Entertainment Committee Continued

Well Wednesday night we had another lead. This time a town called Yellow Springs. While it is not the most happening place it is a very nice area and shows a lot more life than Dayton. We were told by one of the clients that we should go to a restaurant called the Winds. It was actually pretty contemporary. They had nice art works hanging over every table, a nicely stocked wine bar, and very good menu to select from. The patrons of the restaurant all looked established and educated and everyone was nicely dressed. I guess this doesn’t really matter but after virtually living at the mall for the last three weeks it was nice to be somewhere that seemed a little less Mc Suburban sprawl. In fact it was the first time we’ve gone anywhere that was not a Chain, fast food, or in a strip mall.

It was also after a long day of work – we left the client sight at 8:30 or so at night after leaving the hotel at 7:45am – that was semi stressful. So the change of pace was very welcome for every one. While the town it self didn’t offer any new entertainment options for the group event it does seem like a nice place to hang out. Nice pubs on a couple corners and several ma and pa stores, diners, and restaurants.

The funniest part of the night was the wait staff giving our partner grief because he wanted a cheese sandwich with his bowl of chili! She asked him where he thought he was eating and told ‘sandwiches are for lunch this is dinner’. We all had a good laugh over that. But of course like anytime you go out with the team for dinner it becomes a long night. I didn’t get back to the hotel until close to 10p. Well we will keep exploring the area and try to find interesting places.

Entertainment Committee

Quite honestly there is absolutely nothing to do in the Dayton Ohio area. Mind you it’s not a metro just an area. You can go to eat, drink, bowl, go to an arcade, go to a mall, or see a movie but that is it. There are some local sports but you can’t get in unless you inherited the tickets. I know this because Mike, the other SA on the project, and I were tasked to find a place to have team event. This would include the Deloitte personnel and the client resources. So a couple nights a week we try to check out some leads. So far however none of them have turned out very well for us. Right now as it stands our options are Bowling, Pool, Laser tag, or just catering a party somewhere.

The first place we decided to check out is called the Oregon District. We were told it was an area of town going through an Urban Revival. Thinking we may have found the place to be in town, we got directions, checked out the website, and drove Downtown to check it out. While the area is certainly going through a redevelopment it is primarily residential. Nice redeveloped buildings and a clean close to downtown neighborhood. The main attraction was a 4 block section on one street that had a few stores: antiques, music, art, and other eclectic venues. Unfortunately the definition of an antique store includes the Goodwill and the definition of restaurant includes a bar with appetizers. There are a couple nice places to dine and an Irish pub but that is it.

Next as we were so close to downtown that night we decided to check it out. They do have a nice riverfront and the local AAA baseball team may be fun to watch; but if you plan to do anything downtown, get there before 5p. They shut everything down. We saw a nice looking diner – closed. We saw a couple other restaurants – closed. Gas stations – Closed. They might as well have slid the sidewalks under the buildings at sun down and closed off the entrances to the area. The only thing open was the hospital. And that is not a place I think you want to hang out at just for fun.

So the next day we looked online and found some listing for go-karting. The partner on the project thought this was a fun idea so we decided to check it out. The only location in Dayton was 20 minutes away and we got lost on the way. Side note I need to trust my own directions, we got lost because I didn’t think the directions I had wrote made sense and second guessed them – I was right the first time we should have just followed the directions! So since we were lost we decided to get some dinner. We found a little diner just outside of Kettering called Marx and stopped in. It may not have been the best idea! The menus were photo copies and they had stop stocking a third of the items needed for half the dishes, the salad bar was very suspect, and menus – because they were laminated – were used as place mats. I had an ok grilled ham and cheese but poor Mike ordered a French toast. It was the first and only time I’ve seen French toast that was fried in oil.. Not good.

So after our fine dinner we turned around corrected our navigation mistake and continued. After another 10 minutes we came to a part of town we were not expecting to. We were after all looking for a go kart track. The area was as close to a red light district as you can get. There were no kidding a dozen adult establishments with in a 2 mile area concluding with a Hooter’s when we finally came to our next turn. At this point it was time to start looking for the address ending in 31. We located 29, 30, 32, and 33 but no 31. We did pass an unmarked garage, but that didn’t look like a go kart track. It wasn’t it was a go kart parts supplier. At the end of this nights strange adventure all we found was Fried French Toast and a go kart supplier.

