Hostile Traveler

This past week, I was in North Carolina attending a type of class known as a ‘boot camp’, though its resemblance to the real thing is marginal at best. What it means is that you go through a truly insane amount of material during 12 hour days, hoping to retain at least a small part of it. My company is big on certifications, so we’re all being forced through, even though the content is stuff I stopped doing almost ten years ago. So basically I’m trying to revive long-dead memories just long enough to pass an exam, after which I will hopefully drink them back into the dark unused corners of my mind once again.

The guy teaching the class happened to be ex-military, and while he was a nice guy, he had this tendency to yell to keep people attentive. It doesn’t really work, and pisses off the students. I kept thinking of Gunnery Sgt. Hartman from Full Metal Jacket, though unfortunately this guy wasn’t nearly as entertaining. That film has some of the best quotes ever. I kept thinking that I had better unfuck myself before he unscrewed my head and shit down my neck.

Anyways, while trying to stay awake in class, I was thinking of what it would be like to be trapped in the conference room dealing with this crap. So, I started to write…

[Found written in blood on a fragment of paper with 'Technical Boot Camp' on one side]

Day 4(?), unknown time

We’re trapped in a windowless room…hard to tell what time or day it is. Water is running low, food is scarce, the smell is [ILLEGIBLE].

They lured us in under the false pretense that there were doughnuts. Liars. There are seven of us remaining (including the self-proclaimed leader), but it looks like the fat guy is starting to falter. This is good - he should feed us for a week or so.

The leader is performing some sort of psychological torture on us where he talks in monotone for extended periods about incredibly boring things while flashing indecipherable pictures and words on a screen. At random, just as we’re about to sleep, he will yell out an
acronym to startle us awake. We hate him…we believe he knows how to escape, but is secretly working for our captors.

I hope this message finds it way out so that someone will help us.

It may be too late.

Oh no, he’s seen[MESSAGE ENDS]

I’ve been in San Jose, California this week for work, and while San Jose itself doesn’t do much for me, the coastline to the west is an amazing place.  Whenever I’m out there, I try to take a drive along Highway 1 between Half Moon Bay and San Francisco.  The highway itself runs mostly right along the coast, which is largely made up of cliffs that drop into the ocean, sprinkled with beaches in between.  My favorite time to go is around sunset - there’s something humbling about watching the sun disappear into the ocean.  I guess as a person from the East Coast, it’s just a lot different from what I’m accustomed to.

One beach in particular just north of Half Moon Bay is very picturesque, so I dropped by to take a few photos.

Another beach was closed due to hazardous materials.  It turns out, that’s a euphemism for a truckload of seagull crap.

I decided I wanted to get a couple of good sunset shots, so I found this totally deserted beach that had a nice panoramic view of the horizon.  Perfect.  So I’m standing there and suddenly movement goes by the viewfinder on the camera.  Turns out, it’s a completely naked dude (hence the dudity reference) running along the beach.  Now, admittedly, the guy is totally fit, but that’s just not something I was prepared for.  Plus, should you really be running naked as a man?  Seems like having your junk flapping around like that, while comical, isn’t too good for you.  Plus, the sand…

So after Captain Dudity ran by, I finally got my shot:

Continuing on with the Las Vegas posting…

I’ll spare the details of all the meetings and such - just imagine roving packs of sales guys and you’re on the right track. Still, there were a couple events of note:

During one of the larger sessions, they brought in a guest speaker, Chris Gardner, the guy who wrote ‘The Pursuit of Happyness’. For those not in the know, that book became a movie starring Will Smith where he goes from being homeless with a small child to being a stock broker. Anyways, Chris Gardner now does motivational speaking engagements, and I have to say, he’s amazing. It’s not your typical motivational speaker - it seems to come much more from the heart rather than the wallet.

Now, as I mentioned, working for a big company again has been kind of strange to adapt to, but occasionally I have to be impressed with the sheer resources that a company of this size has. For example, the evening entertainment was provided by Aerosmith - not too shabby. I was a little concerned that they would just kinda go through the motions, considering they were doing a corporate gig, but they really seemed to rock out. I can only hope that by the time I’m that age I still have that kind of stamina, but I kinda doubt it.

The last night, I was able to get front-row tickets to Cirque du Soleil’s Ka at the MGM Grand. I’m a huge Cirque fan, and have been to nearly all of their shows, so I was looking forward to seeing one of the few I hadn’t yet.  It was visually spectacular, but less acrobatic than some of their other shows.  The stage setup was pretty amazing…it’s hard to describe, but it was able to move on almost every axis, and served as a platform, backdrop, and more.  Highly recommended.

