Tales & Trails of a Traveling Wiseguy

This morning was the time change due to the end of Daylight Saving Time. Did you remember to change your clocks? Fall Forward, Spring Back. For more and more of us the answer is No... because they change automatically. The main places I check for what time it is are my phone and my computers. They all know how to change the time automatically. That means no more having to remember to Fall Forward or Spring Back.

Then there are the clocks on things like the stove and the microwave. We'll have to reset those manually. I intend not to have my kitchen appliances be "smart" or internet connected as long as I can! And there are the clocks in the cars. I'm pretty sure one of them is old and dumb enough not to change its clock on its own. The other, I forget whether the onboard computer takes care of that. This is the car that phones up the dealer to carp about brake fluid, so I hope it can use similar technology to do something actually useful like save me from having to fix the clock. Update: Nope! The car can pick up a phone to call the dealer and tell them what service it needs, but it can't set its own clock ±1 hour. 🙄

Ah, but Falling Forward. I fell forward this morning with the time change, waking up around 6am when there was already light in the sky. Actually I'd been tossing and turning much of the night. I think that's a continuing reaction to the Covid booster shot I got on Friday. Typical for me is the side effects kicking in in the range of 16-40 hours. I'd gone to be early last night, like 8pm, with chills. So by 6am— plus 1 hour due to Falling Forward— it was past time to get up anyway. The fact there was light in the sky early helped. The downside will be this evening when it's dark at 5pm.

Wednesday afternoon I checked in to the Scottsdale Plaza hotel in Scottsdale, Arizona, after an easy mellow day visiting a client in the area. Well, the hotel was part of what made it a mellow day. That's because while it bills itself as a resort hotel it's really more like a low-key motel with a bunch of pools. And it's not very crowded right now.

When I checked in the gal at the front desk directed me back outside to the bell desk for a driver to escort me to my room.

"How far away is my room?" I asked, incredulously.

"Oh, it's in the next building," she said, and pulled out a map.

"Thanks, I'll walk," I responded. It was, like, 100 feet away.



Walking outside between buildings gave me a chance to check out the pool area. It's not a hoppin' place full of kids on rafts, nor are there water slides, but low key was kind of my speed anyway. Plus, I ultimately decided no-key was my speed. I didn't use the pool at all on Wednesday, preferring instead to relax in my room.



As I've walked around the hotel I've chuckled to myself, is this really a resort? Because while it's nice... -ish... it's not quite what I think of when I think "resort". Frankly it's more like a Holiday Inn from the 1980s painted in shades of desert brown.



The decor in my room extends the feeling of "It's a Holiday Inn, but nicer". The furniture is decent but not special. It's comfortable, though. This is like the hotel equivalent of a comfort food restaurant. Unless you want to read a book in your room— because the lights in here suck. When I made the photo above I turned on every light in the room and still brightened the result to show the layout. In real life pretty much none of the lamps are brighter than a 30W equivalent bulb. 🤣

I continued the evening in the range between low-key and no-key. For dinner I caught a ride with the hotel shuttle driver to a nearby grocery store and bought myself a dish of sushi, a slice of cheesecake, and a 6-pack of Coke Zero. Then I retired back to my room until about 9:30 to see which of my colleagues were left at the bar. I didn't want to join them earlier because I didn't want to be coaxed into spending the whole evening drinking. So I went downstairs just before last call and drank two rounds with them.

Good news: I was back in my room by 10:15. Bad news: I still couldn't fall asleep until 11:45. Also bad news: dawn is at freakin' 5:30am here in Phoenix because Arizona doesn't do Daylight Saving Time, and I awoke at 4:45am because it was already getting light outside.

Pasadena Trade Show Travelog #10
Back home - Sun, 9 Mar 2025, 8pm

I'm back home from my weekend working trip to Pasadena. Yes, I was working through the weekend. There was a trade show there that always runs through the weekend. The show finished up at 2pm today and I hurried to the airport. My flight at 3:45pm was a smidge late leaving the gate, but there was enough padding in the schedule that we landed at 4:50, ten minutes ahead of our scheduled arrival. Hawk came and picked me up, and I was in the car rolling away from the airport by 5:02pm.

From the airport we went straight to dinner. Hawk ate at my favorite, Giovanni's pizza, on Friday, so we had to pick something else. I agreed to her favorite, Speedy's Tacos, in exchange for a date to be named later (not too much later!) at Giovanni's. Speedy's was good, though, so it's not like I was sacrificing. Much.

We got home just after 6pm, and by 6:30 I'd unpacked my bag and put everything away. We then took a short period of time to decompress doing mindless things on our computers before going out to the hot tub together around 7pm. On this we took advantage of Daylight Saving Time on the first day of DST. Yesterday 7pm would've been well after sunset. Today at 7pm the sun was just dipping down behind the mountains west of us. It was a beautiful time for a soak in the hot tub. Yay, DST!

