I caught him!

And then I lost him. Oh well, it was nice while it lasted.
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Food & Wine Festival

Wish I was there!
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I'm in Miami trick

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What would you do? (POLL to the right --> )

Let's take a poll.

Often when I book my travel I struggle with what the "best" option would be. Or sometimes what is the "least bad" option. My travel yesterday was one example and I'm not sure I ended up with the best option. So now it's your turn to decide. What would you have done? I've laid out the options below and there is a poll to the right. Tell me which option you would book!

Parameters:

• Meetings end at 12:15
• 15 minute drive to the Des Moines airport (DSM)
• 3 hour drive to Kansas City airport (MCI)
• 15 minute, 15 dollar, taxi from Reagan-National (DCA)
• 45 minute, 60 dollar, taxi from Dulles (IAD)

Variables:

• The last meeting of the day may very well run over
• Weather (always a factor this time of year)
• I have status on Delta & United

Options:

A. DSM to ATL to DCA leaving at 5:50pm and arriving at 11:28pm on Delta (4h 38m)

B. MCI to DCA leaving at 4:05pm arriving at 7:25pm on US Airways (2h 20m)

C. MCI to IAD leaving at 5:54pm arriving 9:15pm on United (2h 20m)

D. MCI to DCA leaving at 7:15pm arriving at 10:30pm on Frontier (2h 20m)

The good and the bad of last minute travel plans

Let's start with the bad:

• Flights are expensive
• Flights are sold out (or only have first available)
• Flight times are inconvenient so one must drive 3 hours to Kansas City to get a direct flight back to the DC area
• Flights back to the DC area actually arrive into Dulles (ugh)
• Hotels are sold out so one cannot stay in the same hotel as colleagues
• One must stress about how one is going to get from hotel to hospital in an area not known for their taxi availability
• Plans for doing laundry on Thursday night get thrown out the window
• Apples bought yesterday might go bad before one can eat them all
• Plans to work out get squashed due to late travel Wednesday, early morning meeting Thursday and late night travel Thursday
• Packing for vacation gets puts off until Friday (although, let's face it, probably wasn't going to do it any sooner than that anyway)

The good:

• One gets to fly direct to Des Moines in First Class as opposed to in Economy (Plus) through Chicago

I wish I had some Windex

I was bored on a flight the other day and took some pictures out the window. I think they would be a lot better if I could have taken some Windex to the plane. There are so many views I wish I had been able to photograph. I don't photograph as much as I would like for a variety of reasons:
-I can't reach my camera
-I'm not sitting in the window seat
-There is something funky on the window (scratches, splotches, dead bird, etc)
-I don't want to ruin my super professional business persona by whipping out my camera
-The flight attendant already told us to put electronics away and I'm sitting too close to the front so she would see me breaking the rules

I most love the evening flights over DC. The district looks great at night but is supremely difficult to photograph from a plane with my point and shoot camera!

When I'm not working II

My cousin Bobby came up from North Carolina for the weekend and Bobby, my other cousin Victor and my sister Emily and I spent lots of fun, quality time together!

We went out to dinner Friday night.

Played pool and shuffle board later that night.

Saturday we went down to Quantico and met one of my cousin's friends, ate Greek food and saw the real headquarters of NCIS.

EDIT: apparently I got too excited about the NCIS building and jumped the gun. Not the headquarters. (Thanks for raining on my parade vic).

Saturday night we went out in Adams Morgan.

Sunday we ate Mexican food and went to go see Cedar Rapids (really funny).

Also...this happened...

After the movie we went back to my house where Emily made us a delicious Sunday night sauce dinner.

They say the first step is admitting you have a problem.

I think I need to get some distance from my blackberry. I went to bootcamp this morning (yay me) and got called out by my instructor for checking emails while stretching...at 6am.

When I fly my cell doesn't even always make it into my bag. Sometimes I keep it in my lap for the hour and it get turns on as we're touching ground. I find myself checking it constantly, even if I'm reading in bed and about to go to sleep.

I'm headed to South Beach in about 8 or 9 days for a week of vacation. I'm already stressed about it! I don't think I'll have access to internet but I'll be getting these email, reading them, and not being able to do anything about it.  It's really hard to relax by the pool when you're thinking about all the emails you need to respond to!

On the other hand I do draw the line somewhere. I just saw a Chevy Cruze commercial which offers real time facebook updates. Do you really need facebook embedded in your car??

I can only imagine they need this because it has happened before?

Do people really need to be told not to hang clothes from a sprinkler head?

Also that thing is like 8 feet high. Do people stand on the bed to hang their clothes on a sprinkler head that is almost on the ceiling?

I mean, for me, the closet works just fine.

And this would be why I always set two alarms.

Whenever I travel I always set 2 alarms. One on my cell phone and another on the hotel alarm clock. That paid off big time yesterday. I had set the hotel alarm for 4:50am and my cellphone alarm for 4:45 am because I noticed the clock was about 5 minutes off. What I didn't notice was that the time was actually 12 hours and 5 minutes off. When my cellphone alarm went off at 4:45 am and the clock alarm did not I finally noticed it was set to PM.

How does this happen? Who changes the alarm clock to 12 hours off?

Going to bootcamp once a month might do more harm than good

As much I enjoy my job, and the travel that is part of it, there are few things that fall by the wayside, especially lately. One of those things is fitness (the other being a social life). I used to do these bootcamps 2 to 3 times a week at 6am in the morning. I love the high-energy, high-impact, ass-kicking work outs. I'm just not a pilates kind of girl (just a personal preference, no judging here).

