Hotseat, Working From Home, Coffee

This week I did some more traveling to the Garden State, AKA New Jersey. My big project is wrapping up and I was needed onsite for some consultations. Now that we have made our home a fair distance from Boston, my travel days go something like this: Night before pack bag, get in bed around 9-9:30 and try to sleep. Wake up at 11 pm, 2am, 3am and stare at alarm clock until 4:30. Shower in spacious but unfamaliar girl shower and come out smelling like a rose (literally). Get dressed in freezing cold (heat does not come on until 5:30 or so). Then I try not to make any noise on my way out and hit the road. Get through check-in and security by 6 and get a nice close seat to the gate to avoid the inevitable gate-creep. I'm usually able to snag about half an hour of sleep before we land. Then it's a 40 minute cab ride to a subway station and then a 20 minute ride from there to New Jersey. Door to door it's about 4.5 hours and I could probably drive it faster.

I got to the subway Tuesday morning, walked by a few of the fuller cars for one I was sure to get a seat on and rolled in with my suitcase. I took my seat and started to get comfortable when I noticed a distinctly warm feeling underneath me. I didn't see who was sitting there before I got there, but I was hoping for a relatively cool seat. I think I grabbed a yeti seat, because this thing was on fire. By now the car was full and I had no chance of switching seats. How big was this guy? How did he get the seat so damn hot?? Why is the seat still hot? It had a few seconds to breathe and cool off before I got there. I had a topcoat underneath my legs and the warmth was still incredible. Now the NYC subway system is a great place to see the potpourri that is America, but I have never seen the person who could make this happen. I took off one of my gloves to check that I wasn't wet or anything and that's when I felt it... the warmth was everywhere. It took me a minute to realize I was sitting above a heater and it was blowing underneath me. This is what 3 hours of sleep will do for me. Good thing I'm about to go to work and be relied upon for providing accurate and timely information...

Speaking of work, this weekend I am going to be working from home. Aside from being able t0 watch clips of teenagers maiming themselves trying to impress their freinds on demand, this has to be one of the best uses of the internet yet. I get to wear a robe and slippers, put the radio on and grab a pot of coffee. Everyone on my project is also working from home, so the conference calls are filled with barking dogs and screaming children. I know a lot of people 'work' from home and end up watching TV all day, but I find that I get a whole lot more done in the quiet and isolation of my loft than at my desk with random people rolling by and wanting to chitchat all day. Big advocate of this working from home thing.

I read this week in the NYTimes about a $20,000.00 coffee machine. I know the euro is crushing the dollar right now, but I don't think we're approaching that kind of exchange rate yet. Now I love coffee. Actually I am physically addicted and on the weekends M makes me drink it to stave off wild mood swings and debilitating headaches. I used to work at a Dunkin' Donuts and have snobbed my way up to being able to order 5 and 7 word coffee drinks at various coffee shops. At home, I grind my own bean blends (not roasting them myself...yet) and use a couple of different ways of brewing it. But come on... You have to prove yourself worthy to the importer before they will let you buy one. It was designed by 3 Stanford graduatesand it's pretty myuch completely customizable to all of your unique coffee parameters. I feel a little like Rome is already tipping over when people are thinking this is a good idea. I'm not going to get all political about priorities here, but unless this coffee is going to get me 55mpg, they seem to have wasted their time. I may just have to rig one of these up myself and see how good this coffee is...

