The Little Things

OK! I am now beginning to agree with everyone else. I am nuts. About 2 months ago I decided to invest in a new travel bag. You don't actually say suitcase these days. I was currently using a bag that I had bought at TJ Max for sixty bucks 3 years ago. It was a pretty good bag, but not a real traveling bag and the wheels were getting a little bit wobbly. It just couldn't hack the cobble stone streets of Europe.

I decided to go to a real travel store and buy the best. After all, when you live out of a suitcase it sort of becomes your home. I have had a leather Tumi briefcase now for about 6 years and it looks just like the day I got it. Oh! and that's another story. Anyway Tumi is one of the industry leaders and everyone in business class had a Tumi, so I laid down four hundred bucks and strolled out the proud owner of a real traveling bag. "So I thought".

I hit the road for a little 3 week test hop to take my new bag for a spin. As I'm walking down the terminal in Salt Lake outbound, something was a little strange. The bag sort of wobbled back and forth. I check the wheels and they appear to be towed in, but this is the Rolls Royce of bags and surly it must be part of the design. Well needless to say thing go from bad to worse. As I hit the cobblestone streets of Central Europe this thing takes on a mind of it own. When it rolls across a coarse surface it really digs in and starts to oscillate back and forth. After about five or six oscillations, it flips over. It is the strangest thing you have ever seen. Its like it just gets tired after a while and falls over. The miss-alignment on the wheels is so bad that the tread starts to wear off and I began trailing rubber ribbons behind me that eventually wind up in the axle and bring the bag and its owner to a complete stop. By the time I get back to the US the wheels have worn down to half their size and it takes a truck to pull the thing. So much for high quality.

Having bought the stupid thing from a"professional" travel store, I assumed there would be no problem returning it. I drag the bag back into the store as if trying to coax a drunken donkey back into the barn. I don't think it wanted to go. I left a beautiful skid mark down the mall all the way from the parking lot. As I explained the situation, the clerk was astonished that I would have such a problem with any of their high end bags. As she examined what was left of the wheels, she asked me If I would like to have them repaired. "Repaired? No, I want a new bag. One that preferably follows you down the street instead of trying to pass you." She explained that they only allow returns on bags if there is a manufacturing defect. She is sure the bag can be repaired and offers me a loaner bag for the interim. "A loaner bag?" Wow this is a high class store. I was so taken back by the idea of a loaner bag that I forgot to insist on my money back. She takes my phone number and explains the loaner will be shipped and available in a few days.

A week or so later I receive the call that my loaner has arrived and I head to the mall to retrieve same. I am astonished, they have provided me with a Travelpro. WOW! I have seen these before but never believed I could ever own one. The list of features is mind boggling. Micro-ballistic Teflon body fabric, 38X43" alloy extension handle, removable high-mileage wheels with sealed bearings, interlocking zippers for added security and a no-tip foot. I have no idea what a no-tip foot does, but I am all for anything that keeps the damn thing from falling over.

We hit the road for a 4 week grinder. To say I am impressed is an understatement. This thing is awesome. It actually pushes you down the street and unpacks your clothes for you. It carries my brief case and reminds me when I need to clean my clothes. About a week into my trip and I am facing a dilema. I do not want the Tumi back, I want the Travelpro. Then I get "the phone call". My wife calls to inform me that the Tumi is repaird and ready for pickup upon my return. I cried for two days, then I made a decision. I don't care what it takes, I want this bag. I lay awake at night rehearsing how I will demand they exhange the tainted Tumi for the Travelpro. The dilema is so frustrating that I finally decide I am going to buy this bag regardless of whether or not they take the Tumi back. My mind is finally at ease.

Two weeks later as I am walking down the mall with my trusty loaner Travelpro in a perfect single track by my side, I coudn't help but think about Richard Gere leaving Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman. Yes it was a great two weeks but I have to leave you now and go back to New York, alone. Only I wasn't going alone, I was taking my Tumi. "Damn!"

As I was saying my goodbuys to the Travelpro the clerk went to the back room to retrieve my Tumi. Perhaps things would be ok. Maybe some new wheels and a front end alignment was all the girl needed to be just as good as this trusty Travelpro, but I knew different. It would never be the same.

As the clerk emerged from the back room he began to appologize. In his hand he held a brand new Tumi explaining that the defective bag could not be repaired but worse yet all of these bags had the same defect. They had agreed to let me exchange it for another brand. I could not believe my ears. I had to ask him to repeat himself. My face became flush and the room began to spin. I could only picture Richard Gere in the limo pulling up to Julia Roberts appartment and I could hear Aria from La Traviata playing in the background. This was a very special moment.

