Day 1 Flight and Super modified Dirt track races.

The departure for once when like clock work.  Picked up the Grace and the kids and was out the door by 2:30.  Dropped them at Subway and picked up Stuart by 3:00.  Was back at subway and standing in front of departure gate at a record 3:15 and at the Gate before 3:30. Grace had a smile on her face that I have never seen in all my traveling days with her... Guess showing up just in time really did get too here all these years.

Below the 777 that we are about to board

Ti and Kyle watching the movie during the flight.  Ok kid films but pretty much short on content.

The complete family did not sleep well on the flight and  looked forward to getting off  in Chicago for a 3 hours layover.   Once fueled with coffee and some breakfast everyone was ready to carry on.  The next flight was freezing and this was the first (Oh Crap) I forgot my jacket in my checked luggage moment.   Kyle and I sat together and I learned something very important about sitting with him.  Do not order Kyle any liquid that he does not consume before sleeping.   During the flight he must have had a dream and closed his serving tray with a full cup of apple juice on it.  Yes my pants and shoes received a large share of the sticky liquid. I was asleep when this happened so I screamed, and this scared kyle so he screamed so yes now the complete plane was now looking on in bewilderment. Grace and Ti slept though the complete event without even a clue that it happened.  Once at Houston with a rental car under us the trip to my brother house was quick and uneventful.   We were hungry and he was ready to feed us with pull pork and beef brisket sandwiches... They were wonderful and to top that off he had ticket for the whole family to Houston Raceway to watch the super modified dirt track races.  See tickets below.  

Here is the Gang at the track with smiles with dirt in them.  This is a dirt track event and I mean you would get dirt thrown on you from the cars.   All the kid received checkered flags at the entry gate and really could care less if they sat on dirt covered seats. This was good old fashion red neck fun as my bother would say.

No a very clear picture but here is a picture of one of the cars as it passed by at high speed.

What did I Forget.. Always something.



Check, Recheck and Recheck again. What did I miss that can tank the trip.   This is now something that's on my mind every time it goes idle.
- We always make a printed details booklet that I will need to copy on the last day.  Gannet charts as the summary page.  My associate Bill calls this "The SpreadSheet" as if it has a life of it's own. Reservation: Hotel,Car, Tours,  Tour info, Copies of passports, Copies of everything I can think of.  There are always last minute entries so this is the one thing that can not be packed until the last day.
- Because I'm on FF miles I take a different route back to Houston from London.  This means we will need to be at the Airport much earlier than expected to sort out Grace and the Kids. Once they are ok I can depart to my Terminal... Not Gate, Terminal as in bus ride for 10 min or so.   I leave 20 minute before they do so I need to get this right the first time, so glad I researched it.
 - Pwr is 240 in Egypt so a last min check of all the gizmo's is in order. Yes we found a few items that would have not passed the smoke test.  Kyle found an international transformer for both of his handheld gamer boxes to prevent that ever so disastrous pop that occurs when you just plugged a 120 device into a 240 outlet.
- Traveler checks for both Grace and I are signed and packed.
- I broke my spare pair of reading glasses the other day during an executive meeting. Was I wigging out or just spinning them too fast. For those of you who know me, both are possible.  "Grace please run to Costco. for another set",  she gave me the look and mutters something under her breath like
"Destructakon strikes again".  Needless to say I ended up with three new pairs a few days later.
-My back has been killing me.  I don't know if it's the stress, excitement of going or the fact that I have not been able to exercise lately.    Based on passed experience this is really really not a good thing before a plane ride.  My life long cure has always been, Aspirin to reduce the swelling then Swim and Bike for 30 to 45 minutes followed by stretching. Today was the swim and I hope to bike before we leave.  A good pressure point session always helps, thank you Kyle and Dad.
- Well with all the bags packed and details in order I guess we are off in a little under 19 hours.  Things will get crazy from here until departure so I'm hoping that the details go something like this starting in the morning.
- Get up early and play last minute catch up on emails and projects. Set up all the required notification on the various systems.   Grace will pack the luggage with last minute items and then pull the kids out of school at 1:30. I will show up around 2:15 ish  if all goes well.  We hope to make it to subway to pick up dinner for the plane ride at 2:45 and then to Diebold at 3:00 so Stuart can drop us at the Airport.  (Thanks Stuart) I have missed a few flight in my life due to gremlin's or would it be just poor planning.

Wish us luck in the Comments (The Adventure Begins)

Disconnection

Disconnection. ------To sever or interrupt the connection of or between. 

How do you disconnect from work to start on an Egypt adventure.  I have been pounding away nonstop of over a year now.  Short breaks for trips to other Islands but no real break.  I'm most likely not the best one too comment on this subject, but here is what I'm attempting. 

- Updated all the project notes so at least a trail of my madness can be followed.  An excellent TPM out of LA will be handling the technical support for our Hawaii customers. This was reassuring and really helped calm my nerves.  

- Updated all the people involved that will be handling the projects in my absences. We have a project list for the major accounts that we update three times a week.

- The phone is not going to be on once we leave Houston TX.  It would not work anyway because it is not connect to an international roaming account.

- Work computer is not going.  How good would the VPN connection be in Egypt. anyway. What if it was stolen???... My business life is in that box...That would suck.  Big time..

- The time zone in Egypt is 12 hours different from Hawaii.   In simple English 12:00 Noon in Hawaii is 12:00 Midnight in Egypt.  Hard to communicate with that big time difference.

- With all this said a disconnect is what will be happening.