To Chicago and New York and Back Again

My view as I flew into Chicago

I haven't given up on blogging shortly after having restarted again (after a couple of years off). No, instead I was trying to keep my head above water last week as I made my to Chicago and then New York for work trips. And, of course, as I'm traveling my usual operational and support workload doesn't lessen... it just gets pushed off, so that's what this week has been focused on catching up with.

Traveling always seems to sap my energy. It's taxing and, as much as I really wanted to do some blogging about Chicago or, especially, New York, I didn't for a couple of reasons. First, I was in meetings most of each day and then at dinners with people from work in the evenings so when I got back to my hotel room it was usually me reading for about 15-20 minutes, trying to scan through email, and then hitting my head to the pillow. Second, I didn't get a chance to really do much in either city. While in Chicago, I wasn't in Chicago proper, but out in Oakbrook Terrace. While in New York, even though I was in the midtown area, I didn't have a chance to go walk around or see anything other than my view from the building we were working in and what I could see in the 5 block area where the path from my hotel to the office led me.

The view of NY from my conference room

It was probably good for me to do some traveling as I haven't in quite some time for work, as I do like seeing new places, but the process of traveling always drives me batty. That, and I truly hate/fear flying. I don't know what it is, well, actually I do (combination of fear of heights and giving up control), but it makes the process of flying very stressful for me. Well, and you can also toss in that flying sometimes is a trigger for my migraines, which again was the case as I flew into Chicago, so that adds to the downside of traveling for me.

Anyways, what I was getting to is that it was good to travel this time around as I got to meet a number of people from our company that I've worked with for years over the phone and through email, but never seen in person. Putting a face, body, and mannerisms to a voice is always great. And I got to see some people I've not seen in a year or two, so from a connections standpoint, it was great. From a work perspective, it was also a good trip. I'm in the process of leading a project for which I've been tasked with some responsibilities not previously given to me, and I want to excel at this as it could be a feather in my cap towards other similar projects. The project, not to be too vague (but I will be) has me more in a project manager and subject matter expert role as opposed to working in a quality assurance role, so it's nice to get some strict PM work as well as doing some business analyst work as time permits.

This project will also be a heavy contributor to keeping me away from blogging as my free time seems to evaporate quite quickly nowadays and the free time I do have I don't always want to be in front of a computer, but maybe that will change as the fall and winter of Minnesota start to force me indoors for more hours of the day. Then again, maybe I'll just hibernate!