Charlie Wilson

There was a point in my life where I watched 3 or 4 movies a week. My family went to a little store where we got 2 for 1 coupons and I would get to pick one movie (over the objections of my brother) and my parents would pick the other. For the most part I tried to go for films that I thought would shock or awe me, and I used the previews of other questionable movies as the fodder for my selections. My parents ususally chose an equally unusual movie, culled from the New Yorker or some other esoteric source. I didn't watch many of the most popular movies out at the time, although over time and given the number of movies being watched, I eventually saw a good number of the decent action/adventure/mystery movies made in the last 30 years.
One of the nicest things about meeting my wife was she also loves movies, but of a completely different genre. She even used to work in a movie theater (which I probably would have enjoyed had I not had such an aversion to working). M introduced me to all the classics with Bogart and Grant and Hepburn, with a whole lot of romantic comedies mixed in. When we merged our DVD collections, it was black and white as to who owned what (if you're never noticed that comedies always come with white labels and action movies come with black ones, now you will).
We really like going to the movies. The theater options out here in the woods are actually decent, but for a truly excellent theater experience we travel closer to the big city to visit the 'premium' theater. For a roughly 50% markup, you get all the free popcorn and soda you can handle, a large leather chair (you get to reserve which seats you want) and best of all, a mandatory 21 age limit (they serve booze if you'd like). This means no teenagers and a healthy respect for being quiet throughout the movie. We took M's parents there for her mother's birthday and saw Charlie Wilson's War. I'm over 30 and I shouldn't get embarrassed when the movie I picked has lots of gratuitous nudity and drugs, but seeing this with my new in-laws still made me feel like the teenager who made his parents and grandmother watch Pulp Fiction because he thought Quentin Tarantino was a brilliant screenwriter and realizing they were offended by 80% of the movie. Charlie Wilson's War was all about plot and dialogue. I barely remember the score or special effects, and it was thoroughly enjoyable. I made it a point to see who the screenplay was by so I could see what else they had written and get them into the Netflix queue. The credits rolled, screenplay by... Aaron Sorkin.
Holy Crap. I had no idea. It all made sense. If you only know Mr. Sorkin by his magic mushroom and crack busts and that TV show about Charlie Sheen's dad as President, you are missing out. I have to admit I boycotted the West Wing for years, until I caught a few reruns on A&E and I got hooked. I could identify which episodes he had written just by a few scenes of crackling dialogue about grain subsidies or beltway deception. If you still don't know what I'm talking about, if you want the truth, well then you can't handle the truth! (yep he wrote A Few Good Men)
A Few Good Men was one of those movies my parents rented and I watched and enjoyed, but I didn't know why, other than for the occasionaly soapbox tirade, delivered by a talented actor of gravitas. I looked up some other Sorkin projects and it was becoming clearer to me that I had always liked his work, I just didn't know it. Aaron Sorkin is one of the kings of the verbal smackdown. A few examples:

Jessup: Son, we live in a world that has walls, and those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. Whose gonna do it? You? You, Lt. Weinburg? I have a greater responsibility than you could possibly fathom. You weep for Santiago, and you curse the marines. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know. That Santiago's death, while tragic, probably saved lives. And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives. You don't want the truth because deep down in places you don't talk about at parties, you want me on that wall, you need me on that wall. We use words like honor, code, loyalty. We use these words as the backbone of a life spent defending something. You use them as a punchline. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom that I provide, and then questions the manner in which I provide it. I would rather you just said thank you, and went on your way, Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a weapon, and stand a post. Either way, I don't give a damn what you think you are entitled to.

This was my favorite rant from A Few Good Men, Jack Nicholson holding court. Chilling.

Jed Hill: I have an M.D. from Harvard, I am board certified in cardio-thoracic medicine and trauma surgery, I have been awarded citations from seven different medical boards in New England, and I am never, ever sick at sea. So I ask you; when someone goes into that chapel and they fall on their knees and they pray to God that their wife doesn't miscarry or that their daughter doesn't bleed to death or that their mother doesn't suffer acute neural trama from postoperative shock, who do you think they're praying to? Now, go ahead and read your Bible, _Dennis_, and you go to your church, and, with any luck, you might win the annual raffle, but if you're looking for God, he was in operating room number two on November 17, and he doesn't like to be second guessed. You ask me if I have a God complex. Let me tell you something: I am God.

This was from a decent movie called Malice. Delivered by Alec Baldwin, who's handed out a few verbal beatings in his day (see Glengarry Glen Ross). This is the only thing I remember about that movie. Just to hear someone say that out loud... wow.

Gust (smashes his boss's window): My loyality?For twenty four years people have been trying to kill me! People who know how. And do you think thats because I'm the son of a Greek soda pop maker, or because I'm an American spy. Go f--- youself, you f------ child!

And then this is from Charlie Wilson. Not that I've ever wanted to smash my boss' window and drop f-bombs all over them, but it's nice to see someone else try it. Philip Seymour Hoffman gets to have the fun this time.

And of course the West Wing was full of these moments of great import, when one character would take a stand and then belt out this big speech and everyone would suddenly see they were serious and the discussion would be ended. My problem is, no one speaks like this. I mean we all want to, but how often in your life does a situation come up where you get to get to lower the boom on someone and they just sit there and take it? It doesn't happen. But it would be a lot cooler if it did...

