I travel the country on business, sometimes the world. Come see where I've been. |
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. |
Date: Week of September 10th Locale: Loveland, Colorado This week finds me in Loveland, Colorado for another class with the Western Area Power Administration. It's the same class I've delivered in Bismarck, ND and Watertown, SD. Loveland is quite close to Denver (~50 miles), and since I'm in Denver next week, I planned on staying out west the whole time. The class itself went fine, but it was the journey here that made it special. As mentioned in a previous entry, I visited the site of Bonnie & Clyde's last bank robbery, the Freedom Rock (3rd visit), and the Golden Spike tower in North Platte Nebraska. I did manage to find a couple of excellent restaurants here in Loveland, and even had a little time to get into the mountains. I wanted to see a 'Tiny Home' village, but was disappointed to find it's now a tiny home resort of sorts. I also went to Estes Park to see 'The Stanley' hotel. Stephen King and his wife stayed a night here in 1973, and it became the inspiration for his novel, "The Shining". I really wanted to walk in the place and stroll down a hallway, but it's gated, only registered guests or those registering can get past. To be honest, I didn't try to get past, I saw the gate and figured I'd not even try. Go ahead, you can call me "Chicken!". Noteworthy Restaurants: Smokin Fins http://finsconcepts.com/smokin-fins-menu/ This place was so good the first time that I went back for a repeat visit! Excellent seafood. Their Lobster Stuffed Fried Avocado is something you really have to try.... Not only that, but the Southwest Poki Bowl is excellent too. Photo's From Visit: Historic/Interesting Places Visited: The Golden Spike Tower https://goldenspiketower.com/ This is one for Railroad Buffs, and anyone who enjoys interesting sites. This Union Pacific Railroad Yard (Bailey Railyard) processes over 10,000 rail cars a day! Sort of like a sorting place for Union Pacific trains. Freedom Rock https://www.thefreedomrock.com/ Artist Bubba Sorenson paints a new mural on the ~60 Ton rock every year. Each mural honors American Veterans in one way or another. I've been fortunate enough to visit it three times. I know, some of you are saying, "visit a rock three times?" In Closing I will spend the weekend in NW New Mexico, staying in Farmington while I visit the 'Shiprock' rock formation, Four Corners, and Mesa Verde. Til next time, be good to yourselves and those you love, and WRITE! |
I spent the past 2 weeks (Okay, past week and a half) in Schaumburg working on upgrading a small radio system I teach. I really think most any instructor could do this, but most of them don't teach anything on this system, so I take care of it. It's not all that tough, but there are a few things that needed done. Upgraded two desktop PC's to Win 10. This also requires using a special disk provided by Motorola to harden their operating system. Also upgraded the system routers and switches operating systems & installed new configurations. The Base Radios, Comparator, and a device called a Site Controller were all upgraded. That was the easy stuff. The hard part came when it was time to upgrade the Virtual Servers. Right now, we use HP 380, Gen 8 Virtual Servers. These run on ESXi, a Virtual Machine operating system. You install that, then create the virtual servers using VM Ware. Well, this particular machine was 'scrounged' from one of our support labs, and what I thought was a good operating system, wasn't. I spent almost a whole day getting it partially configured and ready to go, only to find that the hard drives were.... well, I can't say/type that word here. So the next day, I reinstalled the ESXi operating system, reformatted the drives in the process, and created the two virtual servers that needed to be on it. The first one was easy, I'd installed the current one three years ago, and still remembered much of the procedure. The second one? That's another story. Luckily for me, a tech from our support lab upstairs had volunteered to help with this, and it's a good thing he did. To make a long story short, our manuals don't provide a lot of details, and if he hadn't been there, I'd still be trying to get that second VM installed! Now that the upgrade is done, I've been tackling a problem we've had for a long time. This problem doesn't affect the system operation, but I can't demonstrate one thing until this is fixed. Never had the time (nor knowledge on some of it) to fix this, and am still learning. It's not fixed yet, but I have a much better idea of what's wrong than I did Monday. However, I did spend most of the day yesterday banging my head against a wall, getting no-where.... I decided that if I couldn't get it done, I'd come home and relax a little before traveling to Plantation Florida Sunday. Til my next entry, y'all take of yourself and your loved ones. And Write all you can! Aloha to you all. |