"I will take a Travelpro" I beamed. "We don't carry Travelpro" the clerk explained. The music stopped. "What"? "Travelpro have quality issues" he said. He immediately realized how stupid that sounded.

Two hours later I sat in the middle of my bedroom unwrapping my brand new Travelpro travel bag. I had successfully negotiated a full refund and sourced my new bag at a department store for half the cost of the Tumi. I spent the rest of the afternoon pampering and primping my new bag with all of the necessities needed for here first flight. I haven't named her yet but that will come with time.

They all say that a Road Warrior has a moment when he knows he has had enough. My fear is that I have already had that moment and didn't recognize it.

God Hates Omelets

God hates Omelets

OK, I got my first taste of true religious fundamentalism yesterday. Well I say “first taste”, what I mean is first taste outside of Utah. I was at breakfast in my hotel in Budapest this morning and there was a large tour group from the Middle East. One of the ladies got up and went to a chef that was cooking omelets and ordered a vegi. omelet. One of her friends immediately stood up and began questioning her decision. While the chef was cooking the omelet a little debate ensued. Soon there were several people standing up and joining the debate and everyone was pointing at the bowls holding the omelet fixings. It became obvious that there was some question as to whether or not the spoon used to put the peppers in the omelet had been used at a previous time to put ham (pork) in a previous omelet. You know kind of like in Utah where you have to throw away 3 day old homemade rootbeer just in case it might start to ferment.

The chef was explaining with hand gestures, as he was Hungarian and the Patrons were Arab, that he had been using separate spoons. The finger pointing, hand gestures and argument went on for a few minutes. By now the omelet was ready and the chef was ready to slide it onto a plate. At this point an older gray haired Arab in full religious or cultural regalia, I’m not sure which, slowly stood up from his table. This guy was obviously the patriarch of the group, possibly the high priest group leader. He walked over to omelet bar, grabbed the pan from the chef and slid the omelet into the garbage can. He then started jabbing his finger at the pan and screaming at everyone as if they were stupid. He was obviously explaining that the pan itself had been contaminated with pork and no one was going to eat any omelets. End of Story, the oracle has spoken! He slammed the pan down on the table and without a word everyone quietly moved to their tables and sat down. As soon as everyone was seated the Oracle sauntered to his table, flipped his apron behind him as if he were a concert pianist and sat down. The entire group immediately continued with their breakfast as if nothing had happened. The poor chef stood there in wonderment and no one, including me dared to order another omelet. Damn I really wanted one.

Ok, friends and family. Thought I would give you an update. I have just been given a wireless network modem and am sitting here in my underwear in Budapest Hungary surfing the Internet. The Modem works great and I don't have to leave the comfort of my hotel room. I got here late last night and will be here for five days. My Hungarian sales manager is the team leader for a project we are doing in Romania. I have to pitch the board next week for some money and we are working on a presentation together.

We just had and enormous amount of Chinese food that was really spicy. For me to brand something as spicy means that it was pretty damn hot. Anyway it was really good.

I got my first look at Hethrow terminal 5 last night. I guess it is pretty cool. For someone to say that this is part of Hethrow is really a stretch. The terminal is ok however the toilets are just as crude as the old part of Hethrow. For those of you that don't know, Hethrow is probably the biggest dump of an airport in the world. Any third world country would burn it to the ground because of embarresment.

Anyway I am on the home stretch. Next Wednesday I am on my way home and pretty excited. for the first time I am taking the direct flight from Paris to Salt Lake City. I leav Zurich at 8:00 in the morning and get to Salt Lake only 14 hours later. This will be nice.

See most of you when I get back.

Cheers.

Missing Link

Last week I was in the southeast corner of the Czech Republic in a little town called konovice. This building is on the main street in town. If you look close (double click on the image) you will see a world in 3D that has the bottom right corner carved out of it. Replacing the corner is the word UTAH. I'm sure you could come up will all kinds of metaphors for this, but my favorite is "the part of the world that is missing". How about, "you can travel to the smallest corner of the world (Konovice) and never get away from Utah.

