The Emissions Guy

Atlanta to Rochester - I'm the lucky one here - the guy 2 rows back and on the other side is next to a "chatty kathy" - she was loud and non-stop! After a bit my seatmate - Garrett - looks and me and we both roll our eyes. Isn't it facinating what can spark conversation??? Garrett's on his way home after being gone for the week on business. As you may guess from the title here - he works with emissions - you know all the exhausts and wasts from manufacturing (and other stuff). He said that he does from time to time have to climb to the top of those tall stacks to check out the equipment - but most of his work is on the ground - being sure all the monitoring pieces are working correctly. While the job on the road can be long days and he's away from his family - he's happy to have a job - having lost his previous job during the "recession" - good attitude! :-) And in his spare time? He turkey hunts. I never had heard much about this sport - but it fits Garrett well. I learned all about the fun toys that you use to lure the turkeys to your area - small box-like drums and other whistles. He even had some great videos on his phone - wow are those turkeys BIG! He's looking forward to his next trip where one of his clients is going to take him out hunting. Good Luck Garrett!

My Fitness Pal

What a great time to find myself seated next to Thomey. We had both been out in New Mexico for work for the week. He was flying to meet up with his family in Gulfport for his son's lacrosse game. Conversation topics included work, education, flying, and more. The two that stand out the most. Talking about the devastation that still exists in New Orleans 6 years now after Hurricane Katrina hit. The French Quarter and many areas are back in shape - but there are some areas that are like deserted ghost towns. People that had lived there had passed down homes from generation to generation and many were low income. Now the homes are vacant - and it's near impossible to develop since the process of generations passing the homes down without a sale means there may be many "owners" entitled to the property - the little things I never would have considered. Thomey's house had recently been hit with storms. He showed me pictures of a huge uprooted tree in the front yard and buckets catching the water as it came through the roof. While inconvenient (?) - Thomey had a good attitude since there's nothing he could have done to prevent it. But he also knows he's lucky to have everyone safe and will deal with the clean-up. Another topic we touched on inspired the title for this chapter. With my new Smartphone we started talking "apps". Thomey has lost (23 or 43?) pounds - and he was contributing a lot of it to having my fitness pal on his phone. He monitors everything he eats - and it has really raised his level of awareness and making good choices. He explained that at the Atlanta airport he can look around - see all the places to eat - starts to punch in some things that sound good - and most times makes a smart choice using his head and fitness pal instead of his stomach. When I got home that night I downloaded the app - let's see if it helps me too! Thanks Thomey for sharing and being a delightful seatmate.

Mary Beth - A Fellow Gardener

I was working on my computer for an upcoming training and going through pictures of my garden. Mary Beth was beside me and happened to commment on how pretty my garden was. She had relaocated from the east coast to the desert of the southwest and missed all the beautiful flowers we have back east.

One plant which we have and never knew what it was she told me was a lepedeza - she obviously know her stuff.

Here's to happy plants!

My Scabble Buddies

This flight from Albuquerque to Atlanta has a bunch of folks heading to Italy for their sales reward trip. I'm fortunate to be sitting next to Don and Kathy. As part of their reward for making quota they also got Kindles. Kathy and Don included me in on the game of scrabble. It sure helped to pass the time. (although if you guess a wrong word it gives you a second chance - which seems like cheating) - Did you know Siderite was a word? Great job Kathy!!

I can tell they're all going to have a fun time in Italy! I sure hope to get there someday!

Fun in The Sun!

One of the coldest winters we've had in awhile - and my lucky seatmate is heading to San Juan for some warmth and sun with some friends. It's that early morning flight - but Jill has been up all night tending bar - then cam straight to the airport. While she went to school at RIT for graphic design - she found out - that much of the work in that field limits her creativity and she found herself being told what to do - and not able to use her creative side as much. So she's looking for another passion - Yoga and hopes to open up her own studio once she gets her license.

As for San Juan - we landed late - she had like 10 minutes to get to her connecting flight. Hope she made it!

Michael - a free spirit!

"If red touches yellow - you're a dead fellow, Red touches black - you're okay jack."
Michael is an adventurer - heading out to spend some time in Santa Fe with a friend to figure out what he wants to do in life. He plans on going rock climbing - and we talked about the creatures of the desert and snakes- evan talking about ones in Australia - Michael was an encyclopedia of information - apparently in Australia are the top most dangerous snakes, spiders etc - no wonder I didn't travel to the outback alone when I was visiting there - good thing!

Michael deserves credit here - as soon as I mentioned I was writing this book - he said I should include connections it made for me - what it made me think of etc - so I'll have to try that on for size to see where it leads me. Good Luck Michael - be safe!

Todd

When I mentioned to Todd at the end that I was writing this book - he paused a second and said "hopefully I didn't say anything I'll regret." We both laughed. Most of our conversation evolved around travel, tickets and driving etc.
For ticketes - we shared stories of our children and ourseleves - as well as how both of us could spend a day writing tickets for people using cell phones while driving by simply sitting on almost any corner in Rochester. It's now a law that you must be hands-free - but that is not what is happening.
Traveling - flights have gotten much fuller than a few years ago - when planes seemed almost empty and you could spread out a bit. Not to mention the snacks etc. Then the delays and how people get mad at the innnocent people behind th counters when weather is at fault. It's amazing.
Hope Todd's travel to Athens was fun.