This Was Only a Week?

MONDAY - In Office

TUESDAY - In Office.... oh, and with a nice dinner at Pat's and a viewing of the newest episode of "White Collar" on USA... If you've not seen - its a MUST! Came home at about 10:30 and packed for the rest of the week.

WEDNESDAY - Up at 4:30 to quickly get ready, threw my suitcase in the car and headed to the train station to catch the 6 a.m. train to get to O'hare. I had a 7:58 flight to Columbus, OH to work with an acct.


Caught this picture of this nutty guy -- he made my morning. He was doing "complicated" stretches like he was Mitch Gaylord. He'd pick up his suitcase and stand on one leg and balance until he fell sideways. My favorite was when he stood in front of the stair railing - facing it - and went to put his leg up to do a ballet stretch. Only problem was he couldn't quite make the stretch and, God love him, he kept on awkwardly throwing his leg up, falling over sideways and then acting like there was something wrong with his shoe or the floor or anything that might contribute to the fact that he couldn't balance himself on one foot. He entertained me for quite a while until they called us to board. Nothing like a morning laugh!







We finally boarded the plane, got our luggage stored and into our selves into our seats with our buckles strapped snuggly around us and then - sat there. After about 20 minutes, the captain said that they had had some problems with the radar on the way in and were graciously deciding to fix it for out sakes (my words) and so we needed to sit tight. Another 20 minutes and now we find out that the black box is not working so we need to wait for someone to replace that... I'm already not feeling tremendously confident about this flight. (below - the view of Columbus flying in.... a tiny, but cute, little downtown)







My rep/friend, Ali, picked me up from the airport when we finally got in at 10:30 - we took off and drove an hour to an account that was having such "horrible staining problems" on their instruments that the OR manager called an emergency meeting and shut down the OR for a day and half.... A lot behind that but - not a good move at all for so many reason.... by the time they reopened, all of the patients were terrified imagining what may have happened during their surgery that they were all but ready to call ambulences to transfer them to the nearest facility 20 minutes away. Long and short - when I got there, their instruments actually looked great and the CS director was rolling her eyes at the over-reaction. Oh- and by the way - if you leave your instruments sitting up in OR and then send them down to CS about 4 hours later looking like this - you just may have some issues..... (sorry if I gross anyone of my two followers out by the aforementioned picture :))

By about 2:30, Ali had brought me back to the airport to pick up a rental car to shoot off to another "emergency" problem in Indianapolis. After standing around in the rental car parking lot waiting for two darling older gentlement to thoroughly check two drivers license and rental car agreements before opening the gate to release two customers into the frigid Ohio air, I finally was led to a beautiful brand new Buick Rendevous with all the trimmings. It needed to be returned to Indy so I lucked out! I hopped in, stopping at Best Buy on the way as I had forgotten my phone car charger, as I typically do (I have a stash at home that I keep on adding to), and bought a new one so I could make a conference call during the 2 and half hour drive to Indy. At least going to Indy was a little enjoyable for me as I got to stay with my cousins... I was greeted by the newly cleaned and adorable face of Tess - the wonder mini schnauzer that is in need of constant attention. She kept on hitting me whenever I was paying full on attentiont to her fuzzy face! :)

Unfortunately, when I got to Indy finally and picked up some dinner (as my cousin had forgotten that I was coming that night and so she was eating waffles as I called on my way... I am pretty forgetable so I completely understand -- Tammy... :)) --- oh - by the way, sorry to Karl that I don't have any pictures of the Welker clan - completely forgot - but I did get the dog! Anyways - when I got there and had had a nice long chat with Tammy then logged on to finish up some work - I began to fear that I might have change my Friday morning flight to MN to Thursday night and thus miss out on a whole complete evening with the cousins. Sure enough - when I got up in the morning and started getting ready for my appointment, I jumped on line to do a few things and ended up having to change my flight for that evening.

I finished up with my appointment, ran over and met my cousin for lunch/dinner and then drove over to the airport, dropped off my car and ran in and grabbed my flight to Minneapolis. Ok - here's the funny story... (by the way - every flight I had on this round the midwest trip had been delayed for at least an hour...) - when we got into the Minneapolis airport, on United, at 10 at night, they told us we were going to gate E6 - then we get in and the pilot says we've been rerouted to another gate, D4. We get to D4 and its a Delta gate. The seatbelt light blinks off and everyone pops up, openening bins, putting on coats... the clamor to the aisle starts. 20 minutes later (seriously) everyone is still standing in the aisle or precariously stand/crouching in their window seat with their head tapping the overhead bin and their eyes on their shoes, but determined that we're getting off any second so we all need to be ready. All of a sudden, the captain gets on and says "this is a Delta gate and I really don't think that this gate is capable of pulling up to an airbus" - 10 minutes after that, he gets back on and says "I was right, they're sending a tractor over here to push us to a gate that will go to an airbus". And that they do, with luggage still in the aisles and people semi standing and an airline attendant walking around with her hand over her eyes saying "I'm going to pretend I don't see that". We finally did get off about 45 minutes after we landed.

I had booked a room not far from my appointment the next morning and so I went over to the Starbucks across the street to wait for the two guys who were going to be working with me at the account installing some pumps on some instrument washers (picture below). They were both late so I could have gotten up at 6 instead of 5:30... but I had some time to read and sip coffee and listen to the Swahili tribespeople that gather at this fine establishment. Lets just say that the rest of the day was from the other place.... if you know what I mean. I spent it running around looking for parts that were delivered to the wrong address and the kind homeowner where they were supposedly delivered let me roam around his house banging on every door until he finally opened the back door and looked at me like I had interupted a killing spree inside. Oh - by the way - he denied they had gotten the box and ended up taking my invoice with his address on it until I stuck my foot in the door and asked him kindly to please give back my billing receipt. I barely made my 7:21 flight and I've never been so grateful to get back home on a late Friday evening.....

Up and coming - this is what I'm working on for the week of Feb 4th - a training session I have to do on "You And Your Scope - How to Get Them Clean" -- or some such title .... I'm still working on that catchy slogan and trying to read up on all the stupid kinds of scopes there are --- the common uses of endoscopes like the colonscopy and the laparoscopy. and there are the seemingly unknown ones that are actually very common-place like the esophagogastroduodenoscope. What about the ones that you can guess where they're going -- the anoscopy and the rhinoschopy (hint - the second one is not used on a rhino but if it was and you combined it with the first one mentioned - that would be really really horrible). What about ones that once you find out what they mean, it just hurts -- like the panendoscopy which is actually a triple endoscopy. Its a very interesting procedure, but it is a little warped when you think about the size and length of most of those tubes and where they end up going. Well - let me just say that I'm here to make sure that everyone one of those tubes - no matter where they end up - are clean and either high level disinfected or sterilized. Never fear - Endoscopy Woman is here! -- Let me know if you want to know more fun sounding surgical procedures that use hoses and electricity and cameras so you can rush over to your doctor and ask him for one today!