Tag Archives: travel

Hawaii – day 3

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Maui Scenic Drive North

Friday came with more clouds and rain off an on. We could see a trend starting here but if you believe the weather man it would be gone once the weekend was up so their was hope. We decided late morning to head north on a scenic drive to see what we could find, The views were spectacular as we stopped at the mushroom rock, the blow hole, and the light house.

We had to hike a little at times which was good as vacations always tend make it easy to “pack on the pounds”. On the trip back to the resort we stopped at a local surf spot before getting dumped on by an afternoon shower, sorry no pics of the surfers. So it looks like we left at the right time as we missed most of the rain while on the road.

Hawaii – day 2

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Kahanna Sunset Beach

Thursday was partly cloudy in the morning and rain in the afternoon. Conversation with the family led to comments about whales being seen from the beach and sure enough you could see them jumping, splashing and coming up for air. Apparently they come to the area to mate before heading back to the cooler waters of Alaska, but that’s about all I know. We stayed at the resort and laid on the private beach before heading off in the afternoon to get groceries. Needed to get the necessary supplies of beer, pineapple (for Kay), and munchies .. and of course lunch meat, bread, etc.

Off to Hawaii – day 1

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Today we left for eight days of r and r, the first true vacation since our honeymoon in Marathon, FL. We were off to Maui, HI with my family. The first time for us and my sister’s family but the third for my parents. Our first stop was a layover in Dallas, TX then on to Maui, eight hours in the air with the option of a box lunch at four dollars. My have the airlines changed in the last few years on long distance flights.

We took off around 8:15am and arrived in Maui at 3:30. Of course the weather their had been unusually wet and when landing we were welcomed with rain.

Maui Airport

. But that’s ok we had eight days… later we learned some folks from Vancouver, BC were to be there for 18 days and left after 12 straight days of rain. Picked up a Jeep from the rental and it had a half inch of water in the drivers side foot well, we promptly exchanged it for another one.

The drive to Kahanna Sunset was filled with great views as expected but traffic was ridiculous. Settled in for the evening after meeting the family, they left two days ahead of us, and the room was very nice. Even had wireless internet access for ten dollars a day or 30 a week.. not to mention having a cell signal.

Another week of traveling

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It was another week away from home, for business though not play. As recent changes at the home office deemed it necessary for a personal visit for training. While there it seemed very difficult to get anything accomplished, days filled with meetings and training sessions some of which I was the instructor. That was no supprise but the sessions were very informal and hopefully beneficial.

Being one of a handful of remote workers, that are not in sales, communication and sharing of information is always a challenge. It would be helpful if the company took an approach of communicating that does not mean talking with someone on the phone or steping into their office, but it has yet to come.

Almost daily I struggle with continuing what is percieved as my anti Mircosoft mentallity, where web is king and searching is an absolute necessity, and falling back into owership of information makes it available… you just need to ask. I’m sure my perception of the office is incorrect just as the office’s perception of me is the same. Just cause I choose something different does make me anti anything, just different. But at the same time an “open” exchange where information on products and services is posted and can be searchable makes “finding the owner of the info”, mute. I guess when you are in the proprietary software business and have done things a certain way for 25 years moving to an open environment can be difficult and scary.

I’ll keep trying to beat the drum of opening up, I’m always up to a good challenge… 8 years and running. ;)

Note: Moving to an open environment is not moving your proprietary software to the GPL or am I referring to replacing the existing productivity suites with something that is. One idea would be instead of emails noting meeting minutes or attached documents being emailed about information on a new product… post it online for all to see.

Traveling as of late

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The month of October met with a week and a half of travel, far more than normal. A consluting trip to San Antonio and then a week at our fall conference in St. Louis. Before leaving I preped the laptop with mail and documents that I’d need and also setup VPNC. If you recall from previous posts I’m running Ubuntu on my v2000.

I thought I’d have to get one of our Cisco guys to download a copy of Cisco’s VPN Client but was glad when VPNC did the trick. It’s hard to believe how much useful software is out there when you start looking. I keep finding more and more every day so from a consumer’s perspective it’s great.

Wireless or wired from the hotel’s was no problem and when it came time to work at conference rdesktop was there to access the Terminal Server. I minded the HelpDesk for the week which did not get much activity but sometimes that can be a good thing. Typically the HelpDesk is where the problems come to and if they come to you face to face with documentation sometimes it’s not pretty. But that was not the case this year so I’d say we are doing some things better.