Take Two

Me and the kids rocking out

Originally uploaded by ryaninmtv

I have been enjoying this long weekend with minimal work getting done (although prior to me posting this I have been exchanging text messages with a client who had to go to the ER). Charity and I decided to head out of dodge today and took the kids to Cleveland. Let me first say that despite its bad reputation, I love going to Cleveland. It has pro sports, theater, museums, great restaurants; you name it.

Today we took the kids to the Cleveland Museum of Natural History (CMNH). This is in the University Circle area of Cleveland in the neighborhood of Case Western Reserve University. The CMNH is a gem that I had never been to before. Charity and the blossoms went there in June while I was at a seminar at the Cleveland Clinic. They spoke very highly of it so we decided to check it out. We bought a membership because 1) it was much more cost efficient for the day and 2) with reciprocity, we will use it at a variety of museums in the coming year.

The CMNH has a great dinosaur collection including a juvenile T-Rex named Jane which greets you as you walk in the door. There is also a significant fossil and anthropology exhibit including bones from Lucy, one of the oldest human remains ever found. (Side note- while I am a creationist I am an old earth creationist which means I don’t think creation happened over six 24 hour days but rather over millions of years and was originated and ordered by God). Becky took a number of pictures which I have posted to our Flickr account.

After the museum, we went to Terminal Tower hoping to have dinner. Traffic in downtown Cleveland was nuts and we later learned that their Christmas parade was tonight along with a free concert on Public Square with fireworks. We tried to get into the Hard Rock Cafe but they were completely booked. Fortunately, we were able to get a table at the House of Blues which is about a block from Terminal Tower. This is where the lovely photo you see was taken. We are clearly not all work and no play.  In  case you’re wondering, I am making the fist of rock.  I know, like a fish on a bicycle.

We had a great day leaving Mount Vernon behind for the big city. We’ll start to ease back to reality tomorrow. I’ve enjoyed the break but am ready to get back to work.

Image by ryaninmtv via Flickr

There is a good story in today’s New York Times regarding one of my favorite places in New York, Washington Square Park.  There was an ugly battle over refurbishing and redesigning the park a few years back.  As the story notes, Washington Square Park is the heart of Greenwich Village and embodies all the the eccentricities of the residents of the Village.  I don’t have a sentimental attachment to the park so I’m looking forward to seeing the redesign (especially the fountain that is now in line with the arch).  Apparently, moving the fountain was one of the greatest points of contention.  Again, not being a local, I thought it was a good idea.

Enjoy the story and your Sunday.

There is a very good column from Joe Brancatelli on Portfolio.com today.  As a side note, I think every column by Joe is good.  He has a great feel for the business travel environment and what’s going on out there.

In the nutshell, he says that the airlines and hotel industry have taken advantage of (yea, punished) the business traveler for so long that, like a battered spouse who’s had enough, they’ve just walked away.  For me, here’s the money quote:

Consider this: Since Labor Day, the nation’s six network airlines and their commuter affiliates have grounded about 500 aircraft. That means a carrier the size of Northwest Airlines, the nation’s fifth largest, has essentially disappeared from the skies. Yet even with that estimated 10 percent cut in nationwide seat capacity, airlines haven’t been able to register increases in “load factors,” the percentage of available seats sold. In fact, passenger demand has fallen so precipitously that some carriers reported their load factors dropped in September or October.

That is not inconsequential.  I have noticed in my travels 1) much better prices and 2) much emptier planes.  To wit- I went to New York this summer (I go to New York a lot)  and paid north of $500 for the ticket and couldn’t Priceline.com a three star room for under $300.  Fast forward to this month- same ticket is under $300 (with lots of availability on the seating chart) and four star rooms to be had on Priceline.com for $180.  Full circle indeed.

Remember how Skybus famously crated here in Columbus. Their business model was all wrong.  It was focused around leisure only travelers who you can’t make any money off of.  The vast majority of my travel is business.  That means, if I have to go somewhere I’ll pay the high priced ticket and hotel room because I don’t have a choice.  I won’t like it but I’ll do it.  Now, with the economy in full retreat, it seems more and more business travelers are saying “no mas”.  Leisure travelers nearly always take cost into account.  It’s their number one consideration.  No business traveler plus no leisure travelers equals a lot of airline employees flying on buddy passes (six on a recent flight I was on).  You won’t pay the fuel bill with that.

One bright spot is all that is noted:

Travel will be easier for those of us who’ll still be on the road in the coming months. Airports will be less crowded, security checkpoints will be less frenetic and, miracle of miracles, more and more flights are running on time. Last year I was writing that nationwide on-time performance had slid to schedule-destroying levels. But last month 84 percent of the nation’s flights arrived on time, according to FlightStats.com. It’s the fifth consecutive month airlines have improved on-time performance.

This desperately needs to happen.  At one point over the summer, only 27 percent of flights into and out of the New York City airports (LaGuardia, Kennedy, and Newark) were on time.  That is a sad statistic.  Now, with a significant reduction of planes that number is improving.  And bully for that.

I’ll be interested to see if any lessons get learned or if, like so many things, this is just cyclical.

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Now that the election and afterglow thereof is over, I am back to doing all the things I love- work, church, family stuff.  I traveled with LJ to Dayton yesterday to meet our District Board and present plans and budget for 2009 to them.  I received a lot of compliments and constructive feedback. I will add this- I have heard some of the mess that my colleagues across our fellowship go through with their boards.  This is so not the case in Ohio.  We have an excellent board and it is a joy to work with them.  I am heading back to Dayton tonight for a keynote from our superintendent and a business meeting tomorrow.

