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 |  I travel the country on business, sometimes the world. Come see where I've been. |
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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.  Best Cultural And Regional Honorable Mention |
| Locale: Bloomington, Illinois Week of: 10/2 & 10/9/2023 I've spent the past two weeks at home instead of traveling to New Mexico as I wanted to do. This trip to NM would have allowed to enjoy the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta, an item at the top of my bucket list. It will have to wait for next year I guess. Right now I'm planning on us going home to NM in December for Christmas. I haven't seen the Luminarias and the Southwest Christmas decorations for more years than I care to think of. My manager has chastised me for being on my work PC and in Google Chat with my co-workers during this time. To be honest though, I've worked when I wanted to, and for as long as I wanted/needed to. There are some things I wanted to get done that can't really be done while teaching/traveling. I have my 'special projects' that need attention, so used the timeframe to get them done. I was relaxing, there were days that I got very little, if anything, completed/worked on. I was on vacation/staycation, so it didn't matter. Except it did. I finished those projects this morning though.  The weather has changed it. Gone are the really hot days of summer, only to be replaced with the cooler temperatures of Autumn. The leaves are changing to their Autumn colors too, soon it will be time to rake in them up and take them to the curb. It's been windy, chilly (only in the low 40's F, ~ 4-5 Celsius), so time for the long sleeves to come out. No jackets right now, though I have worn my Submarine Veteran Jacket once or twice. I did that more to show it off than anything. As I've mentioned already, we had to cancel our trip to Albuquerque for a couple of reasons. The biggest thing though, was we had to put our lovely Senior Citizen Akita (Pumpkin) down. If we hadn't, she might have lived a bit longer, we have no idea of knowing obviously. She was such a wonderful, loving dog though, but age had robbed her for a lot of her living pleasure. My biggest fear was that something would happen while I was gone. There is now way Kathy could have gotten her into the car. Pumpkin was a healthy 80 lbs that day. We miss her terribly, but I think we miss the youthful Pumpkin we has early on. We've watched videos of her playing, it's just so sad to see her then, and realize what she was like this past year. As usual, my schedule has changed due to customers canceling classes. Our field classes are scheduled with the assistance of a Project Manager. Often times the classes are scheduled far too early, or far too late. It's a rare occasion when a class is scheduled at the appropriate time. Is the Project Managers fault? In some ways, yes. In some ways no, because dates slip due to delays in system installation. Below is my current schedule through the end of the year. I don't see this changing too much, unless that Michigan class slips. 10/16: Schaumburg (original class in Marin County was cancelled this week because they and their radio system are a long ways from being installed. The class would have been delivered far too early.) 10/23: Brentwood, Tn 10/30: Schaumburg 11/6: Schaumburg (Too many weeks in Schaumburg!) 11/13: Los Angeles with LAPD 11/20: Home - Thanksgiving week 11/27: Los Angeles with LAPD 12/4: Fort Lauderdale 12/11: Lansing, Michigan 12/18: Home, or Albuquerque - Christmas Break 12/25: Home, or Albuquerque - Christmas Break 1/1/24: Home, or Albuquerque - Christmas Break 1/8/24: Lansing Michigan It's been a great two weeks, I've rested and relaxed a lot. I told my manager about possibly going to Albuquerque in December, his response was to just go, not to worry about scheduling vacation since that's our holiday downtime. He wants me to decompress and relax even more. Well, that's about it for now. Until my next post, be good to those you love, spoil them, and write!  Jim Dorrell |
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is better than suspended upside down in the 'void'. 
