What a beautiful morning…

Yesterday was a travel day. I was headed home from Portland, OR again. When I left it was about 30 degrees so we had to be de-iced before leaving. This delay worked in our favor since it gave the Sun a few more minutes to come up. The view was spectacular. I was on the right side of the plane looking out over Washington State. The mountains I get to see on that side are Mount St. Helens, Mount Adams and in the distance I am told is Mount Rainer which is south of Seattle. The mountains were so pretty with the pinks tones during the sunrise.

I will include a few pictures I took. They don’t come out as well since I was taking the picture through the window and the flash on the camera kept going off. I guess I need to learn how to use this camera.

Rainer, St. Helens & Adams



Mount St. Helens - I know this because of the flat top.


Mt. Adams

I had a very productive week. Some weeks are more rewarding than others and this was one of those weeks. I had to work my way through a software build scenario for a department I was not familiar with using features I had never used before. There was a lot of reading, testing and building going on in the evenings. I was awake 21 hours Monday working over 12 of those hours. Tuesday was an 18 hour day, Wednesday and Thursday were whimpy 12 hour days. Friday I spent 14 hours flying, connecting and driving home.

People often think the life of a business traveler is glamorous. I have to say there are certainly many perks, but there are many weeks that are like this one where you work double the hours of a typical job. Your body is run through the ringer. It’s not uncommon that we don’t sleep well, are awake very long periods of time, change 2-3 time zones, have poor dietary options.

I try my best to have a positive attitude. A long time ago I was really down about how hard my life was as a traveler on my way home one week. I took that time to reflect on the good parts of the job.

* How many people get to see the sunny side of the clouds twice a week?
* I get to eat a good and even great restaurants and it’s paid for.
* I stay in nice motels most weeks (I have had some bad ones too).
* I get to drive a wide variety of new cars each week.

Another benefit is that I don’t get caught up in office politics since I’m generally in and out. And if someone starts getting to me I remind myself that by the end of the week I’m on an airplane on the way home. I call it my countdown clock. Way back when I started this I would juggle 6-9 clients at a time so by the time I’d get back I was over anything that was tough from the previous trip.

It was then I figured just how much a positive attitude toward your job makes. I always remind myself how lucky I am to have a job I enjoy. Not everyone has that.