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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 |
First Working Days In Bangkok Well, Monday arrived and I wasn't quite over the Jet-Lag yet. I was fine really, but not quite ready to deliver classes. Things go on though, there is no can't, there is only do. First though, I had to get an Urgent Work Permit (UWP) to deliver the class. The thing is, I breezed through Customs at the airport, no one would have known if I was working or not. But you know how things are, I do try to follow the letter of the law, so there I was at Chamchuri Square at 8:30 am. Imagine that you're to meet someone you don't know or have ever seen, at a center about the size of any LARGE shopping center. You're supposed to go to the 18th floor, but there's no obvious way to get there You can't ask for help easily because very few speak people English. Yeah, that was me Monday morning. Somehow I found my way to the 18th floor. I happened to wear one of my Motorola Training Polo Shirts, and as I was leaving the elevator a young lady saw me and took me in tow. Of course she was my contact person and recognized me because of the shirt I was wearing. How fortuitous that was! I handed her my required documents, thirty minutes later I had the UWP. I managed to the US Embassy (my customer this week), and arrived in the classroom about 10:45. The Motorola Sales person was there, and he spent a good 20-30 minutes talking the students before I could begin. I saw what time it was, we promptly went to lunch.  After that it was a pretty normal day of class delivery for me. As I mentioned, the US Embassy in Bangkok is my customer this week, my students are all employees of the Embassy. They are not necessarily from Bangkok though. Three of them are, three are from Washington DC, the others are from Dhaka Bangladesh, New Delhi India, Frankfurt Germany, Manila Philippines, and Kathmandu Nepal. Thankfully all of them are speak English. It would be a long, trying class is they didn't speak English. Class is fine, everything is good in that regard. I'm staying at the Conrad, a Hilton hotel. Why such a 'fancy' place? Because I was here in 2018 and stayed here. It's a quarter mile from the Embassy, so just a short walk. It's a hard walk in some ways, because of the heat and humidity. I'll live, I'm sure of that. Since I am lucky enough to be a Hilton Diamond Member, I have access to the Executive Lounge on the 29th floor. (My room is on the 26th floor). The food there is awesome with a wide variety of options for you for breakfast. It's a buffet and amazingly, completely free! Wow! Breakfast has become my main meal of the day. There are 5 restaurants in the hotel, I won['t leave the property until the weekend. The reason for that is fatigue, traffic, and not really sure where I want to go. Monday night I had dinner outdoors at a restaurant on the 7th floor. I know I'll be back.  That's it for an update. Til next time, keep on writing, and care for those you love! Jim |
Meeting Enga I was fortunate enough to be scheduled to come to Bangkok, Thailand for two weeks this month. I was even more fortunate that Kåre Enga in Udon Thani   was there also, and we were able to meet. What an interesting day it was, and for several reasons.Liam (as he is known here) is a charming man, one of about my age, though we won’t try to compare ages here. We met at the Hostel he’s staying at and there was an immediate connection! Part of it was our mutual love of all things Writing.com, part of it was the similarity in age. I think another part of it was our inner desire to meet and interact with other people. I’ve never stayed at a hostel, but his hostel is about what I imagined a hostel to be. It has a small lobby where we sat and talked. Guests are not allowed in the rooms, which was fine by me. He described his room though, and frankly, it sounds a little like a barracks I lived in early in my Navy career. I think there are six beds or so to each room, and a couple of bathrooms also. So much like a Navy Barracks from the 70’s, but newer of course. Enga and I sat down to talk about anything and everything. As we started talking, a young man sitting nearby turned around at something Enga said. As it turns out, Timm (the young man) is from Switzerland. The discussion immediately switched to discussion of the dialects the Swiss speak. Timm was surprised that Enga knew of the languages, and could speak them to some extent. I don’t think he’s fluent in any of them, but he knows enough to be polite to people while speaking their language. What a skill to have! I mean, I speak only English, I butcher that all the time, making me very reluctant to butcher another language. It was very interesting as Timm and Enga talked about things. I became a listener then and learned a little about each of them. Liam is far more traveled than I am, I travel for business, he travels for leisure. I loved listening to them talk though. I don’t get to meet a lot of ‘foreigners’ in my travels. When I have traveled internationally, most of my students have been Americans because I work on a US Military base or at an Embassy. The times I have taught a class for the citizens of a country are few and far between. Listening to Liam and Timm talk was very interesting for me. The places the two of them have been! I did manage to have photo’s snapped of us. In this photo you’ll see his hat is pulled down far over his head. He doesn’t want his face to appear on social media at all, I’m honoring that request. I do have permission to post this one.  