Jersey Day 1

So I intended to put this up last night, but I, well, I'll just get right into it...

So I go on vacation with my family because work was screwing me around as to whether or not I was going on the road.

At first I was supposed to go to South Carolina in the Clemson area, which would have been sweet because I was going to be close to the mountains and rivers and stuff.  I would've taken S's car down there and saved on the rental car and stuff like that.  Plus I would've made like an extra $3k/mo to be there.  Granted that would have to pay for my living expenses while there, but I would have been able to put away quite a bit.

Then, about a week-ish later, I was supposed to go to Arizona to the Buckeye area, west of Phoenix.  Would've only been like $2.4k/mo extra, but it was the desert, so I was considering that a sweat tax for making me go there.

Then, I vaguely here about going to Nebraska, which I was pretty much anti, simply because it's Nebraska, which I suppose isn't a fair shake to Nebraska, as I've never been there and don't have any first hand negative experiences with it.

So, I suppose at the end of the day, I would've taken Nebraska over AZ simply due to the temperature difference.

I'm from Wisconsin, I don't tolerate heat very well...

I'm digressing.

Weird. Who would've thought that would happen here...

Anyway, after all of those field assignments dropped, I thought I was going to be out of work.  But then this current assignment shook loose.  So now I find myself in New Jersey of all place.  But not like the cool New Jersey by a major city.  Oh no, I'm in Pennsville Township.  Living the high life in a single queen room, with a fridge and a microwave.  Baller.

Back to the original point now.  Shit, I just realized that I was digressing on a digression.  I might need to talk to someone about that, can't be healthy.

I'm out of town with my family because I got tired of waiting around for stuff to happen with work.  Then, the first day that I'm there I get a text from a random, says he needs my info because I'm going to New Jersey for work (not really random, I suppose, I did get a heads up that it would be happening, just not that soon otherwise I wouldn't have left).

Anyway, so I'm in the north woods of Wisconsin, God's Country, and I end up spending about two hours a day making phone calls and sending emails to figure out this trip.

I had to use the company travel agents, which, bless them, are good at what they do, they're just a little overzealous about stuff.  I didn't respond for a few hours, because, hello, north woods right? No decent cell reception, which makes it all the better if your actually trying to be on vacation.

So we get everything squared away.  I'm to get on a 9pm flight out of Midway to go to Philadelphia, landing at midnight.  Sounds fine, I don't sleep much anyway.  But then the flight gets delayed by like twenty minutes.  Oh well, I'm not in a rush to sleep or anything.  Then I get on the plane and I've got a chatty Cathy (or whatever the male equivalent is) sitting next to me.  Wants to talk about everything and anything, I'm polite but curt.  Guy doesn't take a hint until we get in the air, but oh wait.  He gets up after cabin doors have closed to go potty.  Delaying us another 5ish minutes.  Whatever.

Then we land, but I'm in the back of the plane and now chatty Carl is passed out cold.  I end up shaking his shoulder to get some life back into him.

Done deal.  We're off the plane.  Everyone runs down to go to the baggage claim.  I make the mandatory pit stop at the loo to relieve the pressure.  Then the baggage handlers send the stuff to the wrong carousel and everyone loses their shit, not their bags mind you, there minds.  I remain calm, it's not more than twenty feet between to two carousels.  I'm a big boy, I can walk.

Get my bag, go to the Avis Preferred Window after getting on the wrong bus....twice.

They don't have my stuff right.  So now I've got to mingle with the locals to figure it out.  Let's call him Donatello, had no clue what it meant that my rate was so cheap since I'll have the car for like a month.  So he takes my cell phone number like 4 times to 'find me in the system'.  I'm pretty sure I have my preferred card on the counter, I'm in there Donnie.  Trust me.  I even called to verify it.

He calls his manager over.  She asks him to put in M/C for the empty slot.  And it fixes everything.  You think that would be on the Autism flash card thing they carry around their necks with all the other helpful customer service hints.  M/C saves the day!

Donnie then tells me that it's a black Chevy Impala and that it's out front.  I walk around the store twice, thinking I just missed it because I'm super tired and it's roughly 1am at this point.

Nope, it's in it's stall.  B24.  Just like it says on the ticket.  Come on Donnie...you're better than this.

But I'm in the car and on the road.  Except, oh wait, I have no clue where Pennsville, NJ is in relation to Philadelphia.  Pull over, get my bag out of the trunk, get the printed directions out.  Work my way through to New Jersey.  Finally get to the hotel.

But wait, there's more.  The check-in's a breeze.  There's a bag of microwave popcorn in my room that I could make if I liked the filth.  But no, now my OCD kicks in and I end up arranging and hanging up all my clothes and belongings in the room.  Now it's 2:30ish in the morning and I'm just not attempting sleep.

Alarm goes off at 5am.  Shit.  Get up, shower, get dressed.  Get the directions to the site.  And hit the road.  Only problem is, it's 5am and I have no clue what's open.  So I don't stop.  (Last food consumption: Midway Jumbo Hot Dog and Fries for $8).  Get to the site, get to where I'm supposed to be, start filling out paper work.  Two hours later someone from the site comes in and tells us to fill out the paperwork...then goes over it with us...shoot me in the face.

Then I get fingerprinted and my photo taken, routine stuff.  Then I spend roughly 6 hours taking Computer Based Training classes and tests.  Only got 2.75 done before the end of the day.  I'm taking notes because I'm exhausted and....what's that? No, you're right.  No lunch.  No cash, so no vending machine vittles.

Then I leave after all that.  Come to the hotel, change and then spend an hour or so getting to know the grocery store.  Drop $135 on microwave food and stuff that'll fit in a mini-fridge.  Took forever because of my damn milk/dairy/lactose/casein/whey allergy thing I've got going on.  Come back, put it all away and then I tried to figure out Google+, not sure if I did it right, but I've got one.  Then I thought, why not have a Blogger account too and buy into the whole Google family.  Not sure if I'm missing any of there features besides Chrome and I'm sure I'll get around to that one too.

But that's all I've got for today.  I'll try to put up some pictures or something more interesting tomorrow about my location and where I'm working.

Hasta.