In December I put my membership on hold for a month. I knew I had a busy schedule, would be traveling and was going home for 2 weeks. Since then I've only been back to bootcamp twice! Part of that is definitely my fault. It's really hard to get up at 5:45 when you worked late the night before and will likely be working late the next day (and it is freezing outside). But part of it is definitely the work and travel schedule.

I'm not sure that going once a month is worth it! In fact I think it might do more harm than good. I'm trying to get myself back to the gym more often or work it into my day when I'm traveling. But 30 minutes on the elliptical trainer is just not the same as an hour getting yelled at to do more push-ups (and lunges and squats and sprints and crunches, etc). I was sore for days last month. I'm going to be sore for days this month. Which is fine but not going to be all that helpful for any longer term results or endurance.

I'm going to keep trying (mostly because I'm still going to be paying for it)! I think I can go back next Friday. Maybe I'll make it twice this month!

Really looking forward...

to this blog: http://littlekitchenthatcould.blogspot.com/

Not so much looking forward to also giving up eating out for Lent...

I'm Free!!

I just received this email from my colleague and I kind of love it.

A week in the life...

Usually when I post my schedule like this I add a little disclaimer to the effect (affect?) of "schedule subject to change a moment's notice"...This week I'm not going to add that since my schedule isn't even defined yet! I'm pretty sure I'm going to Raleigh again, whether I'm going the 16th & 17th, 17th & 18th, or just the 17th is still up in the air. As is what I'll be doing if/when I'm down onsite.

It's a good thing I'm not one for planning...oh, no, wait...

Unfortunate...

Unfortunate last name? Unfortunate restaurant name? Unfortunate experience with home cooking?

I think yes.

I mean, for hospital food...

This is pretty darn good!

Brisket with succotash and sweet potato mash with my choice of Eastern or Western Carolina BBQ sauce. (I chose Western)

The Best Kind of Fail

I signed up recently for the Mileage Plus Dining program. If I eat at participating restaurants I get 3 United miles for every dollar I spend. There isn't much in the immediate vicinity of where I usually stay in Raleigh so I looked up what was available in the Mileage Plus Dining program and found, what looked like, a good Greek restaurant. Only when I showed up the restaurant was dark, clearly closed.

Fortunately, there were a few other options in the area. I walked up to one, Saffron, to look at the menu. There were people standing right inside the door and they opened it for me before I got to scope out even what type of food it served. Apparently it was Indian. And good Indian at that! I had Malai Chicken Tikka (Chicken marinated in yoghurt, cream and mild spices overnight).  It was delicious. I'll definitely be going back!


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Side note - the restaurant was only 3.5 miles away but it was few turns, dark out, no light, not very well marked, etc. I had my GPS to get from the hotel to the restaurant but I didn't really think about how I was going to get back to the hotel! The hotel is fairly new and the street isn't in the GPS. Fortunately I happened to remember that there is a Hooters at the intersection near the hotel so I was able to get back...yep. Hooters. awesome.

It's a Small World After All

Is that song stuck in your head now? It's in mine. Sorry!

Anyway...

I flew down to NC yesterday and drove to Emerald Isle to meet my cousin and his wife as we wait for their son (my second cousin, or first cousin once/twice removed or something like that) to arrive back on base from Afghanistan. Unfortunately his arrival kept getting pushed back, and pushed back again. He is now not supposed to arrive until 5pm today (as opposed to 8am and then 5pm Sunday). Instead I just spent the day with my cousin who I do not get to see very much as he lives in California.

My cousin is staying in the house of a friend of his from the Marines. It's a beatiful house with a very of the beach. I spent some time wandering around getting a lay of the land...only to stumble upon a picture of my very first boss! Apparently my boss and this gentleman's daughter were best friends from undergrad and she was in her wedding.

Such a small world that I could be more than 350 miles away from home, in the house of someone I don't know and stumble upon pictures of people I do know!

Perks of the Job

My cousin is coming home!! Lt Bobby Jakucs USMC has been stationed in Afghanistan for the last 9 months. In July my sisters, cousin and I road tripped down to North Carolina for the 4th of July weekend to see him off. He will be getting back into NC this Sunday. 

Just today I discovered I would be onsite with a client in NC Monday and Tuesday. Instead of flying down Monday morning and getting into the hospital late morning/early afternoon as I normally would, I'll be flying down Sunday morning and driving to Camp Lejeune to meet my cousin and his family. Monday morning I'll drive back to Raleigh to arrive at my client site as I normally would. 

It'll mean a lot of driving in a 24 hour period.

But it's totally worth it.

My Carry-On

For a while now I have been wanting a new bag. My current bag is getting dirty. But after some thought I realized, I don't want a new, new bag. I want a new version of my same bag.

My current bag is perfect. I like that it has wide straps on the shoulder. It's very sturdy and I don't worry about the straps ripping out.  And that's a valid concern! I realized as I was digging through my bag looking for keys just how much I carry around. So my next (cleaner version of the same bag) has to be able to carry my life around in it as well as my current bag. But I don't want a larger bag. I'm sure I could find something else to carry and I'm just not sure my back/shoulder/necks could handle it.

Case in point - this is what was in my bag today.

Raleigh Restaurant Recommendations Requested

Headed to Raleigh shortly and will be there for 2 nights. Feel free to send a restaurant recommendation or two my way. Worked so nicely last time! I'm staying near the airport and the only options I noticed last time I was there were Cracker Barrel and Texas Roadhouse...