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 |  I travel the country on business, sometimes the world. Come see where I've been. |
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Talk about perks, my job has one of the best ones I can think of! I travel in the course of business, delivering classes for my employer. I am a Senior Training Specialist for Motorola Solutions, and teach classes on a wide variety of subjects centered around 2 way radio communications. I'm qualified to deliver approximately 30 different classes, but about half of those are 'Legacy' classes, and are not in demand anymore. My students are technicians, those who maintain, program, calibrate, and repair large 2-way radio systems. Some of these systems are statewide, and use TCP-IP networking to allow sites to communicate with others. Some are small, traditional type radio sites. The size doesn't matter, in each case the systems must be kept operational at all times, since many of them are Public Safety Systems. So I get to travel, sometimes frequently, 3-4 weeks in a row.... where am I this week? This probably won't have daily entries, but I will make entries when I get to go somewhere, and keep an updated list of coming trips. My schedule changes faster than the weather, so don't be too surprised to see me list an upcoming class, only to remark later on that it is cancelled, or delayed. Delays are fine of course, but a later date might mean that someone else gets to go instead of me,,, Well, here we go with this, let's see where it takes us.  Best Cultural And Regional Honorable Mention |
| Locale: Bloomington, Illinois Week of: May 23, 2022 This week was another week where I delivered part of one class during the day, then delivered another class that night. A co-worker also has Multiple Myeloma, except his was caught later than mine. To give you an example, he's been on Revlimid for 3 years now, and is not in Remission yet! His last Bone Marrow Biopsy showed a little bit (his words) of Myeloma, so his doctor wanted to repeat it this month. He needed Monday off as a result, so I covered Monday for him. We're the only two instructors who deliver this class, there was no way I was not going to cover for him! I'd have delivered the entire week if necessary. My scheduled class was an online class with the US Air Force. The AFB in Yokota Japan. The original scheduled time was 10 am Japan time, to 3 pm Japan time. This would have been 8 pm to 1 am local time for me, Yuck! The customer didn't like those hours, since it ruined their normal work-day, and asked if we could start at 7:30 am their time. Obviously I agreed. Except for Monday. We started at 9 am their time, since I couldn't get home from Schaumburg by 5:30 pm my time. Still, it worked for me much better than an 8 pm start time! Everything went well with both deliveries overall, I was happy with the Yokota AFB class, and enjoyed being in Schaumburg that one day. I am home again next week. Since it's the Memorial Day week, the week will consist of online meetings and cross-training. I get to spend about 5 hours Thursday cross-training some instructors on Fleetmapping. That class is becoming, or has become, very popular, and there's a need for more qualified instructors. I've been told that some of my co-workers don't want to deliver it though. At issue is the fact that no one is qualified to teach everything. In the case of Fleetmapping, you really teach portions of 3 different courses. Console programming/configuration, radio programming/configuration, and system configuration. No one teaches all of those courses. Well, no one except my manager (he shouldn't deliver classes at all really), and the co-worker who I covered for this week. Both of them are kept busy delivering other classes besides Fleetmapping. So my co-workers don't want to deliver this because they aren't qualified to deliver all three courses. My opinion, and I know what it's worth, is, GET OVER IT. When I started teaching Fleetmapping, I was only qualified to deliver one of those three classes. That hasn't changed either. If I can learn enough to deliver this class, and deliver it with excellent grades from every class so far, so can they! We'll see what happens this week. In Closing As I said, I have been home this week, and will be home next week also. The following week I will be back in Fort Lauderdale for 2 weeks delivering Networking classes. Maybe I will get to meet Lilli 🧿 ☕  this time, or anyone else who is in that area (hint, hint! Are any of you in the Miami/South Florida area) and would like to connect? The weekend I have free, I plan on getting a rental car and visiting Key West again. Til next time, be good to yourselves and those you love, and WRITE! Jim Dorrell |
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I then went to Taiwan for two weeks; but, although that was nice, it wasn't 'home'. 