As I continue mentally unpacking from 3 days at the trade show I reflect on how random it was when people would come by. The busiest shift was the opening session Thursday afternoon. It's typical that the first session brings the greatest density of raw scans. Saturday and Sunday it was hard to predict when we'd see a rush of people. This conference didn't have well delineated break times or even obvious lunch breaks. In addition to giving attendees a time to eat without missing sessions, these breaks give them an opportunity to visit exhibitors without missing talks— which is important because the exhibitors fund most of the show's cost. And furthering the seemingly random element to the booth traffic, our best lead of the show came around midday today when things were otherwise dead.

In case you're wondering what "our best lead of the show" means, here are a few sales terms, defined:

• A lead is a person who visits our booth. We scan their badge with a handheld device (this shows it was an Android phone with a special camera attached and a custom app), and that captures their contact details to be shared with us. We also call these scans. Either way, these are the people we can follow up with after the show.


• Within the range of leads we talk about raw leads and qualified leads. These are two key metrics used in planning goals for, and measuring success of, a trade show.


• A raw lead is any kind of contact. It could be a swag hound who just wanted stickers, a USB adapter cable, or other merch we give away for free in exchange for badge scans. Raw leads are the basic metric but ultimately not the most important.


• A qualified lead is someone who spoke with us long enough to identify they come from an organization with a business-critical problem (i.e., one that's worth them spending money to fix) that our offerings have a shot at solving. It's something we believe will turn into a sales opportunity.

OMG, here I am talking shop on what little is left of my weekend. 😖 Okay, enough of that. I'll save elaborating on what opportunities and other downstream terms mean for another time. Because there really isn't much of my weekend left. Today was kind of like a 3/4 workday, one where I got to start late (9:30) and still finish at 5. And tomorrow's Monday, a full workday.

Pasadena Trade Show Travelog #8
At the hotel - Sat, 8 Mar 2025, 8pm

Today was the long day at the trade show. The exhibits floor was open 10a-6p. That meant my colleagues and I were "on" for 8 hours. Coming off waking up at dumb o'clock this morning— dumb but not stupid; stupid o'clock was the day before— I figured I'd be tired by the end of it. And I was. But at least I was just tired, not totally trashed.

It was a good day on the show floor. We finished with 205 badge scans, 120 of them from today. And I enjoyed spending a few hours dressed as Jenkins the Butler. It was, as always, a good draw for conversations in our booth, plus just plain— well, as plain as possible when I'm wearing a tuxedo— fun.

I finished up the last few hours at the show back in Clark Kent disguise. I still had the mustache, though. ("Cuz it's real.) It cracked me up how many people excitedly told me, "Some guy was dressed up as Jenkins earlier, did you see him?!" My colleagues were amazed, too. We discussed how we always thought it was silly, like straining the bounds of disbelief, that Superman changes out of his Underoos and puts on a pair of glasses, and people are like, "OMG, mild-mannered reporter Clark Kent, did you see where Superman went?" Now we know this really happens. 😳🤣😎

After the show Shawn (one of my colleagues at the booth) and I joined the team from the Jenkins booth and one of their spouses to go out for dinner. Shawn and I were feeling our oats from those 205 badge scans, so we half jokingly pushed for going to an expensive steak restaurant. With a very budget conscious manager from other booth signing the bill, though, we ended up at a much more modestly priced Japanese ramen shop. Dinner was good, and also ended early— which was also good. All of us were tired from a long day.

I got back to my room just before 8pm. Like I said, dinner finished early. We had one drink apiece, instead of the 3 or more that typify a business dinner.

I gave serious thought to catching up on those other 2 drinks on my own back here at the hotel. I even have a voucher for 2 free drinks in the hotel bar, a gift for my Marriott Lifetime Titanium elite status. It feels like sacrilege not to use it, but that's exactly what I'm going to do: not use it. I'm not 30 anymore. "Have 2 free drinks on us" is something I'm okaying passing up when I'm tired after a long day and I could just stay in my room, stretched out across the bed, instead. I mean, if there was a free drink in my room, I'd drink it. I just don't feel like going back downstairs for it.

Plus, getting to bed early tonight seems like a good plan. Tonight's the clock change for Daylight Saving Time. We lose an hour of sleep. Though with my body playing stupid get-up-early games recently, the time change means I'll probably wake up at 6:30 instead of 5:30. Thus I'll be happy getting to bed by 9:30 again tonight.

This morning was our biannual clock change, "falling back" an hour as we end Daylight Saving Time. We're now back to Standard Time. ...Except, as Daylight Saving Time now runs 8 months a year, really it is the standard and this other stuff, this time of the year when it's dark before most workers get off from work for the day, should be called something different. I propose Daylight Wasting Time.

Daylight Saving Time starts in the US tonight. Well, technically it starts tomorrow morning. At 2am on Sunday, March 10 our clocks "spring forward" by an hour.

