It took me a while to pull myself together after the big sleep, but I did and went out in search of sustenance. Two blocks away (really) was a Denny's, so I went there. I brought a book and was seated in the back of the restaurant. Even at that early hour, music blared out of the speakers at a frantic pace, which made it challenging to have a relaxing breakfast. I'm reading "The Shack" right now, and it is so well written that it pulled me in and the noise around me faded away into the conversation between Mack and Sophia about judgment and how Man is so good at it. A light, musical voice interrupted me - Hi. My name is Chris. Can I get you something to drink? I looked up with the expectation of seeing a woman, but it was a man. I ordered tea and he went away to get it and I thought to myself, yes - Man is good at judging, all the time. We do it without thinking because we have expectations built in and are startled (and for some people, mad) when what we expect isn't what we get. In this case, Chris was a lovely waiter. He brought me what I asked for in a timely manner, was polite and attentive and when my biscuit didn't come out with the rest of my breakfast, he offered me an alternative. I told him I'd wait for the biscuit (which was still in the oven) and after a while, it came out. Worth waiting for. I tipped him well and told the manager that he made my breakfast experience very pleasant.
Now I was ready to start my day of listening to people talk about technical things, which is not my strong suit. My first session was a long one about the software I use in doing my job. Here's the thing about attending a conference with professional collegues... Even though you are "making it work", sometimes there are better ways to get it done that never occurred to you before. That happened to me quite a bit. I asked a few questions myself, and one of the presenters asked me to visit their booth so we could explore my questions a bit more in-depth. I love having access, face to face, with people like that. So much easier than trying to convey stuff on the phone or in an email sometimes. So the first session was very, very useful to me. The second was more fun - all the Traffic professionals discussing in small groups certain issues. In years past, the most common issues were different from the ones today. The big issues now seem to be both in technical stuff and in financial stuff. Part of our job is dealing with the underwriting (sales) departments and making sure that contracts get fulfilled. Most salespeople are very good at what they do, but it's kind of like holding a conversation with an Irish Setter when discussing something that doesn't actually have to do with the act of selling. Their attention is everywhere except on what you're saying, so getting details is quite frustrating in some places. I'm lucky in that I have an excellent Underwriting Coordinator who is the go-between for me and the sales guys. She works hard to make sure everything adds up before sending to me, so I try to be accomodating whenever something needs to be added or removed at the last minute. This is apparently NOT the norm, as a lot of people in that room expressed great frustration in dealing with their underwriting people. The other thing I discovered was that people in my area are control freaks - like I didn't know that, being a bit of one myself. It's hard for them to let go of something they do and trust someone else to do it properly. I think if they would be willing to take the time (and find the patience) to teach someone else how to do some aspects of their jobs, they'd find their lives a lot less stressful. I'm a control freak myself - but one who's learned how to deligate and let go of some stuff.
Once the business end of things was done for the day, my next priority was getting something to eat, as I hadn't eaten anything since the lovely breakfast. My friend from Jacksonville and I made plans to meet and eat sushi at one of the restaurants in the hotel and separated to go to our rooms and make contact with loved ones before dinner. He called about fifteen minutes later and asked if he'd mind if we ate with the current TAC committee instead at the Grand Buffett. Sounded good to me. I'd never eaten there as the lines were always so long and patience is not something I do well. It's a little different when you have people with you and you can talk while you wait. So a time was set and I finished my online conversations with my boy and my man telling them how much I loved and missed them, ran a comb through my hair and went to meet people at the fountain.
I think I expected more of a "grand buffett" - especially one that costs $30 to visit. The food was okay, but not great. I had a couple of pieces of sushi roll, watermelon and a tofu ball on my first round. The second was a small roasted new potato, broccoli, corn and a small piece of chicken and a dollop of hummus. A fairly eclectic meal, actually. That was my last visit to the food. I went to the dessert bar, but almost everything had dairy in it, so I settled for a small rice crispie treat on a stick and dipped in chocolate. I could have lived without it.
But as dismal as the food was, the company was most excellent. Lively and fun conversation about aspects of our work, life on the committee and some personal stuff too. It made me realize how much I missed interacting with people who actually GET what it is I do - which is a mystery to most people, even in the business! Once upon a time, I had a three year term on the Traffic Advisory Committee. It was fun and so enriching and I find myself wanting to apply to be on it again. There is, however, a financial committment required of the station - that I attend the conference each year I'm on the committee. This is the first year in the five years since I was on TAC that I've gotten to go and only because of some serious changes coming in how my job gets done that I knew I was unprepared for... and it's because of the money thing. So even if I want to rejoin TAC, it's doubtful that it will happen because of the money. Makes me sad.
