Thursday, June 14, 2007

Don't take your wife on a business trip Overall, this was a great trip. Met with the new Honeywell marketing braintrust--Harsh Chitale and Jason Urso. Had a good conversation with CEO Jack Bolick. Didn't get stuff thrown at me during my talk on MES. Then I had the trip from hell. I was supposed to moderate a Webcast today at 2. I've been working on it for some time (even though my presentation part was quite small). So, I needed a quiet place with a phone and Internet access. That was supposed to be home. Our plane took off a half-hour late last night in Phoenix, arrived 40 minutes late to Newark. We were on the shuttle between terminals when I looked up the flight status on the Web on my Treo and saw that the Dayton flight left early. Then I discovered I left my Bose headphones and iPod on the counter in the first terminal when I had to show papers and stuff. Since we missed the plane, we rode the bus back and I retrieved my stuff. Agent booked us on an 8:30 am flight to Cincinnati. I got on the Web and reserved a car to drive to Dayton to pick up my car. We were in the gate area about 10 minutes when they announced the Cincinnati flight was canceled. The late evening flight was sold out. So that left a 2:45 flight âo[per thou] right in the middle of the Webcast. So, I booked us (my wife and I) on that one, plus reserved a spot for me on the 6:50 am flight for tomorrow just in case--but then I would need a good location at the airport. I was nervous about that because I ran into several people who had spent an extra night in Newark. I had to get home to pack in order to leave at 6:30 am Saturday for my vacation flight to Israel. I didn't want to get stranded then have my wife pack my stuff while I took the train from Newark to Kennedy for the Saturday flight. That would have been a huge mess. So, I went looking for a replacement for me for the Webcast. My colleague Jane Gerold did it. So if you tuned in expecting to hear me, you probably got the better end of it. Meanwhile, we made it home 8 hours late. My wife thought she'd like to travel with me when she retired. Well, retirement started June 1 for her. Thoughts of business travel probably retired today ;-) Of course, I didn't mention dinner Monday night. She was at a table with me (of course)--plus Greg Hale from Intech, Jim Pinto and Harsh Chitale (vp of global marketing and strategy for Honeywell). I don't think she's ever witnessed a more animated discussion--about things for which she has zero interest. But I think she was fascinated by Jim and Harsh. Believe it or not, Jim actually offered an opinion or two ;-)) By the way, the Webcast was sponsored by Opto 22 and was on programmable automation controllers. I previewed the presentations--and they were outstanding. If you didn't see it, go to Automation World, click on Webcasts and view the archive (probably not up until Monday). 9:19:42 PM    comment []