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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: Bradenton, Fl Week Of: July 20, 2020 Well, I managed to deliver my fifth class at a remote location this week. I was afraid this class would become a virtual one like so many I've been scheduled for have. But things worked out, and I drove to Bradenton, Florida for this delivery. I'm glad I did because I managed to do a couple of things. One of my best friends at Motorola retired in January, I hadn't seen him since sometime last year. He moved to Mount Pleasant, Tennessee a couple of years ago, and while on medical leave last year, he decided it was time to hang things up. Driving to Bradenton would give me the chance to take a small detour and visit him and his wife. We're the same age, and I know (as does he) that we may not see each other again in this life. No, neither of us plan on dying any time soon, but I learned long ago that tomorrow is not guaranteed. I left a day early, stayed at a decent hotel on my dime that night. Okay, I didn't spend a penny, other than dinner. I used hotel points. We met on Saturday morning, and spent about an hour catching up and kidding around like we always did. The drive Saturday was not all that pleasant. I drove down I-65 to Montgomery, Alabama before angling Southeast through the state. The drive from Birmingham to Montgomery is supposed to take a bit more than an hour. It felt like this one took eight! In actuality, it was close to three hours due to construction, and an accident that had us almost completely stopped for over an hour. As a result, where I'd hoped to get to Gainesville Saturday night, I only made it to Tallahassee. It was fine though, the next day drive was short. Except for the accidents, again. While in Bradenton, I managed to visit my father-in-law, a man I haven't seen in about 10 years. I saw him four of the nights I was there, and we conspired to surprised my sister-in-law with a pizza night. She had no idea I was in town. When she saw me, you could have knocked her over with a feather. I also avoided crowds, and didn't dine out. The nights that I did have dinner there, I got food to go, and ate in the comfort of my room. So why did I drive? Just read the news about flying right now, and you can understand. Did it tire me out? Definitely. Was it worth it? Yes, definitely. The drive home was uneventful, I even drove through Atlanta, spending Friday night just south of that city. The whole trip, I was amazed at the number of accidents I saw on the roads. I didn't count them, but I'd guess there were 9-10 on both drives. In Closing I will spend the weekend and next week at home. There's still a lot going on at work, I am scheduled to teach from home all of August, before going to Schaumburg to deliver a tailored class to the State Department. Right now, I am booked every week between now and Christmas. I do have the Thanksgiving and Christmas weeks free right now, but that could change. Til next time, be good to yourselves and those you love, and WRITE! |
| Locale: Bloomington, IL. I will be home this week after all. I was originally scheduled to deliver an online class to the Los Angeles World Airport, but that was changed last Monday night. Instead, I was now going to visit High Point NC again. That all changed (again) on Thursday. The manager of the radio shop I was going to be at, has a family member who tested positive for COVID-19. So, it's cancelled of course. Now, I'll be here at home working on preparing to deliver a tailored class next month. The class last week ended up well it seems. Their radio system is unique as I mentioned in my last entry. One of the things their system supports, is the use of cell phones interfacing with the radios. Cell phones are really radios that operate in what's called 'Full Duplex'. The difference between a cell phone and a radio? Full Duplex means one can transmit and receive at the same time. Radios are half duplex, meaning they can do one or the other, not at the same time. Plus, cell phones operate at different frequencies than radios, so that may make you wonder some. And of course, there's an answer for that too. As I've mentioned several times in other entries, our radio system uses the same kind of devices that the internet does for wide area communication. It's all 'IP' based (Digital, 1's and 0's, not a frequency). So, we use IP devices to interface between the cell phone network, and our radio network. The drive home was something else, and very tiring. Once class was done Thursday (about 2:30), I drove to Virginia Beach to visit a friend of ours. I arrived there about 6:30, and while there, I picked up an Akita puppy she had from a recent litter. I was there almost an hour before heading out. I drove another 3-4 hours, and finally stopped in Charlottesville for the night. (Sorry Robert Waltz  , I was only there overnight, and far too late, so made no plans to drop by. We could have made plans to meet, but I'd hoped to take the northern route for a couple of reasons). I was finally in bed by a little after midnight (I'd woken at 4am that morning), then got up at 6:30 to get the puppy walked and such before hitting the road at 7:30. The drive was long and tedious, made more so by me following the GPS directions, and not questioning why at a certain point.In West Virginia, there's a toll road near Beckley, and a previous driver had set the GPS to avoid toll roads. When the GPS directed me off the Interstate, I thought it was a shorter, faster route. That wasn't the case at all. Because I was on state/county highways now, there were a lot of hairpin turns and slow downs. As a result of all this, I lost at least 1.5-2 hours of time. To top it all off, as I was leaving Huntington WV, just on the west side, traffic came to a stop. MAJOR accident about a quarter mile in front of me! Thank God I wasn't near it or involved in it. But, traffic was at a dead stop for at least an hour. So, I lost three hours of driving all together that day. That was nothing compared to those in that accident. I don't know if anyone was killed in that accident, I never heard any news, never saw the wreckage. By the time traffic moved again, everything was cleaned up, except for minor debris. As a result of those two delays, I didn't get home Friday night until a bit after 10. Another long day. I've decided to drive on my next trip also. Sarasota Florida. I'll leave about noon on Friday, visit a co-worker from Motorola who retired in January (lives in Tennessee), and avoid Atlanta. This means I will most likely drive through Alabama, north to south along I-65. In Closing I will spend the weekend and next week at home before heading off to Florida. Til next time, be good to yourselves and those you love, and WRITE! |
| Locale: Washinton DC This week finds me in Washington DC to deliver a class to a customer I've never taught before. The White House Communications Agency. Before you all get all excited or upset about my customer, just know that we are no where near the White House for this class. The training location is south, across the Anacostia River from DC, on the Anacostia/Bolling Joint Base. Their system is a pretty unique one, a bit different from other customer's systems. I guess it figures, being they maintain communications for the White House staff, President, and such, especially when he travels. I'm not sure what all they support/do for the White House, but their system is large, and as I mentioned, setup in an unusual way. I chose to drive here for this class, and the drive was pretty interesting. I posted in the newsfeed about seeing a Semi on fire in Indianapolis. The firefighters hadn't arrived yet, and the cab was fully engulfed in flames. I could feel the hear through my car's rolled up window, even though I was on the far right lane going the opposite direction the truck had been going. The other thing that was unusual for this trip, is that my credit card chip decided it was a good time to malfunction. The card itself is fine, it can be swiped, everything is fine with the account. But the chip can't be read. I called the bank about it, and the guy told me it was probably their card reader. I had to explain to him that I'd tried using it in three different locations about 10 miles apart. He still didn't think the chip would go bad. His words, "That's very unusual, those chips don't fail." I couldn't believe that he was refusing to think the chip could fail, and kept insisting it was the card readers. I contacted the Motorola department that handles this stuff, and a new card is on the way. To my house....  Once I arrived here, I had a message from our scheduler. I was scheduled to deliver a Networking class from home next week. Now I'll deliver the same class, in High Point NC. The instructor scheduled to go was a last minute replacement due to us losing two instructors to retirement recently. He can't travel though, so him and I swapped classes. I know it wasn't possible, but it would have been nice to know about 3 weeks ago. We could have planned a 3 week work-cation, and drove here to Washington DC, then to High Point NC, then down to Sarasota Fl, then driving home. How nice that would have been! As it is, I will get home Friday, then fly to Greensboro NC via DFW on Sunday, fly home Friday, then fly to Sarasota Florida on Sunday, and home on Friday. Then I'm home for 2 weeks before having to travel again. In Closing I will spend the weekend at home before heading off to NC. 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'. 