It was craziness

So yesterday I overslept until 7am which for me is actually way oversleeping (since I normally now get up at 4:30) and since I did not want to battle traffic going south I decided to work from home. About two months ago my job gave me a new phone, a Palm Treo (similar to a blackberry in functionality) and it has been a kick ass device except for the times when it does not ring when someone calls or delays in receiving voice mails. Minor things when you consider its primary purpose is to be a phone.

At 4:30 in the evening I received notification of a voicemail arrival in my mailbox. When I played it, it was from a friend that went something like this, “Matthew this is C, I am going to hospital, need some help from you, call me at XXX-YYY-ZZZZ its 8:30am right now” Wow this is really serious, one problem however was that zzzz was said so quickly as to not be clear at all, second I am already 9 hours behind. I tried to make out the most common sounding combinations of zzzz and called about 30 numbers. No luck! I then had a brainstorm, I watch Law and Order all the time and they call the phone company to get all the phone logs, surely I can do the same thing. So I quickly call Cingular, and find out what works on TV does not work as well in real life. 45 minutes later they tell me that they can only give me the numbers when the bills comes out 17 days from today. I finally get their service director and explaining the situation, he understood and started working on a search program to get those numbers. In the meantime I also think World Wide Web, everything is available on the web. SO I am searching all sorts of stalker sites to get this phone number, unbelievable nothing there either. This girl is better than some agents for the CIA! It finally occurs to me 3+ hours later to find a mutual friend who happens to have the number (go figure, sometimes it is the easiest answer that takes the longest time). I finally get in touch with here at 9pm and she is ok. Minor problem and they gave her medication. The funny thing is my friends know that if they ever need anything, they can call me anytime. OOPS!

In the next two weeks I have one of the most hectic travel schedules since I have worked here. Next week I have to be in two all day meetings in CA, then have to take a red-eye flight to Texas for a 9am meeting the next day. The following week I have to be in NY Monday and Tuesday, fly back Wednesday for an all day meeting in CA on Thursday, then another red-eye flight to be in Florida by 10am on Friday. All told about 14,000 air miles in 9 days. The crazy thing is last year I flew a grand total of 95,600 miles. Now United has for their mileage plus program multiple levels those being 25,000, 50,000 and 100,000 miles. I have been 1k last year and was hoping to keep it, however they tell me a miss of 4,500 miles is not enough. UGHHH!! I am like 5% miss is SOOO close, please! Consider of course that over the course of the year I have given them over $100,000 in business. They say I can plead my case in a week. I will let you know how it goes, but come on United, I have helped you out of bankruptcy show a little appreciation!

Clearly life has become slight busier since the holidays. It was a nice relaxing break, but now we are back to 5^th gear again. Should be lots of interesting stories coming down the line.