So that’s pretty much it, barring the hideously boring bits.  I need to go back to Vegas on my own time at some point - it’s such a cool place to be…even if you don’t really gamble much.

Updates here have been sporadic at best lately, mainly due to the fact that I’ve been on the road every week for the past couple of months. And yes, it’s getting quite old. The airports and hotels are becoming a blur, and I’ve had a few times where I’ve woken up not knowing exactly where I was. My favorite part is forgetting what the hell my rental car looks like and having to wander the parking lot like a zombie.

I have a few more weeks of this ahead of me, then hopefully things will settle down. To give you an idea, I’m writing this right now sitting in the Denver airport waiting for a connection to San Jose - my second time there in three weeks, and I’ll be there again next week. Still, it has given me a lot of topics to add in as posts…as soon as I get around to writing them.

I do have to admit, however, that it hasn’t been all bad. My company had a big conference in Las Vegas about a month ago, and in the 4 days I was there, I only managed to sleep about 9 hours total. But, then again, I guess Vegas is just that kind of city.

Most of the time there was filled with conference stuff…and all of our badges had RFID tags in them, so Big Brother was making sure that you were actually attending the sessions you were supposed to. Still, there’s a big difference between being there physically and being there mentally. Some of the people looked…well, rough would not quite cover it.

The conference itself, as much as I wanted to hate it, was pretty good. The company I’m with now is pretty large, and there were 14,000 people in attendance. So basically, we filled an arena. The opener was staged like a rock concert, and some pretty good performers came out, though I can’t recall any of their names. The first was three women all tarted up and playing stringed instruments to a backbeat, which was kinda cool:

After they got through, a pair playing flamenco guitar came out. it started out very traditional, but got nuts by the end. They started doing Metallica tunes, and the chick was pounding on the guitar to provide rhythmic accompaniment. The thing is, she was doing some pretty complex stuff while her parter was thrashing it out. Not too bad.

The last bit was a bunch of guys in cages (no, don’t get excited) descending from the ceiling and floating around while playing some tunes.

…and then they brought out the execs to start doing speeches and such. But, I guess that’s why we were there. I’ll spare you the details of all of the sessions I had to sit through, because really, it’s the night life that matters, right?

The first night was…well, not so interesting at first. My division had rented a club at one of the casinos, but we’re about 99.5% male, so the few women there were surrounded by jackals…aka horny sales guys. Lame didn’t quite begin to describe it, and luckily a guy in my group has some connections and got us into the Foundation Room at Mandalay Bay. Apparently, this is a relatively difficult place to get into, and it’s at the top of the building with a balcony overlooking the strip. Forgive the awful cameraphone pic:

Pretty cool place to hang out and enjoy the scenery, though it’s doubtful I’ll be able to get back in again. I’m just not that cool, I guess.  But I’m sure you’ve figured that out by now.

[To Be Continued...]

During a recent flight, I came to the realization that I’ve become very jaded when it comes to witnessing the beauty around me while flying. I can understand how it happened after a dozen years and countless flights, I suppose. The whole experience can be miserable: long lines , throngs of irritable travelers, delayed or canceled flights - all of those things that make most of us dread going to the airport. To deal with these things, I find that I put myself in a kind of trance, basically trying to block those things around me as a coping mechanism. It’s an especially useful thing for very long flights, but also works well when wedged in between two fat sweaty guys on an oversold flight.

The problem is that I don’t pay attention to most of the things around me while in this state. Recently I was on a flight and spent a bit of time looking out the window - something I do from time to time, but without really noticing what I’m looking at. But this time, for some reason, I remembered just how amazing things could look from the clouds. It’s a very different thing to be looking horizontally at a group of clouds, or from above, and the view can be spectacular.

My favorite time to fly, however, is on a nice clear night.  A couple of days ago I was flying out of NYC at night, and the view is just incredible.  To see a place by its outline of street and building lights is almost surreal, particularly planned cities like New York.

Thunderstorms can also provide some great, if bumpy, scenery.  I remember once doing a transatlantic trip where we went over some storm clouds at night, and you could watch the lightning jump from cloud to cloud and then segment off into smaller arcs.  Quite beautiful, at least until you realize you’re in a metal tube in the sky, which kind of tempers the experience.

So I guess the moral of the story is to pay attention to the beauty around you…at least until the infant next to you breaks you out of your reverie with an ear-splitting screech.