Please let us know if this works...

A week ago Saturday, I left for Georgia for a few days of meetings. It was the usual type of stuff there - long, drawn-out meetings that are as organized and coherent as a herd of cats, followed by long dinners with many, surprisingly concise, coherent toasts, followed by not nearly enough sleep, hopefully a workout, then rinse and repeat. It was a good few days though and we got a lot accomplished.

Thursday morning, bright and early, I headed to the airport and flew to Vienna, rented a car (my first time driving in continental Europe) and drove to a trade show in Brno, Czech Republic. As this was my first time driving in Europe, and the signs aren't in English in either Czech of Austria, I made sure the rental car company gave me a GPS. Upon receiving the GPS device, the rental car representative said the following to me (believe me, not making this up) - "You're the first person to rent this model, so we're really interested to know if it works." Hmmm....well, if I end up lost in rural Slovakia, I'll be sure to give you some good constructive feedback. More on that later...

I made it to Brno without a hitch. Driving across the border was a total non-event, it's more of a production to drive across the New York, Pennsylvania border. The "Welcome to Czech" sign was smaller than the "Welcome To Osceola" sign in the Tug Hill. Overall, it was pretty underwhelming. Brno was a cool looking city, even though I was only there for a day and spent most of it working. Our local partner there, took us to dinner Thursday night at a touristy, medieval restaurant where we had some good Czech beer and ate some BBQ ribs. The ribs weren't much to write home about, I'll stick to Dinosaur, but the beer was all Czech beer is cracked up to be.

Back to the GPS...the following day after spending all day at the trade show, then breaking down the booth and packing up our equipment to ship back, I drove back to Vienna. I was supposed to stay at a hotel near the airport (our travel department told me it was within a mile or two of the airport), then fly home the next day. My GPS couldn't find the hotel name, but did find the street address, so I plugged it in and started the 1.5 hour drive back to Vienna. Once I got into Vienna, Mr. GPS started taking me through downtown Vienna, lots of traffic, strange traffic patterns and a stop light every 35 feet or so. Having never been to Vienna, I didn't really have much of a choice. Anyways, after about 45 minutes of stop and go traffic, I arrive at my destination...only it's a random house, not a hotel and I'm in a residential neighborhood, no hotels even close. So, I type in the airport in as my new destination, it's gotta be close, right?...recalculating...estimated 40 minute drive away, WTF??? I'VE HAVEN'T GOTTEN A DECENT NIGHT OF SLEEP IN 7 DAYS, FEEL LIKE CRAP, HAVE ALREADY BEEN DRIVING FOR 2.5 HOURS, AND I HAVE TO DRIVE 40 MINUTES BACK THROUGH ALL THAT STOP AND GO BS!! I'm not sure if I actually said that out loud or not, but I was pretty close to a total meltdown...anyways, I drove back to the airport and couldn't find my hotel after a lap around the airport. I do a "Close Hotel" search on my trusty GPS, find a hotel by the same name as mine 5 miles away, not too bad, not 1 mile, but whatever, I just need to get some food and sleep and everything will be ok...drive to hotel, which takes about 20 minutes with traffic, park in ramp garage, lug all my stuff up to the front desk...Sir, you're at the wrong hotel, you're hotel is by the airport....AHHHHHHHHHHH...lug all my stuff back to the car, drive back to the airport and finally find my hotel. It turns out, it's not only on the airport's complex, it's the very first thing you see when you exit the arrivals hall in Vienna, the walk from the rental car drop-off to the terminal was longer than the walk from the hotel. All in all, the GPS and my own stupidity turned a 1.5 hour drive into a 4 hour drive...morale was not high at this point...

Adding to my morale issues is that I picked up some type of bug somewhere along the way that hit me pretty hard Friday, which also made the trans-atlantic flight home the next day not exactly one to remember, but I made it home and the worst seems to be over. I'm already to the point where I can look back on this trip and remember a lot of really positive experiences and not the lovely Hertz agent that asked me how the GPS worked out for me.

New stuff...

I finally broke down and added a mountain bike to my collection of training tools (they're actually toys, but "training tools" sounds more legit). For several years now, friends of mine have been telling me that I would love mountain biking and couldn't believe that I didn't have one. So, I finally pulled the trigger and ordered this bad boy through our bike shop sponsor Towpath Bike.

Based on my first two rides, that's the last time in this bike's life that it'll look that clean, but that's the point. My second ride was quite the trial by fire, I went with three other experienced riders, two of them (Jason and Duncan) I've skied and road biked quite a bit with and they assured me that the ride we were set to do was tough, but wasn't super-technical, meaning, you'll be going up and down a lot of really big hills, but you won't be riding over logs, through creeks and through narrow single track with big trees on both sides of you. That might have been the original plan, but Duncan's friend Andy came as well and called an audible. Instead of the previously planned route, we ended up going to Stid Hill. The first thing we did after entering park was ride through a creek, which I got about halfway through, panicked, stopped pedaling and promptly fell over. After about an hour of trying to keep up with these guys, but also continuously falling off, coming unclipped, or having to run with my bike because there were too many "obstacles" in the way, Jason finally came clean that this particular route was as technically hard as any single track area around here. So, that made me feel a little better, because up until that point, I was struggling to stay on the bike at all! All three of the guys were extremely patient and helpful and by the end of the 3+ hour ride, I feel like I was monumentally better than when we started and had a blast. I still have a ways to go to really improve, but it was a great time and I am very excited to now have this option for days when the weather might be suspect or when I just don't feel like eating the constant wind that you're exposed to road-riding in this area. Additionally, it seems to be a killer tough workout almost all the time, especially on trails like we rode on Sunday, you are constantly working your entire body just to keep the thing upright.

On a different note, I'm headed to Georgia tomorrow and may end up going to Czech Republic as well during this trip, which will be a first for me in that country. Should be an interesting adventure...