Entries Tagged 'Travel' ↓

I have a lot of occasions to be thankful for Shannon but last night’s version stood out from the crowd.

Shannon left work and after an hour and a half she still wasn’t home (takes 45-60 minutes normally).  I was just about to call her when Shannon beat me to it.

“I’ve been stuck behind a huge wreck on I95 and I’m just about to get past it now.”  Thankfully for the truck driver, there were two off-duty Fort Lauderdale Fire Fighters on the Highway that pulled him from the wreckage of his burning big rig.

We commiserated as fellow commuters will.

“I’ve used up so much gas idling that I have to get off the freeway now and fill up.”

“OK Shan, drive safe and I’ll see you in a bit.”

10 minutes later…

“Julian I’ve just narrowly avoided a horrible accident!”

Shannon went on to explain that just after getting back on Interstate 95 two cars in front of her collided at high-speed. The only way to not run into them was to punch the accelerator to get around them. She had to swerve aggressively to the left, punch it, and watch as the cars spun around careening into each other, hoping that she’d out run them.

She did it. She went all the way from the second to right lane of 95 into the far-left breakdown lane and right up to the freeway divider wall. As Shannon squeaked by the wrecking cars she found herself steering back to the right and traveling at far too high a rate of speed. She applied the break a little. If you’re into driving you may know what comes next. Drift. The breaking lightens up the rear end of the vehicle and when combined with a little steering it induces a drift.

Imagine if you will, just avoiding a high-speed freeway accident in front of you and in your recovery mode you now find yourself in a high speed drift going down the middle of the freeway. Shannon said that after wards she realized that in that momentary drift she closed her eyes for a fraction of second while she waited for the vehicles behind her to smack into our Toyota 4-Runner. Fortunately, her instincts stayed true and she turned into the drift with a counter steer move. If she had gone the other way with that steering wheel it would have been a horrible rollover.  Shannon’s not in to driving like I am, and she hasn’t practiced drifting and counter steering as I used to on the snowy roads back in New Hampshire, but her driving instincts were good all the way around.

Those instincts may have saved her life yesterday, from the initial move to get around the wrecking cars, to punching the accelerator, to the counter steer move to extricate herself from a potentially lethal high-speed drift. The force of the avoidance and drift moves slammed her head into the side of the door jam and she has a bump on the head to remember her near-miss by. Shannon also has the typical post-accident muscle soreness to boot. You have to say that it’s amazing as well, that the 4-Runner, with its high center of gravity, never rolled. Good on ya Toyota.

All I can say is THANK YOU. For whatever real world driving skills and unseen forces that brought her home to us safe last night. THANK YOU.

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!

Just this morning mum sent me a commercial that has fun with the typical ‘women driver’ stereotype. I’ve had the good fortune to be around a lot of good women drivers – starting with my mum.  On the topic of my mum’s driving: don’t ever take her on at a traffic light – she’ll shame you.

So for a little contrast to this story I post this piece of fun in celebration of our good fortune. Good on ya Shannon, I love you!

Shannon and I are standing in line outside the hotel last night waiting for a cab to our restaurant when the Valet suddenly suggests that another guest can give us a ride, because “he’s headed to the same place you guys are.” We assumed the other hotel guest must have heard our request for a taxi and volunteered to drive us in his car. But, as we saw the expression on our fellow guest’s face a short time later, it became apparent that this little favor was an idea all the valet’s own. Shannon and I wondered later how often he connects guests with rides???

We all quickly recognized the comedy in the situation and started to tell travel stories and joke about serial killers. Yup. The best part was that Gary, as our new friend told us his name, is a VP in the travel industry. He’s been all over the world many times over and has the typical traveler’s spirit about him that makes events like these something you begin to look for – not shy away from. We ended up having a great conversation with him over the drink we offered to buy him in return for his kindness.

That valet had better instincts that we initially game him credit for. We got into a conversation with Gary about the travel company he works for (Adelman Travel Group) and among many items discussed were his work for the family run business with over 300 employees. My favorite? That the company founder, Ollie Adelman, still comes to the office every day, which at first doesn’t strike you as unusual until you hear that Mr. Adelman is 92. Gary lavished praise on Mr. Adelman and his family who are all highly involved in the day-to-day operations. Unlike many kids of successful parents there’s surprisingly no talk of silver spoon behavior with Adelman’s kids. In fact, they go out of their way apparently to act like all the other employees – receiving no special treatment. Gary spoke with true affection and pride for their culture.

