It’s a Monday morning, and I’m trying to get the feel of this new keyboard down. It’s not exactly what I had hoped for as far as a click tactile feel, with the Cherry MX Brown switches, but it’s not bad… actually, this might be the best keyboard I’ve had, from a quality perspective, since the old IBM keyboards from the late 80’s-early 90’s.

It’ll just take some getting used to.

A lot going on here at the house. Gracie is tearing up the carpeting in the living room, replacing it with a more practical woord-look vinyl flooring. With our dogs, it makes more sense to go with something other than carpeting.

OK, now I’m noticing something I don’t like about the space bar on the new keyboard. It’s like it as a dead spot right under my right thumb, and then I have to go back and put spaces back in my sentences because of this spot. I keep hitting it right, but I guess I need to hit it a little harder to make sure my space kicks through.

This is why you read my stuff, right? To read about me complaining about my new keyboard.

I’ll load up a typing tutor extension on my web browser, and then we’ll see what happens.

Next time… more substance, less complaining.

Peace y’all.

It’s been awhile. Today I’m going to get a substantial blog post up – I’m committed to doing that today. It’s early on a Sunday morning, the last day in June of 2019. I spent almost the entire month of June in the UK and Ireland, and I arrived home this past Tuesday, and, to be completely frank, I needed to wind down more than just a little bit.

I’m a little worried about my spouse. She took a fall yesterday and she’s banged up a little bit and pretty sore. We’re not kids anymore, capable of bouncing back from a little spill with little or no repercussions. Time to get a little more traction in some key spots around the house.

A little more about the trip I took. I left Lawrence, Kansas on Memorial day, the last Monday in May. Lisa dropped me off at the airport, and I grabbed my backpack, a big suitcase, and a canvas carry-on packed inside a hard-side carry-on – a smart choice, as it effectively allowed me another bag for the trip when it was needed, and it was.

I arrived in Toronto late Monday, and spent a few days there teaching three days of Azure fundamentals to a number of key partners there. It was a great experience, and we had many attendees pass the fundamentals exam and get certified. That was a tremendous win for my fellow trainer, Elias, and me. It was also a lot of fun being in Toronto as the Toronto Raptors were in hot pursuit of their first NBA championship.

Thursday night arrived, and things got real. I hopped a flight from Toronto to London Heathrow, and a connecting flight from Heathrow to Manchester, England. I arrived on Friday, late in the afternoon, and got myself settled in and adjusted prior to the delivery we had on Tuesday. I was working with a few people on that delivery, most notably another member of my training team, Kai, and Kai and I spent the better part of the next week together. We had a solid delivery on Tuesday, got some folks certified, and then hot-footed it to the Manchester airport to catch a flight from Manchester to Dublin, Ireland. Dublin was a lot of fun, but we were under a serious deadline – we arrived at our hotel after midnight, taught all day and implemented a proctored certification exam, then grabbed a train across the island to Galway. It was a beautiful train ride, and it was so green, just as my parents had described it when they had visited Ireland back in the 70’s.

The single worst bed I slept in on this entire trip was in Galway. I won’t be recommending that hotel to anyone I like. That said, I don’t think there were a lot of options for hotels in that little ocean side community. I would definitely go back to Galway for an extended visit, but I know I would be doing so pretty aggressive research about my housing options.

Kai and I had a good delivery in Galway, and, once again, hopped a train from Galway back to Dublin for one more night at the Dublin Westin (single BEST bed I slept in on this trip!). Kai had an early flight from Dublin back to his home base of operations, and I had a late afternoon trip from Dublin to the London Luton airport, way north of London Centre (to be frank, I don’t know how they can still call it London, it was so far out). It was close to my next delivery in Hemel Hempstead, however, so that was my destination. My mistake was booking the trip on Ryanair. Never again. There’s a difference in my mind between a discount air carrier and a blatant money-grab. I’m surprised they didn’t charge by the square for toilet paper, double billing for quilted two-ply. Like I said, never again. They were trying to nickel and dime me to death, and I won’t ever forget that.

I spent a week in Hemel Hempstead at the Holiday Inn, kind of an aging European Spa feel to the place, with workout facilities, a pool, and a hot tub – although I think they referred to it as a ‘jacuzzi’, which I try to avoid as it is a specific brand name.

I taught a five-day class for a great bunch of folks. We had fun taking a look at and exploring Azure, and I think we made an impression. This was my first “solo” delivery on this trip, and I think it went well. I discovered “deliveroo”, which is the UK analog to “Uber Eats”, “Grub Hub”, and “Menufy”. I don’t know how anybody else feels about it, but having food from a variety of vendors available on your cell phone is the height of convenience. There are times that I just don’t feel like getting out and doing stuff after class. I’d prefer to just find my nice, quiet place and chill out. The other thing I liked about the Holiday Inn is that I could use my Amazon Firestick and watch Hulu and Netflix shows. As far as local television programming, the UK analog to SyFy is their Horror Channel, and I spend some time watching old episodes of Star Trek, and another Roddenberry -inspired series, “Earth:The Final Conflict”.

On the Saturday following my Hemel Hempstead delivery, I hoped into an Uber ( a BMW 5-series sedan – win!) and took an hour+ trip from HH to LOndon Centre and my hotel in Canary Wharf, the Marriott. OK, great hotel, great food, great bar, and fantastic proximity to the training site in the financial district. I also enjoyed a few meals at a little sushi restaurant on a floating strip mall.

