Checking In

A catch-all, catch-up post

There are 1,132 posts filed in Checking In (this is page 40 of 114).

Needle Dog

Rocket's needle

We’ve been spending the Thanksgiving weekend at Kelly’s parents’ home in Virginia. Yesterday, the kids were helping string popcorn in the kitchen. Rocket took advantage of an opportunity to eat a piece of popcorn and swallowed the needle that was threaded through it. Everyone watched helplessly as the thread disappeared down our dumb dog’s throat.

We loaded him up in the car and headed to the Swansons’ vet in Haymarket. After Rocket got an x-ray, we were told that there were two options to remove the needle: surgery or an endoscopy. Estimated cost was $3000. Ouch! We couldn’t get the endoscopy done there; it could only be done in Leesburg at The LifeCenter. So, I loaded the dog in the car, said goodbye to Kelly and Linda, and drove 30 miles to Leesburg.

The vet there gave me positive news. There was a good chance the needle would pass without surgery. If we chose to proceed with an endoscopy, it might run from $1200 to $1800. After talking it over with Kelly we decided to try the endoscopy.
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Back from Iowa

I’m back from Iowa now, three hours early thanks to not taking the airline’s word about there not being any earlier flights. The baggage check employee in Cedar Rapids swore up and down that I couldn’t get into Raleigh from Chicago any earlier than I already was, so I spent almost two hours at the Cedar Rapids airport, waiting for my original flight though I could’ve easily gotten on one leaving early. When I arrived in Chicago, I saw I had a one hour gap until the next flight to Raleigh, so rather than spend three hours at O’Hare I snagged a seat on the earlier flight.

And what a difference it makes to be home. Iowa was extraordinarily windy and bitterly cold. The temperature didn’t crack 30 degrees F the whole time I was there today. Yet when I stepped off the plane at RDU this evening the temperature here was 62 degrees (down from today’s 72 degree high). What a great welcome back, North Carolina!

Time for bed and then tomorrow I return to the airport to pick up my bag, which will spend the night there tonight. More about my Iowa trip later.

Iowa bound

I’m in the Chicago airport on my way to Cedar Rapids, IA. This is a follow-up trip to my last trip, and I hope it’s a formality after what we did two weeks ago. It does provide my first-ever trip to Iowa, however, and I’m looking forward to it for that, among other things.

It was hard leaving the family today, and I dread having to pack for my trips, but I am really loving my job. If I have to make a few trips here and there to make things happen, I’m ok with that. I don’t expect I’ll continue to be this busy. It’s the end of the year and that’s a typically a busy time for sales.

This time I’m flying American Airlines, and RDU is one of the handful of airports that have the new porno-scanners. AA uses Terminal 2, and I don’t recall seeing the porno-scanners in Terminal 1, so there was a possibility I could’ve been scanned. So far I have not been selected to pass through one but I intend to submit to alternative screening (i.e. “fondling”) should I ever get tapped. I think our airport-security bureaucracy has crossed a line of decency with these scanners. Also, as my buddy Ken Thomas pointed out, these machines don’t really make us safer.

This trip, I’ve decided to bring the Nikon along. The business associate I’m meeting is a pretty good photographer and has offered to take me on a quick photo-safari around the area this week. Hauling the camera around is a bit of a pain but I hope it provides me the opportunity to learn a few tricks.

Trial by fire

Well, I pulled off a miracle yesterday and today. At least it seems that way to me.

I’m on my first sales call with my new employer, I have been with the company all of two months, have conducted one training session with them, and have been on NO sales calls with them before. There is the sales guy and there is me, and no other technical resource onsite. In spite of all this, today I was able to conduct a technical demonstration of our product that lasted eight whole hours and I did it without once sounding like an idiot.

I had no idea when I took this gig that I would be on the front lines within two months. Judging by the product’s sophistication I would’ve thought that was sheer madness. And yet here I am after Day Two, riding high. I’ve got years of experience doing the sales engineering thing under my belt, but I was skeptical I could pull something like this off – all the way up until I actually did it. Now I feel I can handle anything!

We’ve got one more day here in Rochester before we wrap up. It’s all downhill from here for me, and I’m greatly looking forward to a relaxing weekend before things get crazy for me with my Busy Third Week Of The Month.

Smoke alarm times it right

Public safety officials always tell people to check their smoke alarm batteries at the same time they change their clocks for Daylight Saving Time. This is a practice that hopefully gets people used to routinely checking their smoke alarms.

I’ve long been in the habit of checking our smoke alarms at the time change but this morning offered a bit of a surprise. Around 6 AM, our “extra” hour of sleep was just beginning when we hear a chriping sound. It seems the battery in one of our smoke detectors picked this morning to quit: the very day it would’ve been tested, anyway.

In less than 10 minutes I had a new battery installed and was snoozing again. Being a bit superstitious, though, I made sure rest of our smoke detectors worked today, too!

Hawks settle in

I’d been preplexed that our bird feeders have been staying unusually full over the past week or two. Then yesterday I saw a young hawk perched on the roof of my neighbor’s house and started to wonder. When three hawks flew lazily over our home this morning I became sure of the reason.

So, hawks seem to have the run of the place. What kind of predators do they have? It seems they’re thriving in this area, for better or worse.

Lots going on

As usual when you don’t hear much from me, there are a lot of things happening at the moment. And they’re good things, really. Can’t complain.

On the work front things are cranking up. I was busy with a few projects which have expanded my knowledge of the product. I was expecting to be traveling south to Orlando next week for a trade show but my plans changed abruptly today when the company realized I should be in New York state instead. So rather than enjoying high temperatures of 80 degrees I’ll be looking at 55 degrees instead. Oh well: at least the work will be interesting! I will be far more active in NY than at any trade show, so my product knowledge will increase exponentially from this change of plans.

Outside of work my community involvement continues. I nailed down the East CAC’s November agenda, and through the magic of Le Calendar I have proclaimed this month’s to be the last meeting of the year. We’ll have a holiday social event and hobnob this month. It’s always one of my favorite meetings.

On the Raleigh CAC front, I’ve been asked if I would like to become chair. I’m not really looking for any more feathers in my cap but I don’t want the organization to lose ground, either. Still trying to figure out if I want to take something else on, though as of now I’m leaning towards “no.”
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Cold stone crazy

Like almost everyone I know, I’ve spent the week battling a cold. I’m so ready for it to be over. Work is heating up and I’ve got meetings and other responsibilities looming on the horizon. I’m so looking forward to the upcoming holiday break where I can simply relax in the evenings.

Tennis turnaround

Travis’s first tennis lesson was this morning. We headed to nearby Lions Park and arrived in time. I walked up to a young man sitting at a portable table and proudly announced that we were here for the class.

“Uhh, class? Hold on a second,” he said, pulling out his cellphone. After a few minutes of concerned talk, he looked up.

“I’m sorry but there’s no class here,” he said.

I looked over his shoulder at the courts. Every one was being used for singles games. There is almost never a soul on these courts and here they were, full. I glanced at the paper in front of the man: it was a tournament bracket.
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