Business Travel to Charlotte

Well, I just finished my first business travel experience -- a 1 day 0 night trip to Charlotte North Carolina for ARS (audience response system) training.

The realization in the evening prior to departure that to get a night's sleep of 7 hours I'd have to go to bed at 9pm (at the latest) didn't seem to phase me. I was more excited about going for a day trip to a non-bordering state, meeting many of the people I worked with over the last 6 months but never saw, experiencing a new state, and just being able to say I did it.

I ended up going to bed somewhere between 9:30 and 10pm; the washer was running. The sleep was not solid. A night person such as my self, despite being very tired, wasn't able to handle going to bed 3-4 hours earlier than normal. At any rate, 3:30am came fast -- time to get up. I took the clothes out of the washer and put them in the dryer, starting the longest/hottest cycle as i closed the door. About an hour later after my shower, tooth brushing, and shave (not in that order) I checked on the clothes in the dryer. The cycle was about 2 minutes away from finishing -- good enough for me. I opened the door and pulled out my lighter pair of jeans. They were still minimally damp along with everything else. I restarted the cycle, printed out my boarding pass, checked my email, updated my myspace status msg, did something else I don't remember anymore, and grabbed the hot, slightly-dryer jeans out of the dryer and put them on.

I took the Suncoast Parkay (tolls paid for as business expense =]) and made it to the airport in record time -- 35 minutes. I went through security, sat at the terminal, and departed at 7am sharp. The flight was quick -- 98 minutes on paper, 86 minutes actual.

After taking a taxi from the airport to the Charlotte office, I went for a quick tour of the office buildings, meeting everyone along the way. The day was spent getting trained on the ins and outs of the hardware, software, and logistics of the audience response system. Seems easy enough, just takes some kicking the software it around to get used to it.

For a late lunch, Brandon (the trainer) and I went to a Moe's/Tijuana Flats-like restaurant. 1 large steak quesadilla for me, a large chicken quesadilla for him.

The rest of the day came to a close incredibly fast. Brandon dropped me off at the airport around 6:30pm. The flight back to TPA was to depart at 7:55, but ended up getting delayed by about 44 minutes. Total flight time back was anticipated to be about 97 minutes, I think we made it in about 70.

I arrived at home sometime around 11pm, gathered all the receipts from my laptop bag and pockets, and entered the house -- lights were off and everyone was in bed. I guess I'll see everyone in the morning then (or afternoon if I wake up past 12). Physically, I'm a little disoriented in the context of elapsed time (ie: what day it is, etc.), but I suppose it's to be expected when as I only got 4 hours of sleep (Wednesday night), 4.5 hours of much interrupted sleep the night after, shocked my body by going to bed at 9:30pm, waking up at 3:15am, and getting home around 11pm.

It was a blast.