Uneventful, but that's not bad

Three days, three states. Aside from a ton of driving (Fiona is serving me well, and earning her keep), there wasn't much of note. Tuesday I'd planned to leave work early so I could arrive in Rockingham, NC before dark, but these days I can't seem to even leave on time, let alone early! I grabbed a Sonic chicken sandwich for dinner, then regretted it at 3 am when what I swear was a mild case of food poisoning came knocking on my door. All was well by morning, thank goodness. The training went just ok, because there was no cell reception in the computer lab, so people couldn't send practice calls. We had to do one demo call using the landline phone in the room, which is always less impressive.

Next up was Spartanburg, SC, and I had managed to make a list of interesting things to do there, but I ended up arriving pretty late and couldn't partake in any of them, such as the BMW factory tour or a visit to Walnut Grove Plantation. There was an outdoor outlet mall that was probably still open, but it was rainy so I opted to pass. I ended up dining on a Zaxby's Black and Blue salad while watching a Project Runway marathon in my hotel room. (Yay that Laura finally won a challenge!! And thank goodness creepy Vincent was ousted yet again.) The trainings on the second day were better, since people could launch their own calls, and there were two smaller sessions instead of one big one. And the data lady there was a pro, which made my life so much easier.

Thursday afternoon I drove home and enjoyed sleeping in my own bed. And watching two Grey's Anatomy reruns. (Can't wait for new episodes!) This morning I arose at 5 am to get to the training in South Hill, VA on time. Turns out I overestimated how long it would take to get there by about 45 minutes. So I sat in the parking lot and watched as kids got off the buses...then back on...then back off through the rear emergency exit. I was really puzzled at first until I realized it was a drill. I was thinking, "Man, they sure do things differently in Virginia!" The training went okay, although the equipment in the lab appeared to be from 1994 and four principals had their computers just suddenly shut down right in the middle of training. We got them set up on different machines...on the other side of the ginormous room...which meant I had to S-H-O-U-T so they could hear me over the school's whizzing servers which also happened to be housed in the room. Then it was off to train a lady at a government agency...something's not right when training one person takes twice as long as training 20! But she was nice.

Even though this training trip was not as exciting as some have been in the past, it was still a very pleasant change of pace to not have to go into the office. I think it will be my last for a while, unless we get a big new customer sometime soon. We'll be focusing on phone trainings, which can get a little repetitive, but I've got plenty of other projects to keep things mixed up.

I stopped off at the grocery store before I got home to pick up ingredients to make Rachael Ray's Florentine turkey meatballs tomorrow for my parents. One of the ingredients is frozen spinach, which from what I can gather from news articles, is safe to eat. Besides, after 20 minutes in a 350 degree oven, any little buggers would be history anyway.

And just because this post needs a little photo-spice, here's a pic I took last weekend. Any guesses on what it is?