...is not, as some people readily believe, the Patron Saint of Drunks. Neither is he the owner of the Cadillac Ranch. Nope, eponymous St Charles does not exist, rather the name was conceived by a lawyer, once the inhabitants of the city realised that their preferred name "Charleston" was already taken.... by Charleston.
St Charles is a small town about an hour from Chicago. It consists of a couple of gas stations, a cheap outlet mall and a training centre. The local booze industry is kept running, even growing, by the steady strean of coporate trainees coming through the Q Centre (the aforementioned training centre).
And this training centre is where I have been for the past 3 days, learning how to teach the students who will be arriving here this weekend. Presentation techniques, conversation techniques, verbal and non-verbal communication skills are all being learned - a very helpful couple of days. Tonight is our first group night out at the Cadillac Ranch. For those of you who have ever seen "Porky's" - it's a similar bar, only Porky's had slightly more class, and much better music. It's going to be a killer of a night - however we're doing it in the name of teaching - so at least we know what our students will be in for on Friday mornings - it helps us to work more efficiently..... sound convincing? No - I didn't think so..... It's an 8am start tomorrow - with the opportunity on Friday morning to choose between the sedate wake up call of your alarm clock, or the rather more official wake up call of 2 big guys with batons, coming into your room at 8:05..... Personally, I'd choose the former.....
So that's a brief update from Chicago - it's been snowing, the rivers and the streams are frozen (there is a big pond just inches from the bar - frozen solid. Cue big "Rich-shaped" hole by the end of the week).......
Ciao for now!
Rich
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Apologies I'm so bad at blogging...
Hi All
Well first of all I'm very sorry for being so bad at updating my blog.
However I got a nudge in the right direction from a fellow blogger (thanks Petra), so before I crack on with the updates, here's a link back to Petra's blog... Petra, for those of you who don't know, was one of my travelling buddies in New Zealand, she had an excellent little car and introduced me to the Killers, climbing mountains shrouded in fog, and walking in Lord of the Rings country. Her blog is at: http://fatandredstravels.blogspot.com...
OK - so where am I now. I'm sat at home, in North Yorkshire, after finally recovering from my jet lag. We landed in Manchester from Canada early on Sunday morning - early being an understatement - we landed at 4am. I can never relax on a plane, with the exception being after I have had copious amount of red wine, so you can imagine I wasn't feeling at all great first thing on Sunday. Stupidly, I gave in to my sleep demons and went straight to bed, signalling 3 days of making toast at 2am and watching TV into the early hours - the joys of jet lag!
And this week has been incredibly busy. As I am now unassigned from any project, I have been helping at graduate recruitment fairs around the North of England. So I was in Leeds on Monday, Lancaster on Tuesday, Sheffield yesterday. Today I'm heading off to Lancaster for a black tie recruitment event (ok, ok so I guess it's not so terrible after all ;) - and I hear there is a live band and a chocolate fountain to look forward to.... Then I have a big presentation to the school of Management tomorrow on "What is Management Consultancy" - and having been asked that question about 50 times at the careers fair yesterday, I don't think this will be a problem to get through.
So when I haven't been the face of my Company to various institutions of learning - I've been organising my next trip. This Sunday I fly to Chicago. "Why?" you ask, "it's minus 19 degrees in Chicago?". Good question. I'm going there to undertake Faculty for the new intake into the Company. 1 week of pre-reads and organisation, then the students arrive and we spend 2 weeks taking them through a mock-project during the days, and trying to make sure they don't spend too much time at Cadillac Ranch during the evenings ;), to make sure we see them first thing the next day....
Which means organising my packing, car parking (my flight is at 6am on a Sunday morning, so I'll have another night of not sleeping), pre-reads, travel at the other end, accommodation prior to the course. But I'm well on the way now, so fingers crossed there will be no major problems.
So - all being well, my next update will be from the Windy City.... (and I will try to be more regular at these updates!)
Ciao for now!
Rich
Well first of all I'm very sorry for being so bad at updating my blog.
However I got a nudge in the right direction from a fellow blogger (thanks Petra), so before I crack on with the updates, here's a link back to Petra's blog... Petra, for those of you who don't know, was one of my travelling buddies in New Zealand, she had an excellent little car and introduced me to the Killers, climbing mountains shrouded in fog, and walking in Lord of the Rings country. Her blog is at: http://fatandredstravels.blogspot.com...
OK - so where am I now. I'm sat at home, in North Yorkshire, after finally recovering from my jet lag. We landed in Manchester from Canada early on Sunday morning - early being an understatement - we landed at 4am. I can never relax on a plane, with the exception being after I have had copious amount of red wine, so you can imagine I wasn't feeling at all great first thing on Sunday. Stupidly, I gave in to my sleep demons and went straight to bed, signalling 3 days of making toast at 2am and watching TV into the early hours - the joys of jet lag!
