Traveling is such an adventure

I try and get home sometime between my Dad and Mom's birthday every year. Their birthdays are only a couple weeks apart, so we usually try and celebrate them together b/c I can only get a couple trips home a year. Since I've been traveling so much I decided to take advantage of the fact that my company will pick up my flight if I don't go back to DC first and make the most efficient use of my time. I book a flight leaving Thursday afternoon because that's when I always fly back from NY.

Now that the stage is set, let me tell you the rest of the story. I have a two hour working session with my clients late Wed afternoon. We are doing process design for a new IT process and I won't bore you with the details. Anywhoo...I screwed up so bad that I thought I was going to be asked to leave the client. My boss explains to me that I need to fix this tomorrow (Thursday) and I need to get it done now! My flight leaves at 2:40 PM and I'm in meetings all Thursday AM. Soooo...like the good corporate slave that I am, I change my flights to Friday stay an extra day and fix the problem. Which BTW, wasn't totally my fault as I was using work from another team in my company, but I didn't validate it and I'm the one on the hook. Back to the story...flight changes, fix the problem. All taken care of right?

10:30 PM on Wed, I'm done working and check the weather for Friday. HOLY SHIT!!!!! We're getting 6 - 8 inches of snow on Friday. I'm thinking I'm never going to get home for Dad's bday and I've already disappointed them by not being able to get home on Thursday.

I wake up to a winter wonderland on Friday AM. It's pretty, but have you seen the airports in NY during snow and bad weather? They get screwed up very badly very quickly. So I head to the office for my early morning meeting to rectify the Wed screw up. And........




the people coming to my mea culpa meeting AREN'T there b/c of the SNOW!!!!!! ARGH!! Ok..c.onf call, make everyone happy and call the car company to come get me and take me to LaGuardia praying my flight takes off. There is already a three hour inbound delay at LGA, a 5 hour delay at JFK and a 7 hour delay at EWR. Let's see, three hour delay at LGA, three hour layover in Charlotte for the last flight to Florence = missed flight home. Now I'm royally pissed b/c I'm never going to get home to see my parents.

At least I'll be able to get to DC if I can get to the train station.

But we have a happy ending, my flight takes off 1 hour late and I make my flight home. Now I just have to make sure I make the 5:45 AM flight out Monday AM.

5:45 AM flight. WTH was I thinking?!?!? Oh yeah, Daddy's girl has to go home for Daddy's birthday. I'd hate to disappoint. Plus I got a GREAT card. I knew he was going to cry! :)

Across the pond

I'm soooo freaking excited. My other half and I are finally taking that trip to London we've been talking about for years! Flying Virgin Atlantic premium economy which is first class on most other airlines. Using points for an awesome hotel near the Kensington Palace, going to see a soccer game and tour all kinds of neat things using the London Pass. I cannot tell you how excited I am to take this trip. I've never been to London and I've heard awesome things about it. I'm going to Harrod's, (hate on me all you want Terri, you've been there), Hard Rock to add to my shot glass collection, the Kensington Palace, London Tower and all kinds of stuff that I can't even begin to list.

Ok..I'm done being insane and am going back to my normal self. Updates to come as we get closer to trip date.

Be careful what you wish for...

because you just might get it.

Holy crap what have I gotten myself into?!?! I BMC'd about working governtment and wanted to go back to commercial work. Ok. I put my trnasfer in, wham, bam thank you ma'am I'm transfered with a nice 10% raise. This is all good right? Right!? RIGHT?!?!?!?

Well...not exactly. I knew there would be days where I worked crappy hours and travel is part of the gig (I like this part for the most part), but holy crap I'm tired of working this many hours in a week. My days are minimum 10 hours and usually 12 -14. I'm working weekends and traveling and giving up parts of my life I don't want to.

I flipped out this weekend b/c I volunteered to be on Terri duty post surgery (my pleasure chica....love you!) but based on her previous surgery I expected her to be still drugged up until 7 PM again. But oh no, she has to get new doctors who don't over sedate her and bam she's out by 2 PM. WTF?!?! There goes my carefully laid plans for Friday. :) So I lost 5 hours on Friday that I ended up having to make up on Sunday. Too much work, too little time. My assessment raise better be HUGE. B/c unlike some people I'm not getting a bonus for all this work.

Bastards. Or maybe it's just PMS. Whatever, chocolate makes everything better. :)

I love my job

Not. That is all.