Another quick note: While we can’t find anything to do there are a ton of place to buy adult beverages. We passed 6 or 7 businesses that are drive through liquor stores. Literally they were pole barns that you pulled up to a cool and ordered a 12 pack and a bottle or what ever, paid, and then drive out the back of the building! What a strange place. I though there wasn’t much to do in Des Moines! Glad I get to come home every week.

Quaker Stake and Lube

So the other night our quality control partner decided we should all get dinner together, a pretty common event that happens weekly. Tuesday night we decided to go to a restaurant – ok grill – called Quaker Stake and Lube. It is an Americana Car/Garage themed establishment that sells stakes, burgers, sandwiches, alcohol, and wings. It is a nice place, large with a ton of parking. I think it probably draws a pretty crazy crowd because it had a lot of motorcycle parking. This chain started in Pennsylvania in an old Quaker State garage, hence the name. They are only in PA, OH, and a store just opened in Madison WI. Apparently the original store still has most of the fixtures and such from its days as a garage. There is a similar themed place (to a much smaller degree) on the border of St. Paul toward Minneapolis on University called Andy’s Garage, though Andy’s is much smaller and has a limited menu in comparison.

Now I had a good sandwich and the experience was pretty good all around. Quaker is known for it wings 16 different varieties from normal to Cajun to hot. Tuesday of course ended up being all you can eat wing night so the place was packed. We also found out that some of the wings require a waiver to order them! They are considered to hot the company doesn’t want to get sued. Well being the tough men that we are (unfortunately there are only men on this project) we had to order the hottest wings on the menu. These are made with the hottest peppers in the world habanera peppers not chili powder. James a Senior Consultant on the project woofed them down like nobody’s business, he has been trying to find the hottest food around since we came into town. For Bob – our resident partner – and I it was a little harder. We had a couple of the atomic wings and our mouths were burning for 20+ minutes. They were HOT. Poor Bob’s Eyes were watering the rest of the night. My mouth didn’t cool off until I finished my meal and a couple of drinks. I fact no one who ate those wings had stuffy noses any more, even the next morning!

The other part of this story is how I got to dinner. Bob doesn’t fly into Dayton as he lives just a short drive away in Cleveland; instead he drives into town. So what then does he drive to Dayton? He drives a very cool Audi TT. I’ve always thought these were cool looking but the other night on the way to dinner I finally got a ride in one. I didn’t have the gall to ask to drive (I already knew what the answer would be) I was plenty happy just being a passenger. It was a really really cool car. The interior is just as nice looking as the exterior and we were defiantly riding in the coolest car in that part of Ohio. The car really feels the road and you can really get caught up in the acceleration. So it was a lot of fun to ride in. So maybe when I get home I will have to see what the Audi dealership will give on trade for my old pickup??!!

Good Weekend.

I really didn’t want to come up with a title for this entry so I didn’t put much effort into it.

As weekends go this was a pretty good one. My flights home were pretty easy going a little late but not bad. I went out to Nye’s Polka Lounge with KS for a few beers and the GF and Karen’s new friend met up with us a little later. We listened to polka till around midnight then turned in, nothing special but a nice evening. I also replaced the part in the dishwasher and got it working before we went out so I was pretty proud of myself.

Saturday I rotated the tires on the truck, got a good run in, revised some documents for work, and then went to a wedding reception. The wedding was last February in Carmel California for a friend of mine from high school but the reception for old friends and extended family was Saturday night at Fort Snelling Air force base. It was fun. It was nice to get together with the old gang again – though there was one notable no show – everyone was there. Of course now days everyone brought a guest (though it wasn’t too long ago when we all went solo to these events and tore up the night) and it was interesting how low key everyone was… How things have changed. Just like at most the wedding we all sat at a table in the back, I think this happens because everyone is worried we will get to rowdy. Instead we all chilled with some drinks and no one got crazy. I think part of that was due to wedding couple deciding on Karaoke instead of a DJ and dancing. I think we even left before bar close!

