Sunday, November 8, 2009
Phoenix, Arizona, USA
Hi everyone. I’m on the road again. After two weeks at home with Jennifer and the Beebs, I’ve boarded another plane and left. This trip’s a doozy:
Fri-Sun Phoenix, AZ for our buddy Scott Fillian’s wedding
Mon-Fri Hungary again
Sat-Thurs Shanghai, China
Fourteen days of travel. Around the friggin’ world. The bookends of the trip were planned in advance but the Hungary leg came up quite recently. Actually, I’d be there now if it weren’t for the wedding. I have some time to kill before leaving for the airport (where I’ll hopefully find a TV to watch my beloved Texans take on those dastardly Indianapolis Colts) and I don’t have much travel news to report so I’m going to let you in on what my travel process is like.
First item on the agenda is always making sure that you have your arrangements taken care of at home, meaning paying bills. In this world of on-line bill paying, that’s not so difficult. Let’s move on to #2.
Second is figuring out what to pack. I keep telling myself I need to make a big list of everything I take so that I don’t forget anything but I usually don’t forget anything major so it’s not a prob. Having a wife help you make sure you have everything helps too (BB, however, is useless on this point). Here’s the list:
- Clothes. There are two types of clothes you need to take: work and personal. Work clothes depends on the location you’re visiting. For example, Hungary is very laid-back so you can wear a t-shirt and jeans to work if you like though I usually wear at least a polo shirt. In Shanghai, they only wear jeans on Fridays so I’m packing khakis to accompany the polos. This trip is a little odd in that I have to visit a Hungarian government agency so I’m actually packing a suit. This isn’t so bad except that I pack it in one of those big fold-over suitcases that you can hang up which means I have to carry it instead of roll it like most suitcases these days. I was hellbent on not having to check two bags so that sucker is pretty full. Personal clothes includes jeans, basketball shoes and a couple of t-shirts with buttons at the top so they look a little more professional, eh. It will be cold in Hungary and Beijing (a side trip to visit our distributor there) so I have two jackets, a headband for my ears and gloves, just in case.
- Laptop and power supply. Not only necessary for work (I’m almost useless without it) but for entertainment purposes as well. I’m listening to music while typing this e-mail right now, actually.
- Books. I’m always paranoid that I’m going to run out of reading material while on trips and be stuck watching airport CNN or something so I take plenty, usually three. They have to be paperbacks to minimize the weight and volume which narrows the selection but I’m usually able to find stuff at the library. This trip, being so long, requires five. I try to have a mix of genres and reading levels (i.e. page-turners vs. more high-brow stuff, eh). This trip has the following:
o The Road To Samarkand, by Patrick O’Brian, the guy who wrote all the Master and Commander books I love so much. This goes in the ‘easy-to-read’ category.
o Earth, by David Brin. Brin wrote The Postman, the book that was made into a not-so-great movie with Kevin Costner back in the late-90s. I read it on my last trip and it was decent so I figured another Brin book wouldn’t be a bad idea.
o Atherton: The House of Power, by Patrick Carman. I usually take a book from Jennifer’s library to read (high reading level, not a picture book, eh!). It serves two purposes: 1) it reminds me of her when I read it and 2) I can describe the plot to her so that she can relate to kids who check it out without actually reading it (though she has read tons of others). Sometimes the books are good and sometimes not (I’m looking at you Leven Thumps and the Gateway to Foo!).
o A book of Thomas Hardy’s short stories. This goes in the high brow category and, to be honest, this will be the last one I read.
o A book of Sherlock Holmes short stories that I found on our bookshelves at home.
- DVDs. I prefer watching movies while flying and reading while in the airports so I need movies to watch on the ‘ol laptop in case the plane doesn’t have TVs on it. Most of the international flights do but not all of ‘em. I usually take a Netflix DVD with me and three from our home collection. The Netflix representative is Sam Peckinpah’s Cross of Iron and the other three are The Man Who Would Be King (fantastic epic movie from the 70s), Porco Rosso (great Studio Ghibli animated flick) and Bedknobs and Broomsticks (will remind me of home and is quite light-hearted).
- iPod. It’s really weird that I used to travel without this thing since I listen to music so much anyway. I usually use it on planes to listen to podcasts like ‘Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me’ and ‘Hang Up And Listen’ and listen to music through the laptop when in hotel rooms and apartments.
