Sunday, Feb 11
Flew to Dallas, had dinner with an old co-worker from Acoustic who is now working at a start-up there called QuickFilter. Ed was so fun to work with and I do miss the energy of a start-up, working with such talented people....
Monday, Feb 12
Gave a product training in Dallas to local field sales, applications engineers and reps. This is my favorite part of my job and what I'm really good at. Spend the rest of the day at customer calls with local Texas sales guys. It's freezing in Dallas, who knew it got so cold in Texas? Had dinner at a place called Nate’s where they served crawfish - yuck! Texan men are very courteous and have great manners.
Tuesday, Feb 13
More account calls in Dallas all day, then flew to Austin at night. I could live in Austin. The downtown area is so fun and unique. The culture is fairly liberal (for Texas). Local sales person was a woman (thank god) and she picked me up and we had a nice dinner at French place. Fun to talk with a female engineer and hear her experience in college, design, marketing and sales.
Wednesday, Feb 14
Account calls in Austin started at Dell. (See my previous post about hating technology and you'll know Dell isn't my favorite company right now.) I had to bite my tongue so that I didn't tell them about my laptop issues!! Of course all of our local people had Valentine's dates planned so I had planned on a night at the hotel with knitting and a netflix movie. Luckily, there were a bunch of sales managers in from Cleveland, Chicago, and Milwaukee and they were more than happy to have another join them for tapas, wine, dinner and an Irish pub. I love how businessmen sure do party it up when they are on the road away from their families. It was a late night!
Thursday, Feb 15
Flew to New Orleans early in the morning for customer meetings all day. Busy busy busy. Our hotel was in the French Quarter and guess what weekend it is? Mardi Gras!! So Thursday evening a parade went right by our hotel. The city was CRAZY!! It just feels wrong to be walking by a cop with a beer in your hand while crossing the street. Again it's cold enough to see your breath. Sooo cold. Can't imagine there will be much "flashing" for beads this year! We watched the parade and had dinner with customers and then I dragged my nerdy co-workers to meet up with my friend Ashley from college who lives there (see us in photo above with beads on). It was fun to catch up with her and meet her boyfriend. I even brought home some beads to share with co-workers.
Friday, Feb 16
More customer visits today. Took us into neighborhoods were you really could still see lots of damage from Katrina. It was very sad to think about the people who lost everything. Lots of for-sale signs on homes. Many homes still under construction or just empty lots with a slab. I just finished reading Anderson Cooper's book "Dispatches from the Edge" which puts it into perspective. Then we were trying to drive to the airport and traffic just sucked. Finally we realized we were stuck at an intersection until a parade has passed. Only in New Orleans! And the comedy of travel errors in trying to get to the airport ended when we finally realized we had a map in the glove box. Ahhhh.... Finally got to the airport and made it home at 10pm. So nice to get home to my favorite things - Ben and my own bed.
Flew to Dallas, had dinner with an old co-worker from Acoustic who is now working at a start-up there called QuickFilter. Ed was so fun to work with and I do miss the energy of a start-up, working with such talented people....
Monday, Feb 12
Gave a product training in Dallas to local field sales, applications engineers and reps. This is my favorite part of my job and what I'm really good at. Spend the rest of the day at customer calls with local Texas sales guys. It's freezing in Dallas, who knew it got so cold in Texas? Had dinner at a place called Nate’s where they served crawfish - yuck! Texan men are very courteous and have great manners.
Tuesday, Feb 13
More account calls in Dallas all day, then flew to Austin at night. I could live in Austin. The downtown area is so fun and unique. The culture is fairly liberal (for Texas). Local sales person was a woman (thank god) and she picked me up and we had a nice dinner at French place. Fun to talk with a female engineer and hear her experience in college, design, marketing and sales.
Wednesday, Feb 14
Account calls in Austin started at Dell. (See my previous post about hating technology and you'll know Dell isn't my favorite company right now.) I had to bite my tongue so that I didn't tell them about my laptop issues!! Of course all of our local people had Valentine's dates planned so I had planned on a night at the hotel with knitting and a netflix movie. Luckily, there were a bunch of sales managers in from Cleveland, Chicago, and Milwaukee and they were more than happy to have another join them for tapas, wine, dinner and an Irish pub. I love how businessmen sure do party it up when they are on the road away from their families. It was a late night!
Thursday, Feb 15
Flew to New Orleans early in the morning for customer meetings all day. Busy busy busy. Our hotel was in the French Quarter and guess what weekend it is? Mardi Gras!! So Thursday evening a parade went right by our hotel. The city was CRAZY!! It just feels wrong to be walking by a cop with a beer in your hand while crossing the street. Again it's cold enough to see your breath. Sooo cold. Can't imagine there will be much "flashing" for beads this year! We watched the parade and had dinner with customers and then I dragged my nerdy co-workers to meet up with my friend Ashley from college who lives there (see us in photo above with beads on). It was fun to catch up with her and meet her boyfriend. I even brought home some beads to share with co-workers.
Friday, Feb 16
More customer visits today. Took us into neighborhoods were you really could still see lots of damage from Katrina. It was very sad to think about the people who lost everything. Lots of for-sale signs on homes. Many homes still under construction or just empty lots with a slab. I just finished reading Anderson Cooper's book "Dispatches from the Edge" which puts it into perspective. Then we were trying to drive to the airport and traffic just sucked. Finally we realized we were stuck at an intersection until a parade has passed. Only in New Orleans! And the comedy of travel errors in trying to get to the airport ended when we finally realized we had a map in the glove box. Ahhhh.... Finally got to the airport and made it home at 10pm. So nice to get home to my favorite things - Ben and my own bed.
2 comments:
Sounds fun, but I know how tiring being on the road for a whole week can be. I just got back from Michigan. It was 1 degree there. SO COLD! It was good to catch up with the Interns. Miss you tons!
So glad that you had a good business trip: it really is fun when you get to see old friends and make new ones.
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