Today was pretty good too. Woke up late, wrote out $3000 in checks to make the bill collectors happy, took the dog to the city dog run, and had dinner at my folks. Fred was funny at the park. I think it kind of felt like bringing a preschooler to the first day of class. He was really shy around the other dogs and kept running back if there were too many of them running around. At some points he was more interested in sniffing the fence and trees than playing with the other dogs or running around. After about forty minutes it was time to leave but I’m pretty sure he had a good time. Dinner with the folks was fun. My brother one a game of dice and we gave my sister her birthday present, the first two seasons of the original Dukes of Hazzard. To bad the weekend is over and I have to fly back to Dayton next week. Oh well next Friday is only five days away!

Am I still in School?

This week reminded me more of going to school than of working. It is actually quite funny; I always here people say that school doesn’t prepare you for what you actually will be doing in your career. I’ve heard a lot of people also say that they never used what they learning in school either. I may not have used any specific skills I learned in a class in school but all week I have been using skills that I learned while in college. These skills center around what you develop to get by in school rather than the knowledge you gain any in class.

Much like class I spent about 7 hours a day listening to people explain business processes to me and how they work. During these meetings I took massive amounts of notes on all of the subject matter whether I understood what was going or not. I would then spend a couple of hours a day to make sense of these notes and summarize them. Even the assignments I had reminded me of college. I wrote a ½ dozen 3-8 page papers, and put together 2 PowerPoint presentations. And just like college all of these were finished at the last minute. I was even pulling 12 hour days on almost no sleep. All of this could have explained almost any week during college.

The only real differences is I was staying in a comfortable hotel room, all of my expenses were paid, and I dink go out and get trashed. Of course I also had to dress better and be on good behavior because I am working at a client site. However being a consultant – at least doing blueprinting work – is a lot like being a student just not as much fun! Next week should actually be different as we dive into a couple of systems but it sounds like it is going to be more of the same. But at least it is Friday so I can go out and have some fun this weekend… Hmm used to do that in college to…

Dotcom Handyman

Last weekend was pretty good, very relaxing and laid back. The only exception was Saturday when I tried to repair the dishwasher. It is about 5 years old and was never even close to top of the line, but I think it is a little too soon to give up on it. Plus I have no intention of spending $400+ to replace it if I can I avoid it. The problem with it right now is that it is stuck in the rinse cycle, you can try to use the reset/cancel function but nothing happens. The dishwasher just keeps cycling the water and after a few minutes starts beeping at you.

The first thing I tried to do was hold the cancel button for a couple of minutes and see if that would do it. No luck. So then I thought maybe it’s clogged so I checked the screen, again not the problem. The next thought to come to my head was to try to empty the water – maybe that would trigger a sensor – to attempt to force it to the dry cycle. Nope. Well now I was much more determined to get something to happen. I went to the old standby… Take it apart and put it back together and cross you fingers. Nope that didn’t work either. Crap now what. I didn’t want to give up so I figured what the heck lets check online.

Armed with the model number and the symptoms of the problems I went to everyone’s internet friend Google. Actually I initially went to GE’s website and found out their support section simply tries to sell you extended warranties (I assure you this is the last GE product I will purchase if I can help it). After only 20-30 minutes of looking at online repair guides I found a really good handyman forum. Yep even handymen now leverage the internet to gain knowledge from one another. Within a few more minutes I found an entry from someone who had almost the same problem 2 years ago on a model that was only a digit off from my dishwasher. As it was from the same line and used the same parts I concluded that I must be having a similar issue. I was then linked over to a parts warehouse and able to order the part online!! The whole processes took less time than the troubleshooting I had already done.

Now I haven’t made the repair yet, the part should arrive by next Friday when I get home. Therefore the story will continue. What amazes me the most is that I didn’t get the information from a repair manual, a repair man, a service shop, a help line, a dealer, or at the local hardware store; no I found the answer to a pretty tricky repair at an online forum. It is still to be told whether or not the information was correct. I will update the blog with an answer next week.

My First Assignment

I started my first actual client assignment on Monday. I am staffed as a shadow at a firm in Dayton Ohio. Shadowing basically mean I’m there to do shit work and to learn as much as possible. This is a great opportunity. We are doing the blueprinting phase of the project so far we are just looking at how SAP works and how its modules interact with each other. The team is small and everyone is really friendly. I think if I can stay here for the next phase or two a will learn a lot (hopefully I will be able to start billing at some point). Even if the company isn’t that big and the SAP installation isn’t that big it is a great place to start and learn.

