Notes From the Road

I am always amazed at how little time I have when I am on the road. The few days I have been in Iowa, USA visiting clients. I always feel that I will have lots of free time to muse and write and generally be creative. It did work out that way and it never seems to work out that way. Time is spent checking into hotels, settling into hotel rooms, finding places to eat, setting up computers to get internet access which should never be taken for granted, and so on and so on. If you are lucky, you might find some time to spend in the pool or exercise room.

Most of my time was consumed either being with my clients or preparing for meetings with them. Last night, I had planned to spend time working on my rabbit piece that I had brought with me. I brought it because I like to have something to work on when I am on the road. As everyone who has labored through the last couple of blogs will know, sanding is a long and tedious job. I brought two grades of sandpaper with me but I only managed to get through one of them, the 100 grade paper. Yes, it did push the work a little closer to completion but I had planned to complete the 100 and 120 grades of sanding. At any rate, that did not happen.

Last night, as it happens, I took one of clients to dinner. A friend of his had recently opened a Chinese buffet restaurant in Cedar Rapids, Iowa and he wanted to try it. So off we went to Cedar Rapids, my client drove because he knew the way. All in all, it was a good time. we enjoyed a meal together. We had a few drinks together, at least I did since my client drove. I had scotch, in honor of Bobbie Burns birthday which is on January 25th for those who might not know. I improved my relationship with my client so in the end it was a reasonable trade off in time that I might have spent completing one more sanding of the rabbit. The work will still be there when I get home but the client will be here in Iowa with his memories of the dinner we shared. Hopefully, that will have a favorable bearing on our future work together.

I must end this here because I have one more visit to make before I catch my flight later this afternoon. I will not get into Buffalo until almost midnight so it is going to be a long day. I just wanted to dash off a few lines when I could. I guess that is what life is like on the road.