Being students of business we were not surprised to hear some of the ingredients of Mr. Adelman’s success. Trusting in your employees, and giving them the autonomy to make their own decisions have been central to all but eliminating employee turnover. Treating people like humans has created fiercely loyal staff. During the terrible times in the travel industry post 9/11, when most travel companies were laying people off in droves, Adelman refused to do so. Instead, they asked employees who could afford to take unpaid vacation to do so and let others of lesser means continue to work full time. All voluntarily mind you.

With all that Shannon and I work on and write about with the recruiting (or talent acquisition) industry it was refreshing to hear a real-world example of not just one person, but a whole family, and group of 300+ people doing great things. Ollie Adelman even wrote a book about it called All Things Are Possible that we plan to read.

What a great adventure!

Shannon and I fulfilled an important dream this week when I started work on a contract for her boss, thereby giving us the opportunity to work together again. It’s been six years since Shannon and I met through our work and worked at the same company. Even then, we only had a very short while of being able to work together, hearing each other’s voice on group conference calls over the miles that separated San Francisco and Miami. Even the little bit we experienced was enough to know that we wanted a lot more.

I flew up to Atlanta Monday, arrived at her corporate offices there in the afternoon, and had the pleasure of meeting many people on her team. Today I enjoyed a good meeting with Shannon and her boss as we discussed the ins-and-outs of our project and I cruised around their offices taking in all the corporate sights and sounds that I’ve grown to actually miss. Well, not that much, but it was still good to be in a real board room again around smart people.

It was a long but worthwhile journey. We made it up to Pennsylvania to see Mary before she passed away – mission accomplished. That didn’t make Mary’s death any easier but we felt fortunate to have seen her while she was still awake and able to interact with us.

My post here is to document our travels. Starting on Thursday February 9th I packed up the kids and headed across the state to Tampa where I picked up Shannon from her office there (The David Group has a Tampa office that Shannon is now responsible for). Shannon had left that previous Monday for presentations and meetings. It was a nice 3:30 hour trip over to Tampa with good weather and well behaved babies all the way. My Rand McNally maps gave me a nice route that cut across the state well before Hwy 4 up in Orlando, which is the more traditional trek. I would go this way again and in fact if the trip was to Shan’s office I would have just stayed on Hwy 60 as it comes out RIGHT next to Shan’s office. This would compare to the route I went that cut over to Hwy 4 just east of Tampa.

After a two-hour lay over in Tampa where the kids tore up Shan’s Tampa office we got on the road to Pennsylvania on I275 to I75 North. We took I75 north about 80 miles to Hwy 27 that led us shortly to Hwy 301 North (also Hwy 441), which moves you from the west coast, northeast across the state. Before we got off I75 on Hwy 27 though we had to stop for dinner. I looked up Italian restaurants on Yahoo! Local on my phone and found a Carabba’s one exit before our Hwy 27 exit that we would be taking. As we were getting off the freeway Shannon joked that it would be good to see a Chucky Cheese so we could let the kids run around before they went to sleep overnight in the truck since we planned to drive straight through. This was really just a play on my hate for Chucky since my ex-wife insisted that Max and Charlie have ALL their birthdays there. I’m not exaggerating – while they HAD birthday parties with friends EVERY one of them was at Chucky’s place in Dublin, CA. Argh! So, it was pretty funny that as soon as we pulled off the freeway we say Chucky Cheese. Needless to say – I survived Chucky and the kids had a great time running around. Of course, John now loves Chucky Cheese. That’s not a problem so long as he has birthday parties in other places, in addition to a trip to the Chucksters for ONE.

That night was a long hard drive. The kids would wake up and let us know in no uncertain terms that they were very unhappy with us. At one point Julia was so upset and crying that she threw up on Shannon. All in a day’s road trip when you’re traveling with small kids.

We got through the night after taking 301N to I10E towards Jacksonville where we steered clear of the city on I295 to I95. From there we tore up I95 through Florida, Georgia and South Carolina. We took I26 in to Columbia, SC, home of The State, a newspaper and online site I used to work for at Knight Ridder Digital. From Columbia we turned north on I77 to Charlotte. Charlotte looked cool, at least from the skyline that I saw at around 4 or 5AM. Another KR market, it was funny to look at the downtown and think about the office Tryon and all the people I worked with over five years while I somehow never once made it to the Charlotte market for a visit. In fact this was the first time I had ever been to Charlotte.

