Rant/Rave: Business Travel

[tlombard]

I am in Boston this week for work and can't decide if I love or hate this now that I'll be traveling more regularly.

First I wasn't able to make my flight yesterday morning so instead of a direct flight that would take about two and a half hours I had to catch a flight out of St. Louis at 2:20 with two hour or so layover in Chicago... but then the plane had mechanical difficulties so we were delayed another hour. Didn't get to the hotel until about 10:45 last night. It was torture.

Then today we had a two hour meeting that was pretty worthless... and now I'm just working out of a spare cubicle doing nothing I couldn't do back in St. Louis. At least the next two days are packed full of meetings and such. Then this afternoon there was talk of everybody going to Cheesecake Factory for dinner. What???? No. I'm not going to the Cheesecake Factory at a mall just outside of Boston when I can go to one in a mall at home. So a couple of us are ditching that and heading downtown for dinner at a place within view of the fishing boats that the fish is bought from daily. That will be fun.

And I do have to say that it is enjoyable to have a couple of beers in the hotel bar after the long day of travel... and being able to put it on the corporate Amex. Same with dinner tonight.

I'm really looking forward to tomorrow night though. They rented out some place called Kimball Farms and we get unlimited miniature golf, bumper boats, bumper cars, batting cages, pitch and putt course and driving range along with burgers, hot dogs, ice cream and open bar for five hours. That is going to be a good time.

So yeah, still can't decide if I really want to do this five or six times a year but I guess it would have been much better had I not missed my early, direct flight. Then I could have gone to dinner with a couple other guys downtown and actually enjoyed things.

[tlombard]

And my new coworker from Prague is cool as can be. I think her and I are the only two with the nasty habit of smoking so of course we became BFFs this morning after breakfast when I ran into her outside. I also had a random baseball conversation with an older gentleman from Germany who works in IT for us outside the building.

[GeddyWrox]

I was traveling almost every week for pretty much two years straight. It gets old real fast! Especially when you have kids that seem to get taller every time you go.

I do miss being able to eat at nice places every night on someone else's dime though. That part, I can't deny. But CHEESECAKE FACTORY??? F those people!! I *always* found little places that I couldn't get back home. Finding those little hole in the wall local establishments was the only redeeming quality to traveling so much!

[GeddyWrox]

Sub rant:

Expense reports.

[stlouie_lipp]

And my new coworker from Prague is cool as can be. I think her and I are the only two with the nasty habit of smoking so of course we became BFFs this morning after breakfast when I ran into her outside. I also had a random baseball conversation with an older gentleman from Germany who works in IT for us outside the building.

Is she hot?

[tlombard]

Five of us skipped Cheesecake Factory last night and went to some place called No Name Restaurant right on a pier with fishing boats tied up right outside. Not a nice place but it was pretty darn good. I'd go back. Then we just walked around water front for a bit until we ended up at some waterfront bar (can't remember the name) and one guy went back to get the car while we had a beer.

The girl from Prague is cute but not nearly enough for me to do anything stupid although when she casually mentioned to me that she might give the indoor pool a try, I was tempted. Sounded a lot like an invitation to join. Instead I decided to just grab a beer at the hotel bar and ran into another guy I know from St. Louis who had just gotten in and he happened to have the Cards game on his tablet so we drank and watched the Cards beat the cubs. That was just fine with me.