The senior consultant I’m shadowing is great. He has been working with SAP for nine years. Unlike a lot of people who are shadowing he doesn’t just give me a bunch of busy work. I get to work right along side him doing the analysis. It probably slows him down a lot because he stops all the time to explain things to me. This is a good thing because so far I only understand about 70 percent of what is going on at best. But they expect that. One of the consultants in the office told me you have to go through the process several times before you really get the hang of things. I only remember some of this stuff from training. I do think that I wouldn’t understand ½ as much though if I hadn’t had the vendor training so I am extremely glad the company sent me.

Dayton Ohio isn’t that exciting yet. So far I have only seen the client site, the hotel, the mall, Chili’s, and Wendy’s. I don’t have a rental so I don’t get to get out on my own. As I am not billable I don’t really think I will push for a car unless I can’t get to the airport without a taxi. If that is the case it would probably be close enough to the price of cab fair to and from the hotel that I could get a car. I really don’t have time to see anything right now as we are putting in some pretty long hours as we are trying to make a good impression and sell the rest of the project to the client. I don’t think that will be a problem the partners and the CIO seem to have a really good relationship.

Hopefully things keep going well and I get to stay on this project. I will certainly write another update after I have done worked on some more tasks and I have learned some more. Maybe next time I can talk more about the city too.

Pumpkins

I thought it might also be fun to mention the fact that I picked up about 400 Lbs of pumpkins from my dad. He had a record crop he set a new personal record with a 70+ pounder that is sitting in front of his front door. I now have some really nice carvers that should be perfect for Halloween, one of his giants and several other large pumpkins. He also planted literally a ton of gourds. In fact his garage is full of them; I think he will have a tough time getting rid of them all. If that wasn’t enough he wants to expand his gardens next year and grow even more! It was fun though going out and picking them and then dropping some off at some of my friend’s houses around Minneapolis. It will be interesting to see what my dad grows next year.

Muzak

First of all the title of this entry is not a typo. I maybe a bad speller but I’m not that bad. Muzak is the system that used to be used to provide music in building lobbies, elevators, and for telephone systems (hold music). For some reason this weekend made me think about these systems; I never worked with them but apparently the old telecom techs used to install and work on them all the time and one had told me about them a few years ago when I worked at Qwest.

Well this weekend was full of music. Thursday was RB’s birthday so Friday night we went to her host families for dinner and a visit and then met up with some of her friends at the 7^th St. Entry. I don’t really think it was RB’s type of music though. Much more what AP and I would have gone to concerts for 5 years or so ago, a pretty good garage band playing speed metal. Watching the kids in the mosh pit was fun I even kinda wanted to join in. Of course we were over dressed for the venue. RB was the only girl in heals and nice pants and wearing nicely done make-up, while I was the only guy wearing nice leather shoes and a button up shirt. We kinda stuck out a little. After that we stopped briefly by the Otter Bar in southeast to hear some karaoke and one last beer.

Saturday was fun. I went over to AP’s house and watched him make a mess of the wiring in their bedroom, went to Chisago Lakes for some Buffalo meat and old Cheese, saw the movie Serenity (it was pretty good popcorn fodder), grilled the Buffalo meat, and went to Oktoberfest. We didn’t stay at Oktoberfest as long as I would have liked but apparently all my friends are getting old. MQ was really itching to go because he had to study the next day so I was home by 12:30, which I guess isn’t all that bad. It was still cool to hear some polka music though. Unfortunately the music was only downstairs in the bar – the place simply to hot to hang out in – and no one was dancing anyway so we stayed upstairs around the tent in the parking lot.

Finally Sunday night RB and I went to the Foo Fighters and Weezer concert at the Excel energy center in St. Paul. It was a lot of fun. We got the tickets through my networking group at work and got to see the concert from the executive box. Unfortunately we missed the happy hour because I was running way behind (and decided to stop at CompUSA on the way home from the gym). The opening band wasn’t really all that good but Weezer was awesome. Again I don’t think the Foo Fighters was RB cup of tea but I think she had a good time anyway. Believe it or not it was her first concert! The executive box was directly in front of the stage so the view was awesome. Besides my networking group a manager from Audit brought her daughters and some of their friends. So, half of our entertainment came from the crazy 13 year olds us who screamed their heads off at the bands. All in all it was a lot of fun and a good kicker to the weekend just before I start my first assignment.