I just flew in from Dallas.....boy are my arms tired.

The last couple of weeks I have been a little busy as I have had the opportunity to take a couple of business trips. On the 13th Dave Rollins and I took off for a quick trip to visit with the central region office in Chicago. Our flight was to leave SLC at 7:50(ish), well I get to the airport a little before 7:00 and ran to the terminal to get checked in. THE LINE WAS HUGE!!!! I stood in the line for about 5 minutes and I am fairly certain the line didn't move even a fraction of an inch. I thought, there has to be an electronic check-in. I had never flown United before, so I was not certain if they had one or not. I start looking around to see if I can find the electronic face. I then hear choirs of angels and see a conduit of light come out of the sky. There it was, so I trotted my way over to get checked in. That was pretty slick, so I think I have it made easy. I make my way to the security line and it is moving pretty quickly. I make it through the first check point and get into the line for the screeners. The line is stopped and just keeps building up. Again, the line is not moving. They opened another lane and the group moves over to that line. Well, I don't go all the way to the newly opened line, I take the one next to it. This was the wrong choice. I stood in that line for over 30 minutes and did not move once. I had my shoes off and they were in the bin as was my lap-top, I had my belt off and jacket all ready to go. Or I would have just moved lines. FINALLY I make it through security and realize that my plane has boarded and literally will be leaving in 5 minutes. Good thing I was in one of the first gates or I might still be sitting in that airport.

The trip to Chicago was great. I had a chance to meet with the Regional Manager Paul and his Office Manager Ginette. We reviewed a few reports and items, as well as worked out some changes to existing reports. By the way, did I mention we went to lunch at Pizzeria Uno's and had some genuine Chicago Style Deep Dish Pizza. AWESOME!!! Seriously, I think I could make a call to them to see if they will ship me a pizza.

Then this past week on the 19th (Paul my brother's) Birthday, we took a trip to Dallas to meet with our Northstar Region Manager Rodger and his Office Manager Natasha. This meting also turned out to be a pretty good experience as I had some good news for Rodger and then worked with Natasha to review some of her reports and even offered her a suggestion to save her a little time on those reports.

We had a quick turn around time and were back in the air by 7:00 that night. I was beginning to get a bit worried wondering if we would make it home when it was 6:30, our plane was not quite at the airport, and we were supposed to leave at 6:20. But, everything turned out fine, I took a nice 2 hour nap and woke up in time to see the lights of Utah below me as we were approaching the airport.

I have to admit, I have not always been a good traveler, but these last two trips have turned out pretty nice. I think they have helped me to alleviate some of my reservations.