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February 06, 2007

Going to Cali

Two weeks ago, my boss Denis sent me an instant message that I wasn't expecting. You see, while I may work here in KY, the corporate office for my company is located in California. Denis, who is the Director of IT, is based out of CA ... as is his boss, Jeff.

Jeff recently made his way out here to KY a few weeks ago, and stayed in town for two days. During his trip here, we had a chance to sit and talk for a bit. He mentioned to me that I should make a trip out to California to see the corporate office and meet everyone that works there.

This is something that Denis and I have talked about on and off again over the past year. I knew that I would end up going sometime in the future, but we always had too many fires to put out here at PFS. There is always some big project coming down the pipe ... something that needs my total attention at all times.

I have several of these kinds of projects coming up.

So, about two weeks ago, Denis sent me an instant message asking me when would be a good time for me to come out to California. He wanted to make it within a certain period of time ... a matter of weeks ... rather than the typical "you should come out here sometime" that we normally discuss.

Well, this month is a busy one for me, so I didn't know how to answer right off the bat. I knew that I had to discuss the situation with Amanda first and foremost. We're also in the middle of closing on a house and I'm still waiting to get my car back from repair. Not to mention the fact that we need to pack up the apartment and get ready to move. On top of this, my birthday is next week.

So, after discussing the trip with Amanda and getting some house paperwork out of the way, I gave the A-OK to Denis to get me a ticket. I received the flight information today. I'm heading out in a few weeks and will be gone for just a few days.

This won't be my first trip out West. A little over a year ago, I was in Phoenix, Arizona. I loved my trip out there, but I was gone for a really long time. It's one thing to take a trip and be gone for a few days, but in this particular instance, I was out in a strange city by myself for almost two weeks. This time, I will be going to a strange city and state that I've never been to before, but this time I will be going to see people I already know and/or have talked to many many times before.

I'm excited about the trip. I knew that it was inevitable that I would make a trip to the corporate office one day, but now that the plane ticket has been bought and a date has been set, it's becoming more real. I'll finally get to meet my counterpart in CA, Darren Joe, who I regularly taunt via Jabber whenever I get the chance. Oh ... and trust me ... he gets me back too.

I'm also excited to see the new data center that has been recently setup. I've heard Denis talk about it many many times over, so I'm eager to see what they've done to get it up and running. I'm also interested to see how the IT department is setup in CA and to see how different or alike they are compared to my group of guys. Either way, it'll be nice to finally put a face with a name ... and I have quite a few of those to put together.

Well, that's all I have for now. Probably the next time I blog, I will be doing it from CA. Hopefully it'll be warmer than where I am right now. It's supposed to snow tonight, with the possibility of some real accumulation.

~out...

Posted by ed at 08:50 PM | Comments (0)