We went to lunch at a nearby place named Porwa Restaurant. I loved that the name was written in English as well as a local dialect. It wasn’t true Thai, even I could tell that. I couldn’t read a thing of course, it was just nice to be exposed to a written language, even if I couldn’t read it. I’ll leave it to Liam to tell you what we ate. I was a rice dish with cucumber and fried chicken (I think). Liam and I talked a lot during lunch also. I have to say that it was a truly pleasurable day. I’d love to spend more time getting to know him, but he has to return to Udon Thani Monday, while I have to start work then. We’ll meet tomorrow and spend a bit of time talking again, then part ways for a final time. At least for now, because you never know what tomorrow will bring.  Jim Dorrell |
| Locale: Frederick, Md Week of: 226 The week of 2/26 I was in Frederick Maryland delivering a class to FEMA. Yes, that FEMA. I was with their Mobile Emergency Response System (MERS) team. I always learn something in every class I deliver, in this class I learned a bit about their operations. When a disaster occurs and FEMA is on the scene, the students in my class this week are too. The people assisting the local populace need to stay in touch with their HQ, they do it using radios. So the students in my class also deploy to set up communications for them. It's very interesting how this is done, but I won't bore all of you with details because you'll probably fall asleep in seconds. I'm delivering this class to FEMA because a co-worker recommended I deliver it, They are looking for specific information on a couple of our products, and I'm the SME (Subject Matter Expert) on these two devices. Like I've said before, it's nice to be needed, but it's not nice when you are going East Coast to West Coast, and repeating it. Yeah, in the last three weeks I've been in Dover New Hampshire, Beaverton Oregon, now Frederick Md, and next week, Beaverton Oregon again. That back and forth from one coast to another can really get to you. Plus, by the time I go to Oregon again, I will have spent about 30 hours at home in three weeks. It's okay, it could be a lot worse. I did enjoy myself, there's a lot more going on in Frederick than you might think. Plus, downtown there's a small canal/creek that has quite a few small boats in it. I found myself fascinated by this area, and snapped a few photos of it with my phone. I found this while going to dinner one night. See what you think.  Noteworthy Restaurants: Firebirds Woodfired Grill https://firebirdsrestaurants.com/frederick/menu I dined at this restaurant while in Brentwood Tennessee last year and really loved their menu. I had to return, didn't I? I enjoyed myself again by having an excellent appetizer of Lobster Spinach Queso - Lobster / spinach / pepper jack cheese / tortilla chips. There were far too many chips with this, I didn't even try to finish them, but the Queso was history. For my meal, I enjoyed their Seared Tuna Superfoods Salad - Seared sushi-grade tuna / organic ancient grains / cucumbers / spinach / radish / avocado / grilled corn / edamame with an outstanding avocado lime vinaigrette dressing. This was exactly what I was craving, and didn't know it until I was eating it. Brewer's Alley https://brewers-alley.com/menu/to-go-menu/ My students recommended several breweries around Frederick, however almost all of them had food trucks instead of a dine in restaurant. I wanted a dine in area, and chose this place. It was very good. I had a nice sized serving of their Fried Pickle Chips - Cajun Spices, Kölsch battered kosher pickle slices with Sriracha ranch. For dinner I had to try their Kölsch Fish & Chips - Kölsch battered Pacific Cod, Fries, Coleslaw & Tartar Sauce. I was in the mood for Fish-n-Chips that day, this hit the spot for me. Isabella's I dined here, but was seriously disappointed. Why? Well, I really wanted Paella, and ordered it. BUT, they burned the rice on the bottom of the pan, and I didn't notice it until I was almost full! Nuff' said, I would dine there again to give them a second chance, but you know I'd have something other than Paella. My schedule has not changed recently, here's where I'll be through April. Week of: 3/4: Beaverton, Oregon (look for a Blog entry about this week 3/9 or 3/10) 3/11: Travel to Bangkok Wednesday/Thursday 3/18: American Embassy, Bangkok 3/25: American Embassy, Bangkok 4/1: Work from home 4/8: Strafford County, New Hampshire 4/15: Schaumburg, Illinois 4/22: Work from home 4/29: Los Angeles Well, that's about it for an update, at least for now. Until my next post, be good to those you love, spoil them, 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'. 