Date: Week of July 9th Locale: Calgary, Alberta, Canada This week finds me in Calgary, Alberta delivering a class to the Canadian Pacific Railways. When I made the reservations for this class, I couldn't understand why hotels in Calgary were priced so high. When I got there, I found out why. A 'small' festival, called "The Calgary Stampede!" Now, I'm not much of a country-boy, and am ashamed to say I've never really ridden a horse. Unless riding a pony in circles at a State Fair counts.... But you know I had to go. Calgary has a bit of a western atmosphere, and it shows. You see a lot of cowboys around, and a lot of western type atmosphere. It wasn't all because of the Stampede either. When class was done on Thursday, I decided it would be a good night to see what this Stampede was all about. I figured it was something like one of our State Fairs, and I wasn't too far off in that idea. I didn't get to see near enough of it. Arriving at 6 pm after working all day was fine, but it didn't leave a lot of time to explore. Especially since I decided to take in the evening show. The evening show is actually a series of races between Chuck Wagons. The races are actually heats, with four wagons in each. Needless to say, the people in the stands had their favorites, and cheered very loudly. What amazed me though, was the drivers of these Chuck Wagons. Let me tell you, these guys were 'Mad Men'! To see them coming around that 4th turn, reins in both hands yelling and raising the reins to get the horses to run faster. It was a good time, but I remained quiet the whole time, mainly because I was alone, and had no idea who to cheer for.... I finished class on Friday, and decided I'd look into leaving that day, instead of waiting until a 6 am flight Saturday morning. Changing the ticket was no problem. I have a high enough status with United that I can change a ticket for no additional fee. Now, instead of leaving Saturday at 6 am, I was leaving Friday afternoon at 3:20 pm, and would be in Chicago by 8. So far so good. After landing in Chicago, I went to get a rental car (I'd foolishly decided to rent one for the drive up, and would need one for the drive back), and was told that Avis had no cars to rent one-way. But, once I was at the Avis Office, I was told I could rent one since the distance home was no that far (only 150 miles or so). I asked about an SUV for this week's trip, but was told there was no way. So I told her I'd take a Yugo if it would get me home Friday night. She told me it was no problem to get me a car, and that it was 'only' $295 for a one day rental! I told her she was high (I wasn't irate or anything, it wasn't her fault, it was the company), that it was highway robbery, and that I wouldn't pay that kind of money to rent a car. I called Hertz, but they wanted $335 for the same time period. Turns out no car rental companies will rent a car one-way on a Friday or Saturday night from O'Hare. I ended up spending the night in Chicago, and was picked up Saturday morning. So much for getting home a day early, huh! Historic/Interesting Places Visited: Calgary Stampede https://www.calgarystampede.com/ The Calgary Stampede bills itself as 'The Greatest Outdoor Show' on Earth. It's well work coming to Alberta to experience it. You will enjoy yourself, I promise you. In Closing I will spend next week in Chicago finishing the work I started in June. I will be upgrading one of the systems we have, the one I take care of basically. Should be done Friday, and have the week of July 30th to relax before heading off to Plantation, Florida! Til next time, take care of yourself and those you love. And of course, WRITE! |
Date: Week of July 2nd Locale: Bloomington, Illinois After spending a week in Schaumburg working/upgrading a small system I maintain, I am home for a week. It's a week to relax, enjoy 'normal' life, and celebrate our nation's birth. I have to say, it's been a fine week, and it's only Tuesday! Tonight I had the privilege and honor to attend an outdoor celebration put on by the local parks and recreation, and sponsored by the local newspaper. It was the prototypical small town celebration, and I loved every minute of it! The hosts were four young adults, but the whole company comprised people of all ages. Every song was a celebration of the United States, and I was reminded of what our forefathers meant when they wrote the Declaration of Independence, and thought of a lot of our history. No, we're not a perfect union. We also aren't fatally flawed either. As they emphasized in the show, we need to remember, and come together as one. Not as groups who hate (a word I rarely use, and only use it here for emphasis) others who don't agree with them or think differently than them. I won't lecture, far be it for me to ever lecture people on how to act. But we could do so much better than we are right now! For some reason, my eyes got sweat in them during the National Anthem. They always do. It happened again during America The Beautiful. I wasn't surprised. In the middle of the show, they honored veterans and active duty by singing the hymn for each branch of service, and asked us to stand when the hymn for our branch was sung. I proudly stood, but man, it was tough to not get sweat in my eyes again. For me, the whole show was very well done, even if the performers were mainly 'amateurs'. It's something more people should experience so they too can remember what being an American is really about. Okay, enough lecture, enough standing on a pulpit and preaching to you all.... In Closing I wish you all a very safe, and happy 4th of July. Take some time to reflect on things, remember those you love, and tell them you love them. Every day! Til next time, take care of yourself and those you love. And of course, WRITE! |