May 8th – 10th
UMBC vs North Carolina - NCAA Men’s Lacrosse Championships – First Round – ESPNU – 2:30pm et
Have been having issues with charging my cell phone for about a week now. It is driving me nuts! It will say it’s charging but it’s really not. A few days ago, I got a new Treo, but didn’t have time to get it all set up for this trip. So it’s a gamble on whether or not it will stay charged long enough to make it back home.
Traveled to Raliegh on Friday afternoon. Totally uneventful.
Felt good to be on the road again. It’s been just over a month since my last trip.
Arrived around rush hour, so it took a little longer than usual to get to Chapel Hill.
I did however find out, just before boarding my connecting flight, that I had screwed up my travel request for Women’s College World Series coming up at the end of the month. The crewing department had emailed me and wasn’t exactly ‘happy’ with me.
So I was able to spend the last 90 minutes of my trip figuring out where I had erred. Which of course drove me absolutely nuts!
On a side note – when I refer to “crewers” or “the crewing department” – those are the people who hire me to work. Essentially, they are my bosses. For example, ESPN & ESPN Regional Television have staff crewers. However, a lot of networks sub-contract the crewing out to either local vendors (usually TV truck companies) or crewing companies.
My dealings with crewers vary from network to network. For the most part it is a person who hires me for anything from 1 day or for a contract for an entire season (ie: college football season). This person also negotiates my rate and what I will be paid for per diem & expenses.
For some networks, this person also arranges my travel. In some instances though, there is a separate travel department that takes care of those things.
Anyway – back to this trip…..
Upon arriving at the hotel, I immediately attempted to get online so I could research and fix my travel mistake.
This turned into a 3 hour saga!
The hotel’s wireless router wouldn’t allow me to connect. No one knew how to fix it.
Eventually, they gave me a bridge to connect the old fashioned way. However, it only allowed me to be online for approximately 2 minutes at time. So I could see the flights, just couldn’t select them. It was just plain silliness!
I was finally able to get everything taken care of. But I nearly lost my mind doing so.
In the process, I was unable to go out to dinner with co-workers.
4:30am on Saturday came very quickly! Ugh!
Little obstacles arose all day. From having problems with the Duet to cutting my elbow on something in the bathroom (I’m still not sure how I managed that one!)?
But the game was exciting, even though in the end, UNC won.
On my way back to the hotel, I picked up dinner. A storm was coming and I likely wouldn’t feel like going back out into the rain.
As I pulled into the parking lot, I noticed the winds were REALLY picking up. As I was getting out of my car a bunch of trees broke.
UMBC vs North Carolina - NCAA Men’s Lacrosse Championships – First Round – ESPNU – 2:30pm et
Have been having issues with charging my cell phone for about a week now. It is driving me nuts! It will say it’s charging but it’s really not. A few days ago, I got a new Treo, but didn’t have time to get it all set up for this trip. So it’s a gamble on whether or not it will stay charged long enough to make it back home.
Traveled to Raliegh on Friday afternoon. Totally uneventful.
Felt good to be on the road again. It’s been just over a month since my last trip.
Arrived around rush hour, so it took a little longer than usual to get to Chapel Hill.
I did however find out, just before boarding my connecting flight, that I had screwed up my travel request for Women’s College World Series coming up at the end of the month. The crewing department had emailed me and wasn’t exactly ‘happy’ with me.
So I was able to spend the last 90 minutes of my trip figuring out where I had erred. Which of course drove me absolutely nuts!
On a side note – when I refer to “crewers” or “the crewing department” – those are the people who hire me to work. Essentially, they are my bosses. For example, ESPN & ESPN Regional Television have staff crewers. However, a lot of networks sub-contract the crewing out to either local vendors (usually TV truck companies) or crewing companies.
My dealings with crewers vary from network to network. For the most part it is a person who hires me for anything from 1 day or for a contract for an entire season (ie: college football season). This person also negotiates my rate and what I will be paid for per diem & expenses.
For some networks, this person also arranges my travel. In some instances though, there is a separate travel department that takes care of those things.
Anyway – back to this trip…..
Upon arriving at the hotel, I immediately attempted to get online so I could research and fix my travel mistake.
This turned into a 3 hour saga!
The hotel’s wireless router wouldn’t allow me to connect. No one knew how to fix it.
Eventually, they gave me a bridge to connect the old fashioned way. However, it only allowed me to be online for approximately 2 minutes at time. So I could see the flights, just couldn’t select them. It was just plain silliness!