- Camera. How else would I be able to share with you exactly what stuff looks like as well as remember it for myself?
- Snacks. Very important as I eat a lot of small meals throughout the day. I usually buy an 18 pack of granola bars and something else snacky. It used to be Little Debbie Oatmeal Creme pies but I’ve moved on to trail mix of peanuts, raisins and choco chips. I ate too much trailmix on the last trip so this one has granola bars, six breakfast cookies and a bag of ginger snaps (popularized by Jennifer and my road trip to Pennsylvania this past summer).
- Cell phone and charger. I now have a phone for work that can make international calls so my trips are no longer cell phone holidays. Oh well.
- Bathroom stuff. That’s all pretty pedestrian except for having a small enough bottle of contact fluid to make it past security in the airport. My bottles are all 12 oz which is 9 oz too big so this time I bought a ‘travel kit’ with a 3 oz bottle. I have to take contact fluid and the bathroom stuff in my carry-on so that I’m not totally hosed when my luggage decides to visit Buenos Aires.
- A memento of home. This is something new but I felt it was necessary. Just a little something to put up in my hotel room or apartment to remind me of Jennifer, BB and Austin. This time it’s a little stuffed scarecrow which was the handiest thing at the time when I asked Jennifer the night before for something. I’m now thinking a framed photo would’ve worked better but then again it probably would’ve gotten damaged in transit.
- Power and plug converters. We have a small set of plug converters with a power converter at work so I always have to take them along on foreign travel. Without them, I wouldn’t be able to plug anything into the wall and my electric razor, cell phone and camera battery charger would get fried (the laptop power supply has its own power converter). For this trip I have different plugs for Hungary and China.
- Passport. For this trip I had to get a visa to visit China. Thankfully you can send your passport off to a processing service who take care of it for you.
- Sleeping equipment. I always take earplugs and sometimes take an eye mask. Scott and Cheryl Fillian (congrats guys!) gave me as a wedding party present a US Airways sleep kit complete with blanket, inflatable neck pillow, ear plugs and eye mask. The blanket even has the US Airways logo on it. The only thing missing was the lifetime supply of Ambien.
Um, I think that’s it. There might be another thing or two but I’ve already packed my big foldover suitcase and I’m not going to open for the benefit of this e-mail. I used to pack way more stuff way back when but now only have the essentials. For example, I took a pair of binoculars with me to South Korea and India in 2005.
Guess that’s it for prep. Now I’ll clue you in on some business travel stuff. It’s not as glamorous as it sounds. Sure, it sounds and is fantastic to have someone else pay for you to fly to crazy foreign locales. But here’s the thing: you don’t really get to enjoy them much unless you schedule some vacation time. For example, if all goes well, I will land in Budapest at 7pm Monday night and be on the phone for an hour or so discussing a presentation that will be given bright and early the next morning. I will then travel to Debrecen via taxi, making it there perhaps in time to stop by the office where I may work until six or seven. I will be expected to handle issues occurring in Austin and perhaps other places such as Japan. When Austin is done for the day around 5pm, it’s midnight in Hungary. It’s not so bad because you sometimes think that you, being far away from home, don’t have much to do. When I’m in airports, I’m checking e-mail and now I can be reached by cell phone. The airplane is really the only place where you are truly out of touch. And I don’t even have a Blackberry. You are on the clock the entire time you are gone because you are not at home. I have been away from home long enough so I’m not taking any extra vacation time on this trip. I will have a free Sunday in Shanghai but that’s due to traveling over a weekend anyway. And thankfully I will have someone from the branch office to be my guide and hopefully avoid coming back with a stash of fake Rolex watches, eh.
Anyway, it looks like it’s time to check out of the hotel, return the tuxedo and head to the airport so I’ll finish up and send this now. I hope you are all doing well. I have accepted that my role is to be the big dog to go on these trips but that does not necessarily make it easier to be away when your wife is six months pregnant and your dog is so adorable. But there are millions and millions of people who have it worse so I will have a great trip and be home in two weeks. Barring a major work crisis, I shouldn’t have to hit the road for anything else until the baby arrives.
In transit,
Matt
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