Now I need to get in the shower and prepare for day 3 of this trip - today we get down to brass tacks!
Thursday, April 07, 2011
Wednesday, April 06, 2011
Viva Las Vegas!
I just woke up. I'm still wearing all my clothes except my shoes. At least I had the foresight to close the drapes and turn off the TV. My eyes feel a bit gummy and there's mascara smeared all over my face. For the life of me, I look like I've just come off a bender where I pulled at my hair and painted my toenails purple.
Darling Man and ZBoy drove me to the airport. The weather had passed here, but was still nasty in Atlanta. The plane was boarded, but then we sat on the tarmack for another half hour waiting for Atlanta to give the go signal. Finally, we were off. It was a very bumpy ride. And as bumpy as the flight was, the trip from runway to terminal was even bumpier - like riding a horse or a bike with a wheel out of true. Something very lumpy about that ride. But we got there, and of course my connecting flight was terminals away. I didn't run, but was close to trotting and when I got there, all but two people had already gotten on. I barely made it, but I did. I just hoped my luggage did too.
This flight was also very rough at the beginning. Lucky me, I got to sit next to a woman who was afraid of flying and claustrophobic. I asked her what her flying style was: did she like to talk or did she want to keep to herself? Of course, chatting helped her get through flying, so I obliged. As various noises and bumps were happening, I explained them and in between told her about my trip to Korea and the wedding. After she relaxed a little she told me about her husband dying last year, her grandson in Afghanistan, and her son's cheating ex-wife. Not the most scintillating conversationalist, but it made the four-hour flight pass fairly quickly.
Airport, baggage, shuttle, hotel. Thank goodness my room was ready - I could go straight there. Once I'd checked it out, I decided to do my LV prep-work.
I've been here before for conferences for work, staying at the same hotel, so I already knew that I don't like the water here and that there was a drugstore a couple of blocks away with bottled water that was dirt cheap compared to buying water here or in a restaurant. I set off in the heat and immediately recalled the experience of walking in Las Vegas. The smell. The noise. The Flippers. The flippers are mostly Mexicans who work handing out sex cards for prostitutes (they don't actually walk the streets here) and they get your attention by flipping the cards together to make noise. Once they make eye contact, they give you cards and won't take no for an answer. The first time I was here, I wound up with a fistful of cards despite my best efforts - which wound up in the nearest trash can. For some reason, today they didn't bother me. Perhaps I looked a little crazy or grumpy or overtired-and-could-snap-at-any-moment, but the Flippers actually stepped back when I walked by. The drugstore that was a couple of blocks away was actually 6 blocks away. I got there, got my water, some gingerale, some coke zero and toothpaste which I'd forgotten and began the journey back. Which is when I realized I hadn't eaten anything since dinner the night before. The whole sidewalk tilted strangely so I stopped at Subway for a sandwich to take back to my room. I did get back, ate, drank A LOT of water and made contact with home. After FB chatting a bit, we signed off and I decided to rest my eyes for a few minutes.
Apparently, that was the end of my day.
So, today I finish my prep. The conference doesn't start until 1, but the registration begins at 7am. I'll have time to get some breakfast, pull out my clothes and iron them and take a nice long bath before I have to be anywhere. Which is kind of a relief, as I totally lost yesterday afternoon and evening!
These are the views from my room. I'm at the corner of Tropicana and The Strip facing the Strip.
Actually, I was just tired. So. Tired. And apparently needed a long, hard sleep.
Monday night was a wild one. Severe weather crossed out area overnight. The guys slept downstairs and I slept upstairs with the weather radio. It was going off all night, but the one that caught my attention was the one a little after 3am, which was a tornado warning - right in my neighborhood. I got up, went downstairs and grabbed my boy. Darling Man opted to stay where he was on the floor in the livingroom, but ZBoy came and sat next to me in the tiny hallway between the family room and the garage. We stayed there for about half an hour until the warning went away, Boy shaking and worrying the whole time. Me wondering if my plane would be on time the next morning. I put the boy back on the couch and went back upstairs to try to sleep, but it was fitful at best, interrupted every few minutes by a new shriek of the weather radio. Finally, at 5am, I got up, showered, finished packing and headed back downstairs.
Darling Man and ZBoy drove me to the airport. The weather had passed here, but was still nasty in Atlanta. The plane was boarded, but then we sat on the tarmack for another half hour waiting for Atlanta to give the go signal. Finally, we were off. It was a very bumpy ride. And as bumpy as the flight was, the trip from runway to terminal was even bumpier - like riding a horse or a bike with a wheel out of true. Something very lumpy about that ride. But we got there, and of course my connecting flight was terminals away. I didn't run, but was close to trotting and when I got there, all but two people had already gotten on. I barely made it, but I did. I just hoped my luggage did too.