The wright stuff

I am what some people would call a frequent business traveller. For the past 18 months I have been more or less away from home at least 3 days every week. And for the 3 years prior to that, I did a trip every 3 weeks or so (yes that's a lot of 3's and no I'm not trying to sneak in some hippie mystical numerololgy here - that's just the way it is) . Sometimes I go even away for weekends. Some of the 'traveling business person' ads on TV are even starting to resonate with me, although I am not pounding the pavement making sales calls or attending conventions with my powerpoint in tow, as is typically depicted. I am basically on call with my own clientele and I tend to make the same trip over and over again. Same flights, same hotels, same work. There seem to be more people like me out there, because I have started noticing them. I never took a school bus when I was younger, but my shuttle has become my own grown up version. Just like there were jocks and nerds and loners in high school, the airport and planes have their own little groups.
There are the lawyers -they always have their folders open, making notes. how do I know they are lawyers? I spy. I close the eye closest to them and 'stretch' out leaning forward and spy with the eye they can't see. I can spot legalese from 20 feet no problem.
There are 'money' people. I can't really classify what exactly they are, since there are any number of jobs that require reading financial statements and analyst reports, but they are usually poring over these and loudly chatting with a comrade about what they think and whether or not it's the (insert hyperbole here) thing they have ever seen. I can't really tell who these people are, except for one company that makes their employees wear pins when traveling. These pins are different according to rank. Once you know what to look for you see them more than you'd think.
There's another group of young buck accountants/consultants. They always have at least 3 people in their 'team'. There's a senior person and their two gofers. The youngins look stiff in their new business clothes and chat about someone's party last Saturday night and how they were hungover on Sunday, and the senior tries to look in charge, even though they're about 24 months older than the newbies. Their bags are all corporate-issued, logos still shiny and new. They still turn to the senior on just about everything. If the older person has the laptop out, so do they. If that guy's reading the Journal, so are they. I wouldn't be surprised if they order the same free drink.
Since I tend to be on the same schedule from week to week, I have started to see the same faces. I know what they do, how long they've been doing it (overheard conversations with the same chatty person who tends to be on my flights). I know what they drink and what their frequent flier status is. My airline has a VIP roster they print out for who's sitting in what seat up front. That's how they know to say "welcome back Chuck", even though you've never spoken to this person before. I've seen the list.
I like seeing the same people over and over again. They know how to travel. Once in the security line, it's a choreographed routine. Grab two bins, put slip on/off shoes and jackets in one, laptop in another. Put the laptop bag and rollaboard on the conveyor. Ticket in hand pass through the metal detector unscathed since phone, keys and money clip are in the jacket pockets already. This should take no more than 30 seconds. Women and fancy men take a little longer since they have a bag with larger toiletries. They get an extra 15 seconds to get another bin and extract the quart sized clear plastic bag. There is no struggling to untie their shoes or acting surprised when the metal detector squawks about the blackberry on their belts. Ditto for tubes of toothpaste or water bottles in the carry on bags. Mountains of change or janitor-style 50 key keyrings in the pockets? nope.
They know just how big their bags are and if they will fit into the overhead bins. They know if they are the back of the plane, they will most likely have to gate-check. By the way, gate-checking is the best way to make sure your bag comes off the conveyor first, since it was the last bag placed on the plane. Some of them know that they can request a first class upgrade at the gate, and although I have never seen this actually happen, it doesn't stop anyone from trying. Overall it's not a bad way to go, once you get your own little routine down. I use 3 bins, stay away from any line containing children, get Mr & Mrs T's bloody mary mix for a drink (it's a meal in a cup and the attendants never fail to provide the requisite salt joke), keep keys and money in the same place and on travel days always wear a shirt with a pocket (for the ticket while I do the bin dance), and I never play armrest rodeo. That thing makes my arm fall alseep.

Xanadu

This past weekend, my freshly minted bride and I embarked on a distinctly American tradition - going out for dinner.
While most of the rest of the world has neither the means nor the inclination to eat someone else's food in another house on a regular basis, we Americans manage to sustain ourselves this way and (sometimes) even look forward to doing so. Normally we like to cook for ourselves and think we're at least competent in the kitchen, but the holiday weeks were bad times to be stocking up on supplies and our stores were down to the ubiquitous frozen hotdogs (hey - they came in first in a Cook's Illustrated ranking, and are actually delicious) and some beans. Hence, M and I found ourselves motoring through our bucolic burgh on our way to progressively busier roads until we could find dining establishments of increasing scale and quality sufficient to meet our needs. This is when I realized that a lot of people in our area must do this sort of thing. As we passed one chain after another, every parking lot was packed with a thick Friday night crowd. There were lines. I didn't see bouncers, glitter, or sunglasses that make you look like a fighter pilot . For the citizens of 2 car garage/PTA bake sale nation, this is an event. This is not something M and I normally do. But we did. And we enjoyed it. It wasn't gourmet, it didn't have anything made with a foam and it was probably better suited to a coke than wine, but it did the trick (with leftovers!). When in exurbia...

Mr. Watson come here!

An ignominious beginning to be sure. I'll have more to post when I don't have to run out to catch my train.