I’m currently sitting in the United Airlines Red Carpet Club between terminals C and D at Philly. Why am I here? How did I even get here? Well, the story is rather droll, but it has seen me travel half way around the world, and back on a 2 week Magical Mystery Tour.
It started out with just a trip to Dublin, Ireland for a Sprint with my company. Sprints are just events were the teams get together in one location to work our asses off together and to generally associate physically. Typically, most of us work from our homes, so this interaction is essential to make sure we all remember that we’re all part of a company together, and we’re all on the same teams.
So, off to Dublin I was to go. Until Business came to be. We ended up with a Certification engagement (that’s what I do, Hardware Certification) for a major OEM in Taiwan. The only trick was that it had to be done by the end of June and we had no employees in our office on the 46th floor of the amazing Taipei 101 building.
Naturally, I quickly volunteered to go, because, to be honest, no on else wants to fly that far, and I LOVE Taipei. I absolutely love Taipei. I’ll post more on that later as I recount the tale of Monkey.
So my 1 week in Dublin became a 2 week trip around the world… mostly. Unfortunately, my travel agency decided it would be cheaper, and therefore better for the company, if I flew back and forth through the US. So my travel looks something like this:
RDU, Raleigh, NC -> IAD, Washington, D.C. -> NRT, Tokyo, Japan ->
TPE, Taipei, Taiwan -> NRT, Tokyo, Japan -> SFO, San Francisco, CA ->
PHL, Philadelphia, PA -> EWR, Newark, NJ -> DUB, Dublin, Ireland ->
EWR, Newark, NJ -> RDU, Raleigh, NC.
As you can see, that’s 11 airports in aggregate over 2 weeks, over 25,000 miles flown, and a LOT of door to door time. For example, Door to Door from my hotel in Taipei to my overnight hotel in Philly: 28 hours. I’m now in PHL waiting on my flight to EWR and eventually Dublin.
So that’s where I am, in the middle of my Odyssey around the world. I’m exhausted, but elated. I really do like the travel. I do. I’ve seen a lot of amazing places since starting my job, and I’m grateful for it. So I’ll start posting more about both my job and my travels shortly.
For now, I’m just working through another beer, getting ready to head to yet another gate to yet another foreign land. Ireland… land of Beer and Whiskey and gorgeous girls with green eyes and sensual accents… And pie. I must mention Pie… mmmm Pie…
