In late April 2016, I returned to Rome for an IBM customer and partner event. Before the event began on Sunday and on the last day, I was fortunate to see some of the sights in the historic city.
Our event was south of the city, closer to the airport than downtown but was in a scenic countryside. This is the panoramic view from my room.
It’s been a while since I have posted pictures from my IBM travels. This first picture doesn’t do justice of the gorgeous skies flying into Chicago early on August 24. I was making a connection to Raleigh for an event there and it was about 7:00 am as we circled the city and flew over Wrigley Field. I had to capture this shot using my iPhone. My only regret was that I didn’t have my good camera with me to get a better picture of the approach into O’Hare. Oh well. You can get an idea of what a great start this trip was.
The picture of froggy gives you and idea of what it’s like to have a worldwide role. My boss and much of our team was in Dublin, Ireland. They were holding an important planning session. I woke up at 2:30 am for a 3:00 am start. This little guy greeted me when the call started. It’s like he’s saying, “what are you doing up at this hour?” The meeting was good but it was tough to answer his question. Continue reading Updated IBM Travels
I took a new job in November 2014. My new job is a Worldwide role, which means I now have responsibility for a piece of business globally. On the day I was offered the job, I was asked to fly to Australia – possibly the longest trip I can make from Peoria. Get ready – GO! Then, we decided to go through one of the biggest reorganizations in IBM’s history. That explains why I haven’t updated my web site in a while.
The good news about this new job is that I am now traveling around the globe, quite literally. So, I will have lots of pictures and stories to share. The bad news is that my updates will likely be sporadic. My plan is to post short segments here on this page. Continue reading MY First WW Trips
We have an annual Hursley lab event where we take customers to meet our best and brightest in Hursley, UK. This year, Amir Mesri and I took a couple extra days to visit the country side. Thanks, Amir, for the great time! Continue reading Hursley 2014 – Roman Bath
After a great day in Bath, we headed toward Oxford. On Amir’s advice, we took a more scenic route from Bath to Oxford. That gave us a chance to see the beautiful countryside of rural England.
It didn’t take long before we noticed a picturesque field that we thought would be good for a couple shots. We decided to pull over at what looked like a farm lane. As Amir turned into the farm lane, the road disappeared from under us and Amir says, “Oh Shit!” Next thing we saw was hedges on both sides of a very narrow, steep, one-way farm lane. All I could think of is whether we missed the no trespassing sign at the top of the hill. Fortunately, about half way down the hill, Amir found a path he was able to squeeze the car into so we could get out and take a few shots. Continue reading Hursley 2014 – Road to Oxford
After finding our way out of the queues at Blenheim Palace grounds, we scurried over to Oxford to check out the sites. We did have to wait a while to escape the grounds because everyone decided to leave around the same time. It reminded me of the concert we went to in Tinley Park. The difference is that the Brits had a plan and executed it. We only waited about 30 minutes before moving along. It was lunch time when we arrived in Oxford, so we had to find a pub for a couple pints and some food at The Cape of Good Hope. My cousin Teesi gives it a thumbs up, so it must be good. I would recommend it to anyone lunching in Oxford.
In February 2012, I was given the opportunity to travel to the Orient for IBM; China & Japan to be precise. Going to Shanghai and Tokyo for a two weeks on business was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up.
Our trip to the orient didn’t start off well at all. As we arrived in the Chicago airport my colleague, Terry, and I were greeted with two flight delays then the ultimate cancellation due to equipment failure. On the positive side of things, it’s always best to have equipment failure on the ground before you take off. But that put our arrival in China behind by a day.
Rebooking my flight was an adventure. After a long wait in line behind one of those difficult customers, I walked up to the counter and proudly said that I would be easy to deal with because I had flexibility in my travel. Wrong. Because I used airline awards to subsidize my upgrade to business class, the airline automatically rebooked me on another flight to Shanghai in business class. Their route was going to take me from Chicago to Newark to Paris to Shanghai.
The gracious host in the Admiral’s club worked on options for almost 30 minutes before we settled on the two best choices. I was tired so it took me a while to decide which option was best. The first option was fly business class Chicago to London (8 hr) with a 6 hr layover then to Shanghai (11 hr) arriving on Saturday at 9:30 am China time. Option two was to stay in Chicago overnight and fly out on the original 10:30 flight to China (14 hr) but in coach. You probably did the math in your head a lot faster than it took me. (I said I was tired) Right, 25 hours travel time in business class versus 14 in coach but with a full night’s sleep in a free hotel. Continue reading Trip to Orient – Feb 2012