I am also neck deep in work stuff which kind of hit the back burner as I was tracking the last couple of days of the election.  I will again note that we are blessed to be so busy and have so much work in the pipeline for the coming months.  I am trying to figure out how to do all of this plus get caught up on school (I’m a good two weeks behind).  I haven’t found a good answer yet but I’m sure there’s one out there somewhere.  Balance- still trying to achieve this.  On a different note, I did get to describe what I do to my district board yesterday.  They seemed genuinely interested and asked a lot of questions.  It goes without saying that my background is different from the majority of folks they meet with.  I think that’s a plus.

Okay, enough blogging.  Must finish some work and then head to Dayton.

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I had a dinner meeting Friday night in advance of a seminar our Sunday School Department was sponsoring on Saturday (this was, of course, after trick or treating).  Seminar Saturday morning, small group study Saturday night, spoke in Columbus Sunday morning and night.  After service, we had food at the Cheesecake Factory at Polaris and then drove to Toledo where I had a 7:30 AM meeting today.  I got home about an hour ago.  Truly epic business meeting including some serious Ambit Energy planning also yesterday. We will be offering natural gas service in Ohio in January which is a later post.

I have to get ready to meet the district board on Wednesday and get a ton of projects out before the week is up.  Thankfully, I think the weekend is free.  I will weigh in on some final election thoughts tomorrow.

Have a great week.

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I will do a full post tonight.  Allow me to say that the University of Akron was great fun and so unlike when I went to The Ohio State University (you must add the “The”) where we lived like POWs and ate food that was rejected by the hospital patients.  Rock climbing wall?  Kayaking pool?  Stir fry, pizza, or eggplant parmagana for lunch?  No siree bob, we did not have that.

The night at the opera is deserving of its own post.  We saw Bizet’s The Pearl Fishers.  I absolutely loved it!  More on that later.  Now, off to Columbus for a meeting and lunch.  Thanks to Opera Columbus for that event.

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Last week is a blur.  I left Monday morning and got home Saturday afternoon.  I spent the night in three different states, ate incredible food, met great new friends and caught up with old ones.  I also had a four hour nap yesterday and still slept fine last night (apparently the body needs time to recover).  It was a great week.

This morning, I was back to the grind, kind of.  I sent a number of emails for potential business partners I met at Stetson SNT X and also got some emails from the UPCI General Conference.  But as a whole, I spent today catching up on work.  And tomorrow, I will likely do the same thing.  It is a great thing to sleep in my own bed again and start the day at my own desk.  In a few weeks, I’ll be ready to travel again (got trips lined up for the first quarter of next year to Orlando and New Orleans).  But for now, I am gladly back to reality.

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Yeah, I’m aware that Washington wasn’t part of my itinerary but apparently United felt I needed to spend some time in our nation’s captial.  Apparently my plane from Tampa last night was coming from Chicago to Tampa.  Any semi-frequent flier knows that nothing comes out of Chicago O’Hare on time, especially on Friday night.  As such, the vast majority of my plane missed their connections.  United was good enough to put us up in the Hyatt Dulles which sure beats staying at the airport.  Anyhow, I am now in Washington (or Northern Virginia to be more precise) and will hopefully get home today.  It should be noted that it is significantly colder in DC than it was in Tampa (by about 25 degrees).  Not real thrilled with that.

There were about a dozen Marines on my plane from Tampa who were supposed to fly  to Qatar from Washington.  I talked to a couple of them last night.  They will go to Kuwait from Qatar and then half will deploy to Afghanistan and half to Iraq.  This is the first time I have ever put a close up face on the wars in the Middle East.  Whatever your thoughts on the war, it’s difficult to not think of these guys safety as they go into harms way.  I told them all to be careful over there and come home safe.  They seemed to appreciate the sentiment.

For now, I’m going to work on my lesson for Sunday and head to the airport in a couple of hours.

As a general rule, my trips are no longer than three days long. This is because I love being home and I know what it is like to have a father who travels all the time. I have been gone all week due to the perfect storm of General Conference in Greensboro and the SNT X Conference in Tampa.
Tonight, I found out United’s connectors are all messed up so I will be spending the night in Washington and flying home tomorrow. Not good times! I hated telling my kids I wasn’t going to get home. Ugh.

Some perspective was found however as there were several Marines preparing to head out to Quatar. They are leaving for an extended deployment and will not see their families in some time.

I guess one more night won’t kill me.

Sent via BlackBerry

Image by ryaninmtv via Flickr

This is the first time I’ve had a chance to post since I left General Conference.  I flew out of Greensboro yesterday afternoon, through Atlanta (ugh), and landed in Tampa, Florida last night.  I am at the Stetson University School of Law’s Special Needs Trust X Conference.  We are staying at the Don Cesar Beach Resort which is beyond nice.  I can watch the waves break on the beach from my room.  This not a bad thing.  We’ve also made a lot of connections with potential clients and partners.  A couple of attorneys asked me for my card in the elevator after seeing I was from Ohio.  They recently had a case in the state and were looking for local care management help. I have never had that happen to me before.

I am heading downstairs for a reception on the patio.  We’re going to watch the sun set over the bay before heading to the the Black Palm for dinner (there are a total of 16 of us going to dinner which should be interesting).  I’m having a good time but by tomorrow my fun-o-meter will be pegged out.  I’m ready to go home and be with my family after a week away.