UK Movie Theater

I got a call from a Swedish friend of mine this afternoon asking me to join him and his wife at the movies. It seems that everyone tends to fell sorry for the poor sod stuck in the hotel for the weekend. We went to the new James Bond Flick, Quantum of Something. I thought trailers and advertisements were long in US movies. NOT! Movie start time was 6:30 and the movie actually started at 7:17. I know because I looked. I coudn't believe it. I had to go to the can twice before the movie started. Also don't ever complain about the price of popcorn in the US. 6 pound 75. Thats 12 dollars for us yanks. For those of you who know me you don't have to ask. I did not buy any.

There were actually four of us that attended. My friend and his wife brought their baby who is absoutely perfect. She has never cried in the first 7 months of her life. Of course she chose this occasion to voice her discontent about the move. I think it either had to do with the fact that so many people were being killed or because they had to use 500 gun shots to kill each person. Either way I'm not really sure which is worse, being the person with the baby or the person sitting in front of the person with the baby.

Anyway the distraction served to help kill a lonely Saturday afternoon away from home.

Cheers!

The Bigger Man

Two weeks ago while traveling from the US to Europe I was just settling into my Delta seat and getting ready for the first four hour leg. My bags were stored above and I had made a nice little spot between my bag and the overhead bulkhead for my sports jacket and my brand new wool overcoat. The overcoat was turned inside out, sports jacket inside, and in a perfect position to survive the 4 hour leg.

Just before they closed the boarding door a soldier in the US military, in full battle fatigues, ran aboard and moved toward the back of the plane. He stopped next to me and in one quick motion grabbed his bag from the floor and with a mighty shove flattened my perfectly folded coats against the back of the overhead. Before his hand had left the bag I was moving from my seat seat screaming "excuse me". Without even the slightest hesitation he slid to his seat in the row opposite and began reading a 4 inch book titled, "US diplomacy in the Middle East. I immediately pulled his bag from the overhead and retrieved my coats. I refolded them, slid his bag back in the overhead, and found another niche, all while mumbling about how inconsiderate some people were with respect to other peoples property. This captain somebody was obviously someone used to giving orders rather than taking them. I was certain that in his mind I was simply one of the troops.

I couldn't believe what a jerk this guy was. He completely ignored the situation and continued reading his magazine. During the flight I from time to time would glance over to find him deep into his reading. One time we did make eye contact and by the speed at which he looked away I could tell he had seen the error of his ways.

About 5 minutes after this little eyeball war the gentleman, and yes I now say gentleman, stood up and slid to the aisle. He moved to his knees and put his hand on my arm. "Are you the gentleman that owned the coat I shoved my bag over." "What" I said. I heard exactly what he said, I just couldn't think that quickly of something clever to say. He repeated himself. I answered "yes". "I'm so sorry" he said. "I wasn't thinking and I'm sorry. I did something really stupid and I wish I hadn't, but I did and I can't change that". "I'm sorry and I apologize". "No problem I said don't' worry about it." He stood up apologizing again and returned to his seat.

DAMN! I hate it when people are much bigger than me. I have been in his situation several times. We do something inconsiderate or just stupid and pretend we are unaware of the situation. Somehow by being unaware it eliminates any responsibility. He was certainly the bigger man. After this proposal, or apology I began to feel like the stupid one. I was trying to guess what the people around me were thinking about as everyone had witnessed this entire situation. Although I had been wronged and rightly complained, somehow this guy turned the tables and came out the bigger man.

I learned a valuable lesson here. It's hard to believe that after 51 years I am still learning basic lessons about humanity, but I guess I am a slow learner. It is a given that we all make mistakes. Ignoring our mistakes and pretending they didn't happen just robs us of an opportunity to show that we can be the bigger man.

First Try

Ok, here is my first attempt at establishing a Blog.
I am in the middle of a boring weekend sitting here in the Uk on my second weekend of a 4 week trip to Europe.

Background: I am a 51 year old American and I run a division for a mid size chemical company. My business is in 7 countries around Europe and as you might imaging I do a lot of traveling.

My wife and I have lived here in the UK for the last two years but have recently moved our base back to the US. We are evaluating the situation and where we might move next in Europe, but for now we will continue being based in the US. As you might imagine this will require quite a bit of traveling and right now I am in the middle of my first long haul trip.

The last two years have been interesting being based in the UK. Traveling every week in Europe at least allowed me to return home to my wife on the weekends. Now I will be gone up to three weeks at a time and being a homebody this will require me to make a giant step out of my comfort zone. I am hoping this blog will allow my family to keep track of me as well as help me document the challenges of being a long haul commuter.