My recent trip to the Con was something of a whirlwind, I packed in only a small carry-on suitcase, so, of course, I was short on cubic inches when it came time to pack for the return trip.<\/p>\n
But I had a cunning plan, ha-ha. See, I’d learned we were going to the KOA Wrap Party in August (part of the payback for the Con trip), so anything I left behind we could simply pick up next month. Extra clothes? No problem. Couple of read books? No sweat. My kit? Hey, no travel plans between now and then, so what’s the harm?<\/p>\n
You know where this is going …<\/p>\n
This morning I had just dropped off Katherine at Summer School when my cell phone rang.<\/p>\n
“Hey, Dave, it’s the Big Kahuna.” Actually, he gave his name. It was the CIO.<\/p>\n
“Hi, BK.” [Insert pleasantries here.]<\/p>\n
“Dave, I was wondering if you could do me a favor.”<\/p>\n
Never! I mean, why would I do a favor for you, the CIO of the corporation, my boss’s boss, the guy who holds my career in your hands?<\/em> “Sure, BK, what’s up?”<\/p>\n “Can you be in Detroit next Thursday?”<\/p>\n No! Never! Detroit?! Are you mad? I’m sure I have something on TV Thursday night! Besides, why would I respond to a personal request from the CIO? What, do you think I’m some sort of corporate lackey to be ordered hither and thither as some sort of favor to a Senior Vice President?<\/em> “Sure. I don’t think that will be a problem.<\/p>\n The BK explained that there was some sort of big multi-hundred-million-dollar job going on up there for a Major Automobile Manufacturer, and they (them? us?) needed someone to analyze some software systems to see if they would work for the task. (Gulp.) No guarantees or certification necessary, just some educated eyes to review things.<\/p>\n “Sure, no problem.”<\/p>\n “Fine. [List of other major managers], one of them will contact you about this. Ever been in Detroit?”<\/p>\n Is that a deal-breaker?<\/em> “Nope, never have.”<\/p>\n “It’s my home town. Not the greatest of cities, but Michigan is nice. Fine. Well, keep me apprised of what you’re doing.”<\/p>\n Interesting. Major thang if there’s personal interest in it. High profile, high risk, high opportunity. Eep!<\/em> “Cool. I’ll be in touch.”<\/p>\n “Thanks, Dave.”<\/p>\n So. Off to Detroit sometime next week. No clue for what, or how long, or why, or what’s involved.<\/p>\n And looks like it’s time to put together a new kit. Of course.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" My recent trip to the Con was something of a whirlwind, I packed in only a small carry-on suitcase, so, of course, I was short on cubic inches when it…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[21,26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6713","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-job-jollies","category-travel"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":36651,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2013\/06\/02\/a-trip-to-scotland-finally-illustrated.html","url_meta":{"origin":6713,"position":0},"title":"A trip to Scotland, finally illustrated","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 2-Jun-13 10:36pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Hey, it only took three months for me to get the pictures posted. That must be some kind of record. 2013-03 - Scotland In March, Dave had a chance to travel to Glasgow on business. He also was there long enough to get a little extra touring and photography time\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":39217,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2013\/10\/16\/hey-dave-you-just-finished.html","url_meta":{"origin":6713,"position":1},"title":"“Hey, Dave, you just finished …","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 16-Oct-13 5:40pm","format":false,"excerpt":"\"Hey, Dave, you just finished a short, intense, mysterious business trip! What are you going to do now?\" \"I'M GOING TO DISNEYLAND!\"","rel":"","context":"In "~Tweets"","block_context":{"text":"~Tweets","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/tweets"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1557,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2001\/12\/11\/synopsis.html","url_meta":{"origin":6713,"position":2},"title":"Synopsis","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 11-Dec-01 3:59pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Through a comedy of errors, we discovered that our corporate license for all our anti-virus software expires on the 31st of December. We did a crash course evaluating whether we...","rel":"","context":"In "Job Jollies"","block_context":{"text":"Job Jollies","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/job-jollies"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4074,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/02\/21\/uk03_the_stage.html","url_meta":{"origin":6713,"position":3},"title":"UK03 – The Stage is Set","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 21-Feb-03 7:19am","format":false,"excerpt":"So back last fall, the church Margie and I go to had a big fund-raising auction, wherein various parishioners donated things and then folks bid on them. It was wildly...","rel":"","context":"In "Travel"","block_context":{"text":"Travel","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/travel"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":30564,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/10\/12\/trying-to-banish-the-reputation-of-dave-hill-international-man-of-myster.html","url_meta":{"origin":6713,"position":4},"title":"Trying to banish the reputation\u00a0of "Dave Hill: International Man of Myster…","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 12-Oct-12 1:49pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Trying to banish the reputation\u00a0of \"Dave Hill: International Man of Mystery\"Actually, my regular pulling aside by border agents and inability to pre-check-in for flights went mostly away when I started making sure my travel was registered with my full name. Still, the border stuff has been a bit of a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6928,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2004\/11\/30\/travel_tales.html","url_meta":{"origin":6713,"position":5},"title":"Travel tales","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 30-Nov-04 9:31pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Thoughts regarding my trip from Denver to Atlanta: Whoever the hell thought that folks traveling on the Monday after Thanksgiving was a good idea was, ah, nuts. There was a...","rel":"","context":"In "Food & Drink"","block_context":{"text":"Food & Drink","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/food-drink"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6713","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6713"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6713\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}