As usual, I've grown comfortable with being on standard time in the past few weeks. Seeing the sun set before 5pm throughout December and January is always a bummer about being on standard time. But by late February the sunset locally stretches on to 6pm, which seems... not unreasonable... while sunrise has advanced up to just before my 6:45am weekday alarm, making it easier to get out of bed in the morning.

Shifting the clocks an hour will shift my mornings back to waking up in the dark, at least for the next several weeks. That'll be balanced out, of course, by the extra hour of sunlight in the evenings. I can get back into my evenings-on-the-balcony habit again! ...Just as soon as the weather cooperates by getting warm.

This past weekend was another stay-at-home weekend. Mostly.

Friday night we stayed in and played D&D with three friends over. See my notes from the game in a separate blog post. It was fun if not quite as long as I wanted; we called an end to the session and started packing up just before 11pm.

Saturday was a total "be a slug" day. I can barely even remember what we did. I know it wasn't much. 😅 Being a slug for a day felt warranted as I was go-go-go most of the week at work.

Sunday I got up surprisingly early. Well, not too surprisingly as it was the morning the clocks roll back an hour for the end of Daylight Saving Time. I woke up just before 6:30am because the sky was already starting to get light (sunrise is at 6:39am now) and because I'd had that extra hour of sleep due to the time change.

I frittered for a while Sunday morning, but because I got such an early start I was done frittering by 9am. Hawk did the same. We then used the opportunity of having gotten up early to get an earlier start on an area hiking trip.

Mid-morning Sunday we drove up to Russian Ridge open space in the coast range mountains to our west. The are literally several dozen Open Space districts and county parks within an hour of where we live. Russian Ridge, though, is a favorite. We mixed it up a bit this time by starting at a different trailhead than we usually do. Initially I thought we'd hike about a 2 mile loop, but we ended up hiking more than 5 miles. It was a good workout, and the weather was even better than expected.

After the hike we kind of went back to being slugs. We ate a late lunch, did a bit of shopping that took way the heck longer than it should have because Christmas shoppers are out in force already, and headed back home for the rest of the day. We squeezed in a dip in the hot tub before retiring to the house for the rest of the evening— which began early, as sunset is now just after 5pm. 😰

Daylight Saving Time starts in a few days, on Sunday morning. Generally speaking, I look forward to DST. It shifts an hour of daylight from the early, early mornings when it's wasted on me (and most people) to the evenings, when it can be enjoyed after work. The past few weeks, though, I've been thinking that standard time feels just about right.

The past few weeks sunrise has been around 6:30am. Today it was 6:25. That's just before I start the day. When my 6:45am weekday alarm rings there's already light in the sky filtering through my bedroom windows and door. That kick-starts my body's circadian responses and makes it easier to get up.

Evenings don't suck right now, either. With sunset arriving just after 6pm (today it's 6:10pm) I enjoy that there's still some daylight left , usually, after I finish with work for the day. The dreariest part of standard hours is closer to the solstice when the sun sets before 5pm, and it's so pitch black by 7pm those aforementioned circadian responses are telling me it's late at night already. We're 11.5 weeks on from the solstice now, so this is kind of the sweet spot.

When the time changes in two days I'll take the good with the bad. It will go back to being dark when my weekday alarm rings, but I'll have another hour of daylight to enjoy in the evenings. And as we head toward summer the days will grow longer at both ends. It's a lot more good than bad IMO.

Early this morning was when our clocks "Fall back" at the end of Daylight Saving Time. Now we're into... Daylight Squandering Time?

I do appreciate the time change meaning that it's light in the sky when my 6:45am weekday alarm rings. Today I actually got out of bed at 6:44 instead of my weekend 8am alarm time because it was so bright out (and because I'd gotten an extra hour of sleep). The thing is, while I do like the added daylight in the morning, I dislike the loss of daylight in the afternoon/evening even more. Sunset is at 5:06pm today. It'll be totally dark out by 5:30pm.

Count me as one of the people who prefers eliminating the twice-a-year time change... by going on Daylight Saving Time permanently.

With the switch to Daylight Saving Time two weekends ago I dreaded it remaining dark until later in the morning, making it harder to get up on workdays. It turns out with my schedule it works just right. I woke up before my 6:45am alarm today and noticed that the sky was already brightening. Although sunrise didn't occur until 7:05 the brightening sky is enough to make it easier to wake up— and to wake up gently around 6:45, as opposed to how I often can't sleep past 6am in the middle of summer as bright sunlight floods around the drapes over my bedroom windows.

All this, plus the benefit of light in the evenings! Not only is it not dark already when I call the workday quits around 5:30 or 6pm but there's light to enjoy through dinnertime. Sunset today is 7:23pm, and there'll be light in the sky until around 7:45. The night before last Hawk and I went out to eat for dinner and enjoyed dining outside on the patio. We hadn't done that for a few months as it was dark by dinner time.