I was finally able to get everything taken care of. But I nearly lost my mind doing so.
In the process, I was unable to go out to dinner with co-workers.
4:30am on Saturday came very quickly! Ugh!
Little obstacles arose all day. From having problems with the Duet to cutting my elbow on something in the bathroom (I’m still not sure how I managed that one!)?
But the game was exciting, even though in the end, UNC won.
On my way back to the hotel, I picked up dinner. A storm was coming and I likely wouldn’t feel like going back out into the rain.
As I pulled into the parking lot, I noticed the winds were REALLY picking up. As I was getting out of my car a bunch of trees broke.
I scurried up to my room with the wind blowing all sorts of dirt & debris in my face.
(old hotel with exterior doors/hallways)
Dropped everything on the bed and turned on the TV to see what the radar looked like. Didn’t even get the chance to change the channel before losing power.
Ok. Now what?
I have 13 hours til my flight. Hmmmm….
So I did what any other idiot does in severe weather – sit in the window and watch the storm while eating dinner.
It started to get really hot in the room, so I pushed the big chair and ottoman over to the doorway and propped the door open. Knowing having the door propped open was a safety issue, I figured if someone was gonna try to come in, it would take effort to climb over the blockade.
After about an hour, I decided the lights were not coming on any time soon. So I went driving in search of candles. It took a while to find a store with power, but eventually did. Got 4 candles and headed back.
Since I needed to leave for the airport at 5:30am – if the power hadn’t been restored, I would be getting ready by candlelight. So while there was still some daylight trickling in the windows, I decided the best thing to do was to get as packed as possible for morning.
Then I was bored.
The weather had cleared so I took some magazines and went down to the pool. Sat in a wet debris covered chair and read a magazine until it was completely dark.
(old hotel with exterior doors/hallways)
Dropped everything on the bed and turned on the TV to see what the radar looked like. Didn’t even get the chance to change the channel before losing power.
Ok. Now what?
I have 13 hours til my flight. Hmmmm….
So I did what any other idiot does in severe weather – sit in the window and watch the storm while eating dinner.
It started to get really hot in the room, so I pushed the big chair and ottoman over to the doorway and propped the door open. Knowing having the door propped open was a safety issue, I figured if someone was gonna try to come in, it would take effort to climb over the blockade.
After about an hour, I decided the lights were not coming on any time soon. So I went driving in search of candles. It took a while to find a store with power, but eventually did. Got 4 candles and headed back.
Since I needed to leave for the airport at 5:30am – if the power hadn’t been restored, I would be getting ready by candlelight. So while there was still some daylight trickling in the windows, I decided the best thing to do was to get as packed as possible for morning.
Then I was bored.
The weather had cleared so I took some magazines and went down to the pool. Sat in a wet debris covered chair and read a magazine until it was completely dark.
Went back to the room. 4 candles is not enough light to read by.
Can’t talk on the phone because it’s under 50% battery life.
Worked on a few things on the laptop and then went to bed.
I left 2 candles lit since I didn’t have the soothing comfort of a glowing TV.
Was actually able to sleep for about 6-7 hours which was very surprising!
Got up at 5am, lit the rest of the candles and at 5:07a, the power came back on. Ahhh… made getting ready so much easier!
Headed to the airport around 5:45a. Got my car returned, checked in and to security.
I dislike the Raleigh airport security checkpoint very, very, very much. The tables before the x-ray machine are no more than 4 feet long. This gives you NO time to take off your shoes, jacket, take out your liquids, laptops, etc. The TSA agents nag at you for holding up the line. Gee, I wonder why I am holding up the line? Maybe if you had longer tables like EVERY other airport you wouldn’t have long lines!!
This morning was no different. However, thanks to a 3 year-old, there was at least entertainment. She was in complete meltdown mode because she had to remove her shoes & backpack. Kicking and screaming blood curdling screams. It actually reached the point that you wondered if the child was being kidnapped. But she look a lot like her siblings and parents – so I think it was legit.
Ran into an engineer from Lyon while waiting for my flight. It was nice to catch up and have someone to pass the time with.
Made it back to Columbus by 10:30am.
What did I miss this weekend?
Nothing. As crazy as the trip was – this is what I live for. I can’t imagine my life any other way.
Nothing. As crazy as the trip was – this is what I live for. I can’t imagine my life any other way.
No comments:
Post a Comment