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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 |
| Date: Week of August 26th 2019 Locale: San Diego, California This week finds me in beautiful San Diego to deliver a class to the county of San Diego. The topic is two classes, but there's a lot of overlap in delivering them. Fortunately the customer asked us to deliver it in four days instead of five, so that helped a lot in the timing of the modules. Instead of making it two classes, I treated it as one. Let me explain. The first part of the class was on what we call the GTR 8000 Expandable Site Subsystem. It involves a base radio, and the other equipment mounted in the rack that makes this part of a larger system. The second class is called Simulcast, a method of transmitting the audio over a wider area, increasing the customers ability to remain in communication. Well, the radio sites in the Simulcast System are GTR 8000 Expandable Site Subsystems. You can see the overlap, and our problem delivering both classes back to back. Treating it just one class with a focus on the GTr 8000 part made it a lot easier. It went smoothly and the students seemed to receive it well. I arrived a bit early on Monday, and thought I'd visit the San Diego Safari Park. If you like seeing animals in the closest thing to their natural habitat, visit this place! Also, once class was done Friday, I decided to play tourist a little, and visited Cabrillo National Monument. It was the first place a European stepped foot on the west coast of what became the United States. Great views of the ocean and harbor from high above the coast! Noteworthy Restaurants: 94th Aerosquadron https://94thsandiego.com/ This is such an interesting place to dine at! They exist at small airports in large cities. I first found one of these in Miami in 2004, and have since visited one in Wheeling Illinois (now closed), Columbus Ohio, Atlanta Georgia (100th Bomber Group is the name of that one), the Proud Bird near LAX, and one somewhere in Pennsylvania, but for the life of me I can't remember where. The food is excellent, with an atmosphere that's even better. Duke's La Jolla https://www.dukeslajolla.com/menus/dinner/ If you know me at all, then you know how much I love Hawaii, and the great food you can have there. Duke Kahanamoku was the man who brought surfing to the world, and an Olympic Champion Swimmer. The food here is better than most places I've dined, with a wonderful Hawaiian atmosphere. Photo's From Visit:  WWI Tri Plane Replica  Cabrillo National Monument Historic/Interesting Places Visited: San Diego Zoo Safari Park https://www.sdzsafaripark.org/ I was here about 17 years ago, and it's changed dramatically. No animals live in cages, they are in the wild essentially, on 1600 acres of land! Of course carnivores are separated from the herbivores with large walls separating them. A great place to visit and spend an afternoon, though I was pretty beat at the end of the day. Cabrillo National Monument https://www.nps.gov/cabr/index.htm This site honors Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo, the first European to set foot on what became the west coast of the United States in 1542. In Closing I will spend the weekend at home, and fly to Washington DC for a class just south of the National Mall next week. Til next time, be good to yourselves and those you love, and WRITE!  Jim Dorrell |
| Date: Week of August 19th 2019 Locale: Schaumburg, Illinois This week I became the student when I was asked (told) by my manager that I would be there. I was originally scheduled to work from home, so really no difference to me in many ways. This class was called 'Fleetmapping', which probably sounds a little strange to most of you. In many (almost all) companies (our customers), the workers who use radio are divided into groups. This is because when they transmit on their radios, they should talk to their co-workers, not just any one at all. Thus, the radios are programmed to allow this to occur. Not only that, the rack mounted radio system nees to be properly configured and programmed to allow communications to occur over a large area. Modern two-way radios can communicate over wide areas, often on state wide systems. They can roam much like a cell phone (but don't ever tell a cell phone technician they work just like that, because you'll be corrected quickly). This class allows us to teach customers how to align their users into groups, giving them the same capabilities (modern radios can do a lot of different things), that every one in the group has. To me it sounds easy, but complex at the same time. You have to know quite a bit about radio programming. I do, since I can teach radio programming on every radio we've engineered for public safety use since 1990 or so. Probably a little earlier. Fortunately, most of the older radios classes are not taught anymore, and that's a good thing. You also have to know a bit about configuring the radios, radio users and groups, in the system. A course I don't teach.  I know a lot about it, but not near enough to teach the class. Learning this class will help me in that one of course! Now to study, and learn as much as I can about this class...In Closing I will spend the weekend iat home, then fly to San Diego for a class with San Diego County. Til next time, be good to yourselves and those you love, and WRITE! Jim Dorrell |
| Date: Week of August 5th Locale: Torrance, California This week saw me visiting Torrance California for a class with the city of Torrance. I had hoped to meet Jeff  and Annette  , but we were unable to connect. I've often wondered about 'broadcasting' where I will be (or am) at the start of a week, just in case there are WDC members around who would like to meet for an appetizer or what.This was a good class, when it comes to Networking knowledge, I had a mix of students. Three of them knew as much (and in some cases more) than I do about that subject. The other seven had a varied networking background, ranging from complete beginner to pretty experienced. As a result, I made the three subject matter experts my assistants in class. They were very helpful in guiding the inexperienced students, since I can't be at all lab setups at the same time. The only issue, was trying to get them to not answer questions right away, thereby giving the inexperienced students a chance to think and answer. If I hadn't done that, I don't think they (the beginners) would have learned much at all. Some of us went to lunch together every day, which was really good. Tuesday was particularly good, because we went to the Torrance Farmer's Market. I really enjoyed experiencing that, and had an excellent spicy Tuna Poke bowl that day. Dinners were spent alone obviously, and surprisingly, I didn't venture far. Let's just say I ate lighter, and less all week long and was quite happy doing that! Noteworthy Restaurants: Blue Salt Fish Grill http://bluesaltfishgrill.com/food-menu/ This place was so good the first time that I went back for a repeat visit! I could have dined there all week, but try to eat at a variety of places, so didn't. Sometimes I wish I had. Their Hawaiian Style Salmon Poke was excellent, while their Peri-Peri Prawns were a bit spicy. Not too much though. Big O Fish Brews And Grill Well, I don't usually visit establishments that don't have a website, so don't ask me why I ended up here. I walked in, and knew I was in the wrong place. Don't get me wrong. I never felt threatened, the food and service was good. It is just a place that I would never willingly visit. Oh well, live and learn. In Closing I am home for the weekend, having arrived last night at 11:30pm. I had today and most of tomorrow free, but will drive to Chicago tomorrow afternoon/evening to deliver a class in Schaumburg next week. It's gonna get busy though. I have classes in Suitland Maryland, Two in Denver Colorado (a month apart), Battle Creek Michigan, Philadelphia, Plattsburg New York, San Diego, and two that I'm assuming will be in the DC area, since I'll be with the Secret Service and the White House Communications Agency. 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'. 