After a week and a half in Pennsylvania we drove home starting late Monday afternoon, February 20, 2006. We went to Mary’s funeral and wake at the Eagles club and then went back to Shannon’s Dad’s to pack. That wasn’t easy and we got out of New Brighton at 4:10PM. We couldn’t stand the idea of going home the same way we had driven up to PA, even though it added about 125 miles to the journey. On the way up we actually left out of Tampa so that changed things quite a bit as well. We took I76 across the state for a ways until I70 turns south and heads into Maryland. This route continued through Hagerstown, Frederic and Rockville Maryland before we got into to the outskirts of DC on I270. DC and Rockville were by far the most visually interesting parts of the trip – at least for night driving. We saw the Gannett headquarters building that was impressive at night all lit up. We looked up at an overpass at one point in Rockville and saw Gude Drive. Another branch of the Gude family made it big in Rockville and Chevy Chase MD and there are all sorts of things named after them. Even though I knew of Gude Drive in Rockville it was really strange to see it. There were tons of other good-looking skyscrapers in this general area that were fun to look at as well. We merged onto I495 to I95 for the long ride home. We made it through Arlington and my favorite, Manassas, which is dubbed Man-asses for the remainder of the trip. We planned to run around 6:30 before finding a hotel for the night. We pretty much did that and stopped around 12:30AM on Tuesday, February 21. We stayed at a Sleep Inn in Stony Creek, Virginia. Comfortable and easy. The babies had been sleeping in the car so when we got them up to get in the hotel they didn’t want to go back to sleep. After about an hour they finally went to bed and Shannon and I got to bed.

The next day we pulled out of the parking lot at 8:13AM for our long push home down I95. We had good weather all the way and made decent time. Had some excellent Hardee’s burgers along the way. Hardee’s is the same as Carl’s Jr. in the West that I particularly like and have missed since moving out to Florida from Cali. For the record there is one in Florida – provided you are willing to drive a few hundred miles to Jacksonville! We had some light left around Yulee, Florida so we stopped to find a park for the kids to stretch their legs. No parks so we ended up at a McDonald’s playland. It worked out well and served its purpose. Let me just say again that traveling with small kids does in fact suck ass. From there we pushed on through Jacksonville, another town that I had never seen in the Flesh. It has a nice skyline and definite Florida feel, especially when viewed from the south as the City sits on the water and around a nice curve of intracoastal waterway that is in the shape of a crescent. At least, that’s how I remember it. Soon after we were going past St. Augustine and I was wishing we had the time to stop and visit. St. Augustine is recognized as the oldest city in the U.S. and has a great historic area. In addition, it’s also home to the Golf World of Fame and resort. Just south of there is Ponte Vedra, Florida which is where the TPC is located (Tournament Players Championship Course). The TPC venue introduced Golf fans to so called stadium golf course viewing and is home to the annual Tournament Players Championship, which has the feel of a major. The course is amazing and I would love to play it with Shannon some day. We noticed a restaurant along the freeway here owned by the Murphy Brothers (so called) – Bill and Brian Doyle Murphy’s place no doubt.

After a piece (about 100 miles) we went through Daytona, where Shannon and I had been almost exactly five years before for the Daytona 500. Well, I was there on business for the Daytona 500 but we were there to see each other and it was a magical trip and experience. Again, the desire to pull off the freeway and stay a piece was really strong. We still owe each other a longer motorcycle ride up in Daytona, after having rented a HD there to put around on. It was too short a ride though and we saw one of the great rides there in the dark. We want to go back in the light when it is a bit warmer and do the same route.

From there the rest of the trip felt long….It felt like it would never end. But, we finally got home around 10:30PM on Tuesday night.

P.S. I conveniently left out the part where Shannon and I missed a freeway exit in Virginia. By the time Shannon noticed that our freeway sign said South on it we had traveled a little over 50 miles! So, we added 100 miles to our trip on the way up.  We ran into the problem in Wyethville, Virginia where I77 hits I81.  Instead of exiting to stay on I77 we managed to end up in I81 south going towards Marion Virginia. We almost made it to the Tennesee border as well. We stopped in a K-Mart which didn’t look like it had changed since 1975 and bought a Rand McNally map. There we figured we were in Bristol, Viginia. Ouch.

Today we lay Mary to rest. Shannon’s half brother Shaun has decided that he does not want to be a pall bearer so I will be standing in for him and joining Mary’s brothers, including Shannon’s dad Pat and his brothers Dan and Sam and another in-law, Dan Patch to carry Mary. It will be a long day with services starting at the Funeral Home at 10AM, going to the Catholic Church and then on to the cemetary and finally the Wake rounding things up at 3PM at Pat’s club, the Eagles.

From there we jump right into the truck and begin motoring home to Florida. We’ll stop for the night this time around somewhere in Virginia and then get up early the next day to finish off the drive. We are so looking forward to being home to see the rest of our family, our lonely dogs, and to get back in our normal flow. Did I mention that it will be good to feel my toes again?