A lot of people have asked me where I've been lately. Really want to know?
Over the last 53 weeks, I've taken 19 trips for work and 2 personal trips. That's 21 trips away from home in just over a year.
I've spend 75 nights, I think, in hotels during that time. I've stayed in 8 hotels for business and 1 for family vacations. People at the desk of 2 of the hotels know me by name. A waitress at one also knows me by name. 75 nights. That's almost 11 weeks. That's just about 3 months. I've only lived in NC for 13 months. So, really, I've only lived here for 10 months.
The only month in which I did not travel was November of 2005. A good month.
I haven't gone very far. I've only been to New Jersey, New York, Michigan, Pennsylvania and South Carolina in that time.
I've flown on 4 airlines and visited 4 airports. I've had flights that left the ground at 6:00 AM (American to Newark) and flights that have left the ground at 11:30 PM (Northwest back to Raleigh). I've had 38 flights in total. Maybe 10 were on time. I know the screeners at RDU by name and recognize them at EWR and PHL. I recognize some of the flight attendants. That's scary.
This week, it was 101 degrees in New Jersey. In December, it was 8 degrees in Michigan. It's snowed on me, rained on me and the sun has shown on me.
I've eaten a lot of bad food. I put on 10 lbs. I worked hard to lose them. Did I mention the bad food?
I've been to 2 baseball games. Shea Stadium still sucks. Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia is nice. (So nice, in fact that I'll be there next Sunday).
I've racked up a bunch of points and miles. I earned over 53,000 Hilton Points. I have a little over 37,000 in the bank because I gave some away to my Father-in-law and his Fiance. Fiance? What? Oh yea...we have a wedding to go to in October...that means another trip. Marriott put over 4,000 points into my Delta account. That's a dollar for dollar match. It's hard to tell exactly how many points I've piled up in total for Delta. I have a lot of "revenue streams" for them. Using my Amex earns me points. So, I use it for everything but airfare. Staying in a Hilton chain hotel earns me Delta points. Renting from Hertz earns me points. As of today, I have 146,000+ points. But, we dipped into them in October of last year to "buy" the St John tickets. That set us back 60,000 points. We think we had about 90,000 in the bank after October. So, I've piled on 56,000 since then.
I plan to do intensive hotel reviews of the 9 hotels I've stayed at. I can't say I really loved any of them, but I can say that I hated one of them. Really hated.
How's it all been? Well, I've learned a LOT about work and my priorities. I'm tired. Like, really tired and I look it. I'd do it all again because I had to. But, if I had a choice between doing it and not doing it, I'd choose to not do it. (But I'm not talking about what decisions I may or may not have made regarding my career situation just yet). I wouldn't say it's been hard on the family, but it hasn't been easy either. Shmuppie was upset when I left last Monday. That hurts. JewelrySlut has been a trooper; dealing with Shmuppie and with my late night calls or half-asleep babblings whenever I'm home.
All you folks need to know is that I'm home now and plan to get back in the D-Land saddle.