Late Night, Early Morning in Detroit

Last night was a late night with travel. I'd say it was a "shit show"... but only to the extent that it's usually a shit show when I fly across the country with a connection, especially if that connection is in Chicago. There was weather again in Chicago. Yes, that's all it takes to cause a shit show— weather. Recall the last time I did this a month ago, our flight diverted to Indianapolis and wrecked the first day of our anniversary celebration trip. And yesterday I was on the same flight. 😨

Well, we arrived only 10-15 minutes late in Chicago. My connecting flight was 45 minutes late. Then there was a long wait for a shuttle at the airport. Putting it all together, I didn't get settled in my room until almost 12:30am. I didn't get to bed until 1:30 and still tossed and turned until 2am. And I had to get up this morning by 7am for a full day of work. Show hours are 10:30-8:30. 😣

Still, there's good news/bad news. The good news is I didn't have it as bad as some did. Our tech lead, Kurt, saw his flight canceled yesterday. He's only coming from the east coast and had a nonstop flight, but the earliest the airline could rebook him was for tonight. The bad news? He's our tech lead. We may have to manage the whole first day of this technical show without his expertise.

Update: the good news about Kurt's flight being canceled is that he was online (from his home office) Wednesday morning and helped work through a bunch of technical problems in the demo so that I had it working for the show by Wednesday afternoon. See my notes from Day 1 at the show (next blog).

Trade Show Day 1. Jobs Board.

Trade Show Day 1 is in the books now. I got back to my hotel at almost 9pm. It was a long day! I was working already before 8am, trying to get a demo into shape. By 9:15 I was at the convention center. At 10:30am the exhibitor hall opened. And then it was almost nonstop until 8pm.

One amusing bit about the show today was that across from our booth is a job postings board. It's a white board where people (mostly) freehand notes about what they're looking to hire. I thought about going up there and writing

Do you ❤️ your job?
Good, because we're NOT HIRING!

See also: my company's small layoff a few weeks ago.

Keep reading: More humor from Day 2 at the show!