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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: 12/5/23 - 12/31/23 I've been working from home since December 5th to give me time to learn a new course. It's nice that manager has a lot of faith in me.... Let me explain, even though a lot of this will not make sense to almost all of you. The State Department wants two weeks of training in Bangkok, Thailand in March, and the same classes in Germany in August. The problem is, they want four classes delivered, and none of us teach all four classes! I'm the closest one, and most experienced, so my Manager said, "Give the classes to Jim, he can handle it." Nice that he has such faith, huh! As I said, I've been home all month learning one of the classes. The classes they've asked for are on the newest Conventional Repeater (rack mounted radio), basic Portable (hand-held), and mobile (vehicle mounted) radio maintenance, Radio Programming, and a small device called the MCD 5000. The MCD is the class I don't currently teach. I've been reviewing the course materials and practicing the hands-on activities, I have most of those down pat now. Plus, I've been upgrading my knowledge on the new router we use in our systems. In many ways, that's the tougher of the two to learn. Anyway, the co-worker who is the only qualified instructor on the MCD 5000 wrote the course I've been studying, and I can only say one thing. He doesn't write well..... the materials fit him of course, he understands the stuff. It's not well written for someone to learn on their own. So you know what I've been doing, off and on. To give you an idea of things, I can't seem to complete the last hands-on exercise satisfactorily. As a result, I will spend Thursday in Schaumburg with him, going through every hands-on exercise with him. Plus there are other things the students could be doing, depending on the customer setup, but that's not written... Yet. I've sent e-mails to the Project Manager asking about their system setup to ensure we address every aspect of their devices. Still, life should be so tough, huh. Below is my current schedule through March. As you can see, I don't have much time to prep after Christmas. Let's just hope that what time I do have is enough. It's nice to be wanted, but retirement is looming it seems. We'll see what the future holds. 12/25: Christmas Break 1/1/24: Kansas (Thursday/Friday) 1/8: Fort Lauderdale 1/15: Work From Home 1/22: Schaumburg 1/29: Work From Home 2/5: Maryland 2/12: New Hampshire 2/19: Oregon 2/26: Work From Home 3/4: Oregon 3/11: International Travel 3/18: Bangkok, Thailand 3/15: Bangkok, Thailand 4/1: International Travel Merry Christmas everyone! Well, that's about it for an update, at least 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'. 