This flight was also very rough at the beginning. Lucky me, I got to sit next to a woman who was afraid of flying and claustrophobic. I asked her what her flying style was: did she like to talk or did she want to keep to herself? Of course, chatting helped her get through flying, so I obliged. As various noises and bumps were happening, I explained them and in between told her about my trip to Korea and the wedding. After she relaxed a little she told me about her husband dying last year, her grandson in Afghanistan, and her son's cheating ex-wife. Not the most scintillating conversationalist, but it made the four-hour flight pass fairly quickly.
Airport, baggage, shuttle, hotel. Thank goodness my room was ready - I could go straight there. Once I'd checked it out, I decided to do my LV prep-work.
Apparently, that was the end of my day.
So, today I finish my prep. The conference doesn't start until 1, but the registration begins at 7am. I'll have time to get some breakfast, pull out my clothes and iron them and take a nice long bath before I have to be anywhere. Which is kind of a relief, as I totally lost yesterday afternoon and evening!
These are the views from my room. I'm at the corner of Tropicana and The Strip facing the Strip.
 |
| Excalibur complex |
 |
| To the far left, Mandalay Bay and the Luxor |
 |
| New York New York - with a rollercoaster on the roof and Lady Liberty standing guard. |
Sunday, April 03, 2011
Fun Monday - Do Over?
Roger at A Screed in Time has decided to give this Fun Monday hosting thing a shot - and has issued his first challenge! He writes:
For this week I would like you to answer one of the following questions (yes, I am giving you a choice); If you could pick any ten years over again, without changing them, which ten years would you choose and why? These years do not have to be consecutive years, but there should be ten, okay? Your second choice is, explain the wonders of living in orbit over the moon, or any planet of your choosing (not Earth) for ten years, describe what you think life would be like and if so inclined, describe the planet.
Hmmm.... Much as my son thinks I should write science-fiction, I think I'm going to go with option one. But as usual, these FM challenges get me thinking - would I live over 10 years that were wonderful, or would I live over the years of bad choices, making different ones? That's the real connundrum. My good years were pretty darned wonderful. The bad ones were pretty awful.
Were I to live over my best years, I'd say the 1990s. I was in my 30s. In the most awesome shape ever, thanks to my love who took me out to do stuff. We rode mountain bikes and went rock climbing. We drove across the country several times and never ran out of things to talk about. We got married, bought a piece of land and a nice mobile home to go on it. And right near the end of the decade, our darling ZBoy joined us on this planet. It was a most idyllic time. Okay, that was a little white lie. Right in the middle of that decade, right after we signed our mortgage, Darling Man was laid off. He didn't find a regular job for 6 years. Luckily, he was a skilled TV production guy and much as he hated the travel, there was plenty of work for him out there on the road. For what seemed like forever, he would leave on Thursday nights and return late Sunday. It was hard for him to be gone so much and while the money was good, it came so sporadically that it was almost impossible to budget. Thank goodness a local production company had some fairly regular work so he could stay home a little more often in the summers and not have to go do golf, which to Darling Man was about the deadliest thing ever. But still - those years... I think they built us. The sense of pulling together and doing what we had to to survive and thrive in spite of circumstances... It was like super-glue. At the end of this month, we celebrate 16 years of marriage. And look forward to many more.
But were I to go the other way and choose the years that weren't so good, the ones I would live over so I could change things... I'd say 1980 (the year I started dating the ex), 1982 (the year I married the ex), 1985 (the year I spend two weeks in the battered women's shelter), 1986 (the year I decided to stay because I was supposed to make it work), 1989 (the year I finally left and ran home to the parents), 1990 (the year I settled back into TV as a career rather than taking advantage of my new freedom to go to school and really change my life), 1995 (the year of panic... DM got laid off and suddenly the world looked a lot less rosy).
Um... that's only 7. I can't think of any other bad years though. Years where something awful happened that overrode the whole feeling for the year. I suppose that's a good thing. But here's THE thing. As bad as those 7 years were, if I hadn't made the decisions I had, I might not have wound up where I am NOW. And I like where I am now. I have a wonderful man to love, an amazing son, a nice home, and a job I like. Who's to say that had I done things differently that I would have wound up happy now? I learned a lot from those bad decisions and much as the 80s weren't fun, the rest of my years have been. Even 1995, which actually, aside from the husband being laid off, was pretty wonderful. That was when we got married, when we committed to being together for the long haul. We just hadn't anticipated "for worse" and "for poorer" happening quite so soon. Still, a good year.
