UDPride Discussion Forums    
     

Go Back   UDPride Discussion Forums > LATEST ARTICLES > UDPride Articles

UDPride Articles Published content from your UDPride staff

» Log in
User Name:

Password:

Not a member yet?
Register Now!
» Advertisement
Comment
 
Article Tools Display Modes
On the Road Again
On the Road Again
Jim Meadows
Published by Swampy Meadows
07-08-2008
On the Road Again

BEVERLY HILLS (MI) -- After being MIA for more than 3 years, I am back ‘on the road again’ as part of my new gig with The Hotel Networks. As I type this, I am winging my way to NYC for two days of training, bonding and information upload at our Times Square sales HQ. I’ve most recently been working the local side of media sales and there was no travel involved and if there was, it was on your dime. Come to think of it, just about every expense that we take for granted here on the national side is not reimbursed when you are a local sales hump. Cell phones? Unhh unhh. Client lunches? Nope. Car expenses? NFW. You basically got a laptop, the Yellow Pages and a budget and were told to hit it or else.

My plane ticket is being paid for by THN. Same with the cab fare to my hotel, as well as the mileage to and from Detroit Metro Airport, plus all of my meals. Business travelers like to complain about how unglamorous getting from point A to point B can be, but I have always kinda enjoyed being a road warrior. Some of the things that I’ve seen and done while traversing the US:

-- Peering out my window and seeing a whale breach off the coast of southern California while taking off from the San Diego airport.

-- Seeing Willie Nelson in concert at the Forum in LA. I’m not a big Willie fan, but he did sing “On the Road Again” and after all, that is the title of this column, right?

-- Coming home from a road trip and noticing that your then-young daughters had changed and grown in some small way, even tho you hadn’t been gone that long.

-- Walking down Sixth Street in Austin and wondering to myself that if, for some unknown reason, I ever did decide to get a tattoo, how the hell would I ever chose which ink spot would do it?

-- Eating dinner on the River Walk in San Antonio.

-- Getting rear-ended by a semi on my way to Detroit Metro for a flight to Dallas. I filled out the police report, got back in my car and made it in time to catch my plane. I never said that all of the things I remember were good ones.

-- Touring LA by helicopter.

-- Playing pick-up hoops at South Park in Pittsburgh; outdoors at tOSU; in the gym on the campus of the University of Texas; at a sales conference at the Dana Point Resort in California and at one in Naples, Florida; at the PAC (of course) and at Venice Beach in California. I was in the middle of a 4-on-4 game at “Muscle Beach” when I looked down the other end of the court and saw Kurt, a creative guy from an ad agency in Detroit who I played with on an irregular basis, doing the same. 2,500 miles from home and you run into a guy you know, on what would later be the setting for the opening scene of “White Men Can’t Jump.” What are the odds?

-- Staying up late and getting up early on a whirlwind market trip to San Francisco, so I could soak up as much of “the City” as I could in the brief amount of time we had there. Come to think of it, that was the name of the radio station I was there to visit: “The City.” It was an eclectic AOR station programmed by legendary PD Tom Yates and used the slug line “The sound track of our lives” which is currently employed by “The Drive” in Chicago, where my old roomie Steve Downes does mornings.

-- Walking down the streets of an unfamiliar town and seeing an interesting restaurant and giving it a shot. There’s a lot to be said for eating at old, familiar places, too, like Louis Tambellini’s in Pittsburgh, Sans Souci in Cleveland or the Pine Club.

-- Apologizing profusely after the Younger Swampette kicked the lady seated in front of her in the head during the play “Contact” at Lincoln Center. Okay, so this wasn’t on a business trip, but it was pretty ****ed funny, altho not so much at the time. Who knew the YS would take the name of the play literally?

-- Driving from Austin to Houston and deciding that the very next barbeque joint I spied would be where I was gonna stop and eat lunch. It was a little hole-in-the-wall, all you can eat for $7 place, but I can still taste the brisket and the sauce.

It’s been a while since I have flown for biz, so I had to acquaint myself with the current rules of the road. I have always done carry-on when I fly, in order to avoid luggage handling delays. Somehow the allowable dimensions shrunk over the last 3 years, so my now over-sized, beat up green bag had to go, making my first order of business buying a new suitcase. Found a real nice Kenneth Cole number at TJ Maxx for $39. Then there is this whole “put all your liquids in a 1 quart plastic baggie” nonsense. Seriously, how much of a threat does my hair gel pose to national security? When you combine this rule with taking your shoes off to go thru security, you have to wonder what the hell is gonna be next? I know a couple of things that won’t be forbidden:

Hair dryers and curling irons.

Women will reluctantly take their shoes off in public and will put up with having to dump their toiletries in a bag, but you do not want to mess with their hair paraphernalia. Trust me on this one.

In my younger days, I always took pride in cutting my arrival at the airport gate as near to departure as possible. This resulted in some very close calls and a few missed planes, the worst being when I was flying back from Cleveland with my boss at CNN. I bet if you asked him today, he can still recall it because he was really ****ed.

Time spent sitting in airports goes by in dog years, doesn’t it? Today I actually took quiet pleasure in being at the airport early, remembering the drill of where to park and how to navigate things. I even decided to walk instead of taking the monorail to my gate at the far end of the terminal. Maybe it’s my age, maybe it’s the new world of air travel that we are forced to live in, but I’m okay with not being in a big Gawdawful hurry any more.

And like Willie says “I just can’t wait to be on the road again.”

That’s it “From the Swamp.”
You can email me at: swampy@udpride.com
Article Tools
Comment

Article Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump

Powered by vBadvanced CMPS v3.2.1

All times are GMT -4. The time now is 08:42 AM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.6
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Advertisement System V2.6 By   Branden

Article powered by GARS 2.1.8m ©2005-2006

     
 
Copyright 1996-2012 UDPride.com. All Rights Reserved.