bar in downtown Savannah and had some great tacos and a great margarita. My co-worker headed off to bed since they had been awake since 3:45 AM for their flights. I decided to stop into another small bar near the hotel for some cheap beers and to watch the baseball game to unwind. It worked!

I spent all day on the trade floor and it involves a LOT of standing. My sore feet and legs reflect that and I am glad I don't have to do it again tomorrow. We broke down the trade show booth at 6PM and were ready to roll by 6:30. Luckily my boss is taking the van back and I am staying with family this weekend. They are picking me up soon!

I am supposed to have tomorrow off but we shall see if that happens. It is very busy right now at work and with the time sensitive nature of my projects I fear that I will have to do some work at some point tomorrow. Either way I am going to get some relaxing time in and some errands done. Maybe I can sneak in some beach time at some point!

Savannah Day 1

This morning I drove from Atlanta to Savannah in a rented van with all of our trade show goodies. It is a VERY boring drive with not much to look at aside from trees, concrete, and other cars. It took me around 3 hours and 40 minutes to get there which is 30 minutes less than Google's estimate.

I picked up my co-worker from the airport and we proceeded to the convention to set up the booth. It is definitely a 2 man job with all the small things that have to be assembled. It ended up looking great and we finished just in time for the opening reception. We said hello to some clients and mingled a bit.

Tomorrow is the all day show. It is crunch time and a chance for me to try on the sales hat for a while. A welcome change of pace from the rigors of project management...even though I will be doing that at the same time.

Busy Work Travel Begins!

Tomorrow starts one long slog!

I start in Savannah for a 2 day trade show for work. I follow that with 3 days back home in South Georgia for a long weekend with family. Sunday night I am off to West Viriginia followed by North Carolina and Virginia until Friday. That is a total of 12 days on the road!

This is going to be a whirl-wind trip with many different types of clothes needed. This presents a packing challenge since I need to carry on my bag and also want to keep it down to 1 bag that I have to lug around. It is going to be heavy but manageable.

I am going to take a small bag with me to Savannah to carry the nicer clothes I need for the trade show and will send it back with the trade show shipment. This will reduce what I drag around during my work travels later. I also am considering going to the beach which means flip flops need to be brought. That works out to less laundry since I won't need socks on those days.

Its going to be a tiring but hopefully fun experience in the end. I have a lot of work to do and a lot of ground to cover but nothing I haven't done before.

Baltimore Day 2

This trip wasn't going to go well from the start.

A lot of scrambling around today got most of what I needed done. There is still one small loose end that my client is going to help me with my guidance over the phone.

Lots of delays, barely made my flight home (the last one of the day!), and left my expensive sunglasses in the rental car. Running through the airport is not my idea of fun. Neither is having a crappy cold sandwich and peanuts for dinner. In the end I made it home.

It was a long two days that I do not care to repeat. The majority of my work trips go well. This is one that was doomed from the start. I have had worse but still get frustrated all the same.

Hopefully the next one will go much better.

Baltimore Day 1

I must admit that today got to a rocky start:

• Left home with a headache
• Lots of turbulence
• Rough landing
• Broken A/C in the rental car
• Things a mess at the job site

 Things did slowly improve this afternoon where I could get some work done. Still not without a few snags but I will get it done in the end.

I did have some great crab cakes and a beer for dinner which helped smooth things over a little. Early start tomorrow to keep things moving for work. Always and adventure...I guess.

Just another day on the road!

Off to Baltimore tomorrow (work)

I am off to Baltimore for a short 2-day work project. A little more road time, some more miles, and some great crab cakes to be had. This will be my first time in Downtown Baltimore instead of the outskirts. Hoping it is more interesting there!

I am looking forward to a smooth project with few hiccups. I have had enough of those recently!

I will be back Wednesday night and home for about a week before nearly 2 weeks of Savannah, staying with family for the weekend, and then West Virginia Sunday.

Boston Day 2: Success! and flight delays

I am in Boston today to finish up the project here. I had a rocky start with things that were not done although I was told they were. I made several emails and phone calls and in the end I got everything that I was responsible for done. By 11AM I had all of our devices up and running perfectly. I had a sigh of relief.

I then headed out for a semi-early lunch then my usual round of errands on the way to the airport. I was very early for my 5:15PM flight so I proceeded to the lounge to relax and get some work done. Days like these I really appreciate the Sky Clubs and other airlines lounges and easily justify the annual fee on my American Express.

I checked into the club and my flight was delayed. They moved me to an earlier flight that was also delayed but it was actually going to leave around my original departure time. I got an aisle seat closer to the front so I was happy. In the end it worked out just fine.

I got home at 8PM and will be able to get enough sleep to have a decent day tomorrow!

Off to Boston for 2 days

Today I am off to Boston for work. It should be a relatively easy work trip for me since I only have to do one location this time around. It is a new construction which means with almost certainty that something will be missing, wrong, or both. I have been doing this too long to believe otherwise.

At least I will spend a lot less time in the car than I have on previous recent trips. I have had my fair share of driving all over the place in recent weeks!

7:30AM flights come early! Waking up at 5:00 AM is my least favorite aspect of work travel but it could always be worse.