So there you have it. Two sides of the same question. Now go visit Roger's blog and see what the other participants have to say.
For this week I would like you to answer one of the following questions (yes, I am giving you a choice); If you could pick any ten years over again, without changing them, which ten years would you choose and why? These years do not have to be consecutive years, but there should be ten, okay? Your second choice is, explain the wonders of living in orbit over the moon, or any planet of your choosing (not Earth) for ten years, describe what you think life would be like and if so inclined, describe the planet.
Hmmm.... Much as my son thinks I should write science-fiction, I think I'm going to go with option one. But as usual, these FM challenges get me thinking - would I live over 10 years that were wonderful, or would I live over the years of bad choices, making different ones? That's the real connundrum. My good years were pretty darned wonderful. The bad ones were pretty awful.
Were I to live over my best years, I'd say the 1990s. I was in my 30s. In the most awesome shape ever, thanks to my love who took me out to do stuff. We rode mountain bikes and went rock climbing. We drove across the country several times and never ran out of things to talk about. We got married, bought a piece of land and a nice mobile home to go on it. And right near the end of the decade, our darling ZBoy joined us on this planet. It was a most idyllic time. Okay, that was a little white lie. Right in the middle of that decade, right after we signed our mortgage, Darling Man was laid off. He didn't find a regular job for 6 years. Luckily, he was a skilled TV production guy and much as he hated the travel, there was plenty of work for him out there on the road. For what seemed like forever, he would leave on Thursday nights and return late Sunday. It was hard for him to be gone so much and while the money was good, it came so sporadically that it was almost impossible to budget. Thank goodness a local production company had some fairly regular work so he could stay home a little more often in the summers and not have to go do golf, which to Darling Man was about the deadliest thing ever. But still - those years... I think they built us. The sense of pulling together and doing what we had to to survive and thrive in spite of circumstances... It was like super-glue. At the end of this month, we celebrate 16 years of marriage. And look forward to many more.
But were I to go the other way and choose the years that weren't so good, the ones I would live over so I could change things... I'd say 1980 (the year I started dating the ex), 1982 (the year I married the ex), 1985 (the year I spend two weeks in the battered women's shelter), 1986 (the year I decided to stay because I was supposed to make it work), 1989 (the year I finally left and ran home to the parents), 1990 (the year I settled back into TV as a career rather than taking advantage of my new freedom to go to school and really change my life), 1995 (the year of panic... DM got laid off and suddenly the world looked a lot less rosy).
Um... that's only 7. I can't think of any other bad years though. Years where something awful happened that overrode the whole feeling for the year. I suppose that's a good thing. But here's THE thing. As bad as those 7 years were, if I hadn't made the decisions I had, I might not have wound up where I am NOW. And I like where I am now. I have a wonderful man to love, an amazing son, a nice home, and a job I like. Who's to say that had I done things differently that I would have wound up happy now? I learned a lot from those bad decisions and much as the 80s weren't fun, the rest of my years have been. Even 1995, which actually, aside from the husband being laid off, was pretty wonderful. That was when we got married, when we committed to being together for the long haul. We just hadn't anticipated "for worse" and "for poorer" happening quite so soon. Still, a good year.
So there you have it. Two sides of the same question. Now go visit Roger's blog and see what the other participants have to say.
My Blog Personality
One of my facebook friends posted this link on his page, and out of curiosity, I entered my blog address. This is what they had to say.
ISFP - The Artists
The gentle and compassionate type. They are especially attuned their inner values and what other people need. They are not friends of many words and tend to take the worries of the world on their shoulders. They tend to follow the path of least resistance and have to look out not to be taken advantage of.
They often prefer working quietly, behind the scene as a part of a team. They tend to value their friends and family above what they do for a living.
I'd say that this is fairly accurate - but for a couple of things. The path of least resistance has never been my thing. Just ask my parents. I have always done things the hard way. It hasn't always been fun, but I've learned a lot along the way. I'm also not really a team player. I do prefer to work quietly behind the scenes, but I also prefer to work alone.
ISFP - The Artists
The gentle and compassionate type. They are especially attuned their inner values and what other people need. They are not friends of many words and tend to take the worries of the world on their shoulders. They tend to follow the path of least resistance and have to look out not to be taken advantage of.
They often prefer working quietly, behind the scene as a part of a team. They tend to value their friends and family above what they do for a living.
I'd say that this is fairly accurate - but for a couple of things. The path of least resistance has never been my thing. Just ask my parents. I have always done things the hard way. It hasn't always been fun, but I've learned a lot along the way. I'm also not really a team player. I do prefer to work quietly behind the scenes, but I also prefer to work alone.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)