Richmond

Yesterday afternoon I picked up my Chevy Cobalt from Enterprise and headed to Richmond VA for work. Not the slightly sporty 2-door, but rather, the full-on dork-mobile 4-door. It takes about 5 hours to get there if you drive the speed limit, and I tried to do just that since it was raining.

I didn't feel like driving downtown to my favorite Mexican place for dinner last night because it was rainy and dark, so I just ate at a place near the hotel.

I really didn't want to go to this training (I never do) because I'd seen the agenda already and knew the topics really had no value to me and my work. Basically it would be a waste of my time to be there but I had no choice. So I plastered on a cheerful face and pretended to be excited to be there with the rest of the lot.

One of the more irritating things about being away for training like this is that my boss' boss doesn't leave ANY time in the day for us to check our email and voice mail. Its as if he thinks our work just stops while we're away. We are literally scheduled from 9:00 until 5:00 or 5:30. They bring in lunch (which consisted of pizza today) and we get approximately 40 minutes to eat, use the bathroom, and try to squeeze in a quick look at our email or a return call to a client. So we usually wind up needing to come in at 8:00 to get a little work done before the session starts, and then work in our hotel rooms that night after the group dinner/outing. I find this to be even more intrusive into my personal time.

Tonight's group dinner/outing turned out to be bowling. It was actually fun! I had not been bowling in I don't know how many years. But for "dinner" we had chicken fingers, loaded potato skins, and nachos - after having pizza for lunch. My body actually began to crave a green vegetable.

As we were leaving the bowling alley at 8:45 someone suggested we go have some 'real food'. Although I really just wanted to go back to the hotel, I agreed to join them, thinking I might get something to eat with some actual nutrition in it. But no - we wound up at a sports bar that served a broader array of the same deep-fried garbage from the bowling alley. I drank a diet soda and then when their food arrived I quietly slipped out and returned to the hotel.

Hopefully tomorrow will go by quickly!

Crush du Jour: Ambrose Olsen