And this week has been incredibly busy. As I am now unassigned from any project, I have been helping at graduate recruitment fairs around the North of England. So I was in Leeds on Monday, Lancaster on Tuesday, Sheffield yesterday. Today I'm heading off to Lancaster for a black tie recruitment event (ok, ok so I guess it's not so terrible after all ;) - and I hear there is a live band and a chocolate fountain to look forward to.... Then I have a big presentation to the school of Management tomorrow on "What is Management Consultancy" - and having been asked that question about 50 times at the careers fair yesterday, I don't think this will be a problem to get through.
So when I haven't been the face of my Company to various institutions of learning - I've been organising my next trip. This Sunday I fly to Chicago. "Why?" you ask, "it's minus 19 degrees in Chicago?". Good question. I'm going there to undertake Faculty for the new intake into the Company. 1 week of pre-reads and organisation, then the students arrive and we spend 2 weeks taking them through a mock-project during the days, and trying to make sure they don't spend too much time at Cadillac Ranch during the evenings ;), to make sure we see them first thing the next day....
Which means organising my packing, car parking (my flight is at 6am on a Sunday morning, so I'll have another night of not sleeping), pre-reads, travel at the other end, accommodation prior to the course. But I'm well on the way now, so fingers crossed there will be no major problems.
So - all being well, my next update will be from the Windy City.... (and I will try to be more regular at these updates!)
Ciao for now!
Rich
Monday, February 11, 2008
Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow...
Hi All
Just a brief update before I go join the power hounds in some of the best snow BC has seen for 20 years. It has snowed for hours, every day, since we arrived. It's been a great few days - with the only down side being that a snowmobile ran over my goggles.....twice. Luckily I wasn't wearing them at the time, however it did lead to an interesting exchange of words....
Other than that, it's been great. There are plenty of runs here - although the resort isn't massive - ranging from the rather sedate T-bars, to 3 or 4 runs which are classified as "extreme". Tomorrow we're heading to a different mountain - and we're reliably informed that the runs here pale in comparison to the difficulty there will be tomorrow.
Photos will follow I'm sure - however until my next entry - happy February!
Rich
Just a brief update before I go join the power hounds in some of the best snow BC has seen for 20 years. It has snowed for hours, every day, since we arrived. It's been a great few days - with the only down side being that a snowmobile ran over my goggles.....twice. Luckily I wasn't wearing them at the time, however it did lead to an interesting exchange of words....
Other than that, it's been great. There are plenty of runs here - although the resort isn't massive - ranging from the rather sedate T-bars, to 3 or 4 runs which are classified as "extreme". Tomorrow we're heading to a different mountain - and we're reliably informed that the runs here pale in comparison to the difficulty there will be tomorrow.
Photos will follow I'm sure - however until my next entry - happy February!
Rich
Friday, February 1, 2008
The Trip
You might be wondering why I am writing this blog. Well, for the past 16 months I've been working on a Client project for my firm - Accenture, based predominantly in the Netherlands, but with extended periods of time in France, the UK, the Nordic countries and Spain. And, fear of flying aside, it has been an incredible experience. I've met some fantastic people, learned an incredible amount and (again, the flying aspect aside). I've enjoyed myself immensely.
However after 16 months I felt it was time to move on and try my hand at something new. So I have a couple of travelling adventures coming up before I officially return to staffed work in July, and this blog is my way of keeping in touch with family and friends. I can't promise any great literary work, but it will be funny - (my travels are always funny - usally at the expense of myself). Whether this involves imprisonment by a leading hotel chain in the Netherlands, being violently deprived of my electronic equipment in Spain, having my passport damaged - and most of my wallet contents stolen, in New Zealand, getting altitude sickness in Bolivia or getting thrown off high speed Ostriches in South Africa, I hope you have as much reading about my travels, I have....er....travelling them.
So - the trip.... what's in store:
Wednesday 6th Feb -- Canada (duration 10 days)
Saturday 23rd Feb - USA (duration 3 weeks)
Friday 21st March - Africa (duration - > 6 weeks)
--- incorporating 7 various African countries
Wednesday 7th May - India (duragion > 6 weeks)
...sometime in June / July - back home (hopefully :S)
So - thanks for dropping by - stick this URL in your favourites - and happy reading!
Cheers
Rich
(now safely on the ground!)
