Blood:Water Mission
Compassion International
International Justice Mission

Friday, August 24, 2007

Ways to inflate my ego

Our rheology expert from the states is over with us next week, and would like to give us a presentation on Monday morning at 10am in the VP meeting room. Please put it in your diary. Euphrony has a wealth of knowledge on this subject and we should take full advantage of the time he is going to spend with us. Please rearrange your work schedulers to allow a needy transfer of knowledge.

It sure is nice to be appreciated. Of course, being appreciated can also have its drawbacks. For example, going on a last-minute trip to Scotland for a week, leaving your wife in the lurch as she tries to take care of two kids and do dress rehearsals for a play that opens the day you return. But still, it makes one feel important to be sent flying around like that.

Union Street in Aberdeen, ScotlandI fly out tomorrow to Aberdeen. I'll return on Friday the 31st. Quick trip, and it'll be a busy one. I'm going over to do some training on rheometry for guys in our lab there. I'd been expecting this, kinda. We had talked about it earlier in the year but I was told that I wouldn't be going in support of corporate travel reduction measures. I was told that three weeks ago.

My, how things change.

Last Thursday I was reinformed that I would, in fact, be going in a week's time. Well, as they say, no time like the present!

We had hoped that Mrs. E would be able to go with me on this trip. Unfortunately, the timing ended up overlapping with the play she is in and she can't go. I will get to see a few people I know over in Aberdeen - outside of work, that is. And I get that many more frequent flier miles, with the promise of taking Mrs. E on an actual vacation to Europe sometime soon.

Now, if only I could get a corporate travel agency that doesn't have it in for me. When I went to Norway in June they had somehow managed to cancel my reservations on the connecting flights from Amsterdam to Stavanger. That was fun to resolve at the airport at 5:30 in the morning, let me tell you. Luckily, I've already checked on reservations for this trip and discovered that they only told me that I had a hotel reservation, and somehow neglected to inform the hotel of the same. So, now that I've reserved my own hotel room I'm ready to go. Of course, I'll be flying on KLM and I'm not just a huge fan of their airline (or the older 747's I'll be flying in). I will say that I kind of enjoy the food on their flights - it's not that it is any better than the food on Continental of American, just a different (more European?) style of food and the change is nice.

Off I go. I'll post some nice pics of bonny Scotland for you all to enjoy vicariously. TTFN! Ta ta for now!

Tags:
, , , ,

4 comments:

Amy said...

I am deeply jealous.

Chaotic Hammer said...

Sounds like fun! Have a safe journey.

The "last-second notice" thing is also the reason my wife didn't get to go to California with me on this last trip. Turned out it was better anyway -- we had air-conditioner failures and all sorts of other unexpected problems that worked out much better because she was here.

euphrony said...

Okay, I hope that everything works out while I'm away from home - no A/C problems, no bath leaks, no electrical fires, no nuthin'!

Amy, don't get too jealous. I get in Sunday morning, work all day Monday through Thursday, and leave at 6:20 Friday morning. No time for sight-seeing (it takes about 20 minutes to get to the nearest castle, and they close early). I'll be doing a lot of walking, though, as I'm staying right on the beach.

euphrony said...

Made it safe and sound. It is nice going from 95F to 60F temperatures, with no real humidity. I'll do my best to enjoy it while I can.

Post a Comment

Thanks for stopping by to leave a comment. Be nice, and it'll stay. Be mean, and it'll go.