Up And Down Hills

I'm in San Francisco this week and found a great deal at the Renaissance in Nob Hill (aka Snob Hill:)  The hotel is at the top of the hill in San Francisco.  For the past two days I've had time to go out running.  It's been awesome- I've run down to the Golden Gate Bridge and the Presidio.  I've done almost 10 miles each day - awesome.  But now my butt and thighs are KILLING!  Those San Fran hills are murder!  But the view from the top is totally rewarding!

And As The Sun Sets In The West

It's been a long weekend.... It's been endless nights from Friday until Monday at noon.  I don't even know what bed time is anymore and I'm very frightened what this guys bill is going to be, but its done.  We've installed detergent pumps on 9 washers and gained a butt load of business locked and loaded with a contract for 3 years so I'm hoping it will all come out in the wash in the end.  The last washer pump install I did was about 5 years ago on two washers and it took all night, but the account is still using our product!

And now I'm flying home to my bed - deep sigh.....

A Lovely Weekend In Omaha

Work had to be done so I scheduled it - duh- on Mother's Day weekend.  Blah!  After a long week in San Diego for the conference there I hopped the plane home for one day and then jumped back on that big bird to head to the great western state of Nebraska!

The one plus for this weekend is that I got to fly into Kansas City and pick up my neice Brittany and then head over to Omaha about 2 and a half hours away!  I had grand intentions of things going smoothly and quickly with the pump install at this large hospital here.  We'd zip right through nine washers and about 20 pump lines and then Brittany and I would be out, get some rest and hit the town for the afternoon.....

This is what ended up.... Eternally long hours in Central Sterile where Brittany got  to experience a tad of a part of what I do.  First night, hit department on Friday night after dinner in Old Town, get there about 9pm and start install, battling problems and frustrations, we leave department at 7am and fall into our beds at the hotel until 1pm when we rise, wash our faces, treat ourselves to Crepes at the Crepe Corner and then meet our installer at the second site at 3pm.  This time, we decide we must leave earlier as I was supposed to fly out on Sunday and had to get Brittany back to KC.  We left the department at 3am:(.   This is us - at some point during the night....

I decided because Brittany had been such a trooper to keep me company and come along and lend a helping hand, we'd go for a treat before we headed back.  We went for brunch at Dixie Quicks in Council Bluffs, IA.  Yum!!!! We deserved all of the amazing food we got!

I got the Dixie Quicks scramble with bacon and tomatoes on an English muffin with tomato butter and Britt got an apple and Brie omelet - yep cheese and apples in eggs.  She loved it!  We also got this French toast thing with chocolate and bananas and we shared that.  We were well rewarded for our hard work!:)

And then we jumped in my freshly chucked vomit orange rental Camaro to head back to KC.  Here's the sad thing - I dropped off my awesome neice/friend and then headed back to Omaha as I had changed my flight to leave Monday night as - we still aren't finished!  I didn't feel right about leaving the installer by himself so Ill meet with everyone on Monday and then head back to KC again to fly back home for Tuesday meetings!....

This blog post is dedicated to my friend Brittany:)). We're bonded by blood but were friends, well, because no one but us understands how awesome we are!  It's in the blood...:). Brittany - may the gentle winds, pure streams and fresh foods of India be forever in your dreams and leave much for America to live up to.... God save the cows....

Don't Whine About Our Wine!

Yesterday was workshop day at the conference with a bunch of hands on seminars from everything about how to check for breaks in endoscope insulation to how to organize the flow of back table set up. Enlightening!:). It actually can be.

But the highlight of the day was that Heather and I decided it was Saturday so what better way to celebrate weekend vacations on cinco de maya than to head to California wine country. Unfortunately, from San Diego, napa valley is way too far, but, yay, they have wine country in Temecula Valley, CA. So we jumped in the rental and drove an hour out to see some grapes!

It was beautiful vineyards and mountains out that way, pretty crazy at the major vineyards, but we kind of went to the end of the vineyard line to two relatively small little vineyards, Chapin Valley Vineyard and Rolfo Vineyard. We walked the Rolfo Vineyard and drank wine with the Chapins since they had a great little outside patio area and the sun was out and the breeze was blowing. Lovely atmosphere - bad wine. Heather must have thrown about 5 tasting glasses to the ground cover of geraniums by us. I, being the daughter of a man who went through the Great Depression, know that it's a horrible thing to waste, so I dutifully drank all mine...:). Ok, the last one was purple turpentine so I threw that one.

Then we went down to a cute little art fair at another vineyard and walked around and listened to a million old men who were all a million years old and had formed a pretty large, and good, big band. That was fun. We found pomegranate champagne and Heather's Mist wine, chugged some water and then hit the road back to San Diego to find some god Mexican food to celebrate the first of May... We found a cute place in Old Town, but not a good place:). And then we wasted an hour waiting in a line for a place recommended to us called extraordinary desserts - it was not an extraordinary experience...

And today I'm at more seminars!... There will definitely be a fascinating update tomorrow!

Things To Stare At While One Waits

I haven't even had time to catch up from my crazy Hungary trip which Ill post on that at some point.

Yesterday I flew from Chicago over to DC and then down to Miami to do a training session for a bunch of reps at a small sales facility there. Then I ran back to the Fort Lauderdale airport to catch a flight back to DC to come back to ohare where I now stand staring at Butch Ohares plane in terminal 2 waiting for my friend Heather to meet me. And then at 9pm we board a plane to fly to San Diego for me to attend a Saturday through Wednesday conference with the IAHCSMM convention.

I'm tired.... But I can't wait for the conference!!!!

Update - I'm now standing at the car rental facility in San Diego - it's 12:40 am and the lady at the counter is taking her sweet bippy time checking some French guys in.... I actually had a much cheaper reservation with Fox but the dork shuttle driver took 30 minutes to come around and when he did come, he did this gliding stop and left me and another girl in the dust. So, I decided to revolt against Fox when the nice shuttle driver from National said they had cars available. Its the principle of the matter you know. Anyways, Heather and I were actually on two different flights at the same time - I left only about 15 minutes late. She left about 2.5 hours late. So, I figure I'm in no rush when she's still not going to be to the room for another 3 hours...:(. If I'm actually doing something constructive too then it distracts the anger lobe of my brain so I don't notice how livid I should be at the, now Mexican guys, standing at the counter, shoulders shrugging and "no English"Ing... I'm in another place - a blog place.... I must stay there in order to keep my 1 am insanity from creeping out.... Eep - my turn? Please?:)