As a sound track to today’s writing, pick a road song to play in the back of your consciousness. Maybe the Allman Bros’ Ramblin’ Man. Or Gladys Knight’s Midnight Train to Georgia. Or Jackson Browne’s entire Running On Empty album (bearing in mind that I’m not necessarily recommending the lifestyle choices therein.) Or Willie’s On the Road Again. There are plenty to choose from. Got one? OK, you may proceed.
After years bereft of work-related travel, I took a trip this week to Palo Alto (yup, the one in Cal-i-forn-i-a) for a couple of meetings at the AT&T Innovation Center under construction there.
View from the Innovation Center
While I dearly missed most of my day-to-day, I always enjoy shaking up my routine, seeing new places, trying new things. This trip was definitely a working trip, rather than a sight-seeing one, but there are always sights to be seen, and I sought (and saw) some.
And (surprise!) there were also people. There were a half-dozen or so of my Atlanta co-workers there, a similar number of locals whom I knew by name but had never met, and another half-dozen AT&T folk and vendor-partners from other cities. I met a friend of Dick’s who played bass on a famous R&B song (Ed Sterbenc, and the L is silent <grin>), and even talked shop with an electrician from Fresno, who was helping install the power feed to a big UPS (that’s “uninterruptible power supply”, not a package delivery service.) It was fun visiting with old and new friends in a new context, with more time and opportunities than usual to chat.
Monday morning’s trip started early via a van ride to my usual parking spot in Midtown, then took Marta to the airport. After a mere five hours in the air, Delta dropped me off in San Francisco (where, inexplicably, I managed to retain possession of my cardiac organ.) From SFO, I rode BART to a Caltrain station, and Caltrain then sped me to Palo Alto, arriving a mere dozen or so hours after I left home. Trust me, there were plenty of sights to be seen on that multi-modal trip.
PA is definitely a walking town, and I did my share. It’s also a pretty good eating town. Notable grub included a huge salad at Whole Foods, Westin’s breakfast quesadilla, an Atomic burger at a local diner, sandwiches brought in by a vendor, and a nice sea bass at an Italian restaurant. One afternoon three of us in need of gustatory motivation wisely copied Dick’s standard, rhythmic Starbuck’s order, a “Grande Frappucino Double Chocolate Chip No Whip,” which worked like a charm.
The actual work, over a long Tuesday and an even longer Wednesday, included meetings, discussions, document reviews, prognosticating, and even some wire-pulling, furniture-moving, and printer-driver-installin’. (John Henry got nothin’ on me, right?)
I got up in the wee hours Thursday morning (at least, by local time) to reverse Monday’s process, and the afternoon found me back in Atlanta early enough to actually do a little catch-up work in the office, and then meet my much-missed missus for what has become a post-hairdresser tradition, pizza at Elwood’s. I crashed like a boulder when we got home.
Friday we got up and drove to Mississippi, which pretty much brings me to now, so I have to stop writing and wait for something else to happen.
. . .
Ok, nothing is happening, so I guess I’ll go ahead and post this. Catch you later.