However after 16 months I felt it was time to move on and try my hand at something new. So I have a couple of travelling adventures coming up before I officially return to staffed work in July, and this blog is my way of keeping in touch with family and friends. I can't promise any great literary work, but it will be funny - (my travels are always funny - usally at the expense of myself). Whether this involves imprisonment by a leading hotel chain in the Netherlands, being violently deprived of my electronic equipment in Spain, having my passport damaged - and most of my wallet contents stolen, in New Zealand, getting altitude sickness in Bolivia or getting thrown off high speed Ostriches in South Africa, I hope you have as much reading about my travels, I have....er....travelling them.
So - the trip.... what's in store:
Wednesday 6th Feb -- Canada (duration 10 days)
Saturday 23rd Feb - USA (duration 3 weeks)
Friday 21st March - Africa (duration - > 6 weeks)
--- incorporating 7 various African countries
Wednesday 7th May - India (duragion > 6 weeks)
...sometime in June / July - back home (hopefully :S)
So - thanks for dropping by - stick this URL in your favourites - and happy reading!
Cheers
Rich
(now safely on the ground!)
The End is Near!
As I was going through airline security at Schiphol airport, yesterday, I went through the usual steps of taking my coat off, taking my suit jacket off, taking my laptop out of my bag and placed all of these on the conveyor belt. Suddenly the Securitas man looked at me, with a wild, if not manic look in his eyes, and said softly "The end is near!".
Now - why would this have bothered me? Well - for those of you who have worked with me during the last 16 months, you will know that I have a perennial fear of flying. Every bump, every sway of the plane is met, not with the usual indifference you would expect from a frequent flyer, but a white knuckle, seat clutching fear, a fear, no doubt irrational in every sense of the world, but which serves to make my life pass in front of my eyes every single Monday morning. Those of you who travel to work in a car may think that having to brave the rush hour, pre 9am traffic, is no great start to your week - but trust me, having to accept that you are about meet your maker is really much, much worse. In fact, accepting my impending watery grave in the North Sea (unless of course, I'm flying over the Atlantic) is the only way I can cope with flying - and landing safely really comes as a surprising bonus......and that sort of thing can really put a crimp on your Monday morning.
So. you can imagine that when even calm days can induce such feelings of fear, that it was with a heavy heart I set off for the departures lounge at Schiphol on Thursday evening. Heavy storms had battered Britain all day, worse was to come, and the departures board showed "Cancelled" as a recurring status. But the Leeds Bradford flight was still flying. "You're very lucky that you are still going," said the check in girl, "it is VERY windy today". Before I could explain the irony of her comment to her, I was already making my way through through passport control. Looking through the floor-to-ceiling windows of the departures lounge, the planes were shifting slightly from side to side, ailerons were being blown to 45 degree angles to the tail fins, and the ground crews hung their heads against the fierce winds blowing across the runways. And so, with my heart pounding, I headed to Security....
"What?", I asked the Securitas man, almost in disbelief.
"Yes," he replied with a smile, "the end of the line is near. All those delays we've had due to the weather - this line for Security has been so long......."
Now - why would this have bothered me? Well - for those of you who have worked with me during the last 16 months, you will know that I have a perennial fear of flying. Every bump, every sway of the plane is met, not with the usual indifference you would expect from a frequent flyer, but a white knuckle, seat clutching fear, a fear, no doubt irrational in every sense of the world, but which serves to make my life pass in front of my eyes every single Monday morning. Those of you who travel to work in a car may think that having to brave the rush hour, pre 9am traffic, is no great start to your week - but trust me, having to accept that you are about meet your maker is really much, much worse. In fact, accepting my impending watery grave in the North Sea (unless of course, I'm flying over the Atlantic) is the only way I can cope with flying - and landing safely really comes as a surprising bonus......and that sort of thing can really put a crimp on your Monday morning.
So. you can imagine that when even calm days can induce such feelings of fear, that it was with a heavy heart I set off for the departures lounge at Schiphol on Thursday evening. Heavy storms had battered Britain all day, worse was to come, and the departures board showed "Cancelled" as a recurring status. But the Leeds Bradford flight was still flying. "You're very lucky that you are still going," said the check in girl, "it is VERY windy today". Before I could explain the irony of her comment to her, I was already making my way through through passport control. Looking through the floor-to-ceiling windows of the departures lounge, the planes were shifting slightly from side to side, ailerons were being blown to 45 degree angles to the tail fins, and the ground crews hung their heads against the fierce winds blowing across the runways. And so, with my heart pounding, I headed to Security....
"What?", I asked the Securitas man, almost in disbelief.
"Yes," he replied with a smile, "the end of the line is near. All those delays we've had due to the weather - this line for Security has been so long......."
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