I had three delivery days with another trainer, Chris, and it went pretty well. One one-day class and one two-day class. Following that, Chris went off to Belfast for another similar delivery, and I went across the pond to Orlando, connecting through Miami, for a one-day Azure fundamentals course.

I arrived home on Tuesday, June 25th. I put my blog on a bit of a hiatus while I recovered and just got settled in. I came home to wonderful surprises – a new pool liner had been installed just in time for the balance of the summer. Gracie and her boyfriend did some work out in the barn, getting a work space situated for me with the work benches I picked up completely assembled and ready for use.

I’m here, I’m home, and I’m “present”. They say that when you come back from a long business trip, your family is more interested in “presence” than “presents”.

I’m trying my best to stay in the moment, and enjoy the time I have left this summer with my family. Time to grab another cup of coffee.

That’s about five days worth of updates, but I owed that to my blog. I punted most of the days this past week, when my obligation was two hundred words per day, and this makes up for a chunk of that. My goal today was to crank out a thousand words, and it looks like I’m just about to twelve-hundred.

That’s good enough for now.

Peace y’all.

Yeah… still not feeling it. But, I will say this – tomorrow I’ll write a full blog entry.

Peace y’all.

Still on a mental vacation. Peace y’all.

Hey. I’m still on a break. Nothing against y’all, I’m just taking care of me.

Later.

Peace y’all.

Or something like that. I don’t feel like writing tonight. I owe y’all a couple hundred extra words. Might be spread out over the course of the next week.

Peace y’all.

It’s a SUnday night, and I’ve been preparing for my final delivery of this junket, an Azure Fundamentals class here in beautiful Orlando, Florida, just a few minutes away from the Universal Studios theme park.

As one might presuppose, this is a class for a company in the resort industry, with ties to a few other prominent locations in the US and abroad.

We are going to do on-site testing tomorrow following class, so I’ll teach to the exam, and hope as many as possible go for it and crush this bad boy the first time through.

And then I can worry about going home.

I’ll take some time and repack my stuff, and get it ready for the return trip home on Tuesday. Dane is going to meet me at the airport, so all I have to worry about is getting my tired old butt to the airport on time to catch my ride.

(This is the moment where I reflect on the erratic actions I just made on the keyboard, wondering how I was able to recover my entire blog entry)

OK, that’s getting to be enough for today. I have cheesecake in the fridge, and then it’s a matter of getting to sleep and prepped for the morning.

Peace y’all.

OK, stuck in a hotel room, and I have decided against the very good science fiction series based on the writings of Margaret Atwood in favor of some crap science fiction movie, but I’ll give any science fiction movie a chance.

Maybe even more than one.

Some movies don’t grab me when I first see them, but after watching it a couple of times, I start to notice more depth. “Inception” was like that. “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” was like that, too.

I don’t feel like writing tonight, but I’m into that weird stream of consciousness state where I just start to spew random crap as the words hit my frontal cortex and “Voila!”, they hit the page as a series of really bad attempts at typing, with many unseen backspaces and spell checks.

I’ve got some beef jerky around here somewhere.

I’ll spend some time tomorrow working on my delivery for Monday, and then work on my expense reports. Year end is right around the corner, and that means all expenses have to be turned in ASAP.

I’ll get it done. I’ve even got a few extra things to get turned in as well. I ate a couple of times at places that don’t take American Express.

Blathering complete.

Peace y’all.

Good morning, good afternoon, good evening. That might seem a little nonsensical, but that’s just kid of the way I roll (or might that be ‘role’?).

I’m sitting in the American Airlines lounge, waiting on that call for my flight to board. It’s going to be awhile, yet, so there’s an opportunity there to get my daily post cranked out.

I miss home. I want to be home. I’m getting tired of deliveroo, Uber Eats, Menufy, GrubHub, Dine Dash, and all of the other meal delivery services designed for the business traveler.

That said, they have all come in handy at different times during this ast month while I moved about Canada and the British Isles.

I probably ought to looking over some of the content for next Monday’s delivery, but it can wait. I’ve been good this past week, and I deserve a day or two for recovery and maybe a load of laundry at the next hotel.

I am a lucky man. I get to chase a dream around the world, and still get to go home at the end of the chase, all in preparation for the next trip… which, thankfully, won’t be for a few weeks.

After that, I know Chicago is going to happen, another KC delivery, and then quite possibly, another trip back to England.

We’ll have to see what happens.

Peace y’all.

I am tired. It’s a Thursday night, and we’ve been though 3 days of Azure deliveries. I get excited about the product I represent, and sometimes there are some variations in degree. I’m going to get a little more excited with some crowds more than others, and I need to fix that. I should have the same level of energy, excitement, and expertise every time I deliver, and I’m going to be hard on myself when I don’t bring my A game every time.

I miss my home and my family. I miss sitting in my chair and having dogs in my lap. I miss sleeping next to the person love most. It’s been a long junket, and I’m probably feeling it the most because I’m missing my son’s eighteenth birthday.

So, I sit here in a hotel, watching the US Womens National Team in their World CUp match against Sweden, currently up 2-0 at the 68 minute mark. Sweden just had a shot on a corner kick, but nope, ball went out.

I’m going to have a long trip to Heathrow tomorrow morning. Concierge tells my that it takes from 1.5 to 2 hours to get there on a Friday morning. Oh, yay.

So, that’s what we do. Get up, put your nose to the grindstone, and ‘do’.

Peace y’all.