Vacation Time, Money

Vacation time

One town’s very like another

When you’re head’s down over your pieces brother

(It’s a drag, it’s a bore, it’s really such a pitty

to be looking at the board, not looking at the city)

– Murry Head, “One Night in Bangkok”

Made it to Kenosha, WI without incident – actually, was a very nice drive.  I love getting out on the road, cranking up the music, and blowing out the mental cobwebs for a while (though there seems to be fewer and fewer cobwebs anymore)

One mistake I realized I made – I’m still doing the same damned thing I always do.  I planned the trip so there was pleanty of time to get the job done.  But no time to stop and look around.  I’ve been going to Kenosha, WI since 1994 when the mill was first being built, and I’ve spent months on end here before.  And yet, I haven’t stepped foot into a single museum or looked at anything in Chicago at all.

So after this trip, unless there’s compelling reason no to do so, I’m adding one day to every trip to just, well… get out and look around a bit and see the world around me.  It’s time to fix this problem 🙂

Money

Hm – looks like the money crunch I had getting up here might not end up as bad as I thought.  The customer wanted to use up some spare parts they had on the shelf, so instead of having to use my cash resources for parts I used thier stuff.  Cool – but the trip isn’t over yet, so I’m still keeping an iron fist on expendatures.  

I also managed to get a hotel room for cheaper than Hotels.com can book ’em.  Where I’m staying is $55 / night on there, but I get the Cargil discount, so I got it for $42 / night.  Normally I spend a bit over $80 / night on hotel here in Kenosha, so that was a major cash savings (plus I slept on the road the first night, so I saved an extra $42 there, and I’ll do the same on the way back.)

And just to make things more interesting… the job got more profitable when I got up here.  They assumed I was going to end up using more parts than planned (since they realized at the last moment they had three more items that needed converted to Ethernet), and increased the size of the purchase order.  Yes, they over paid – intentionally.  I had over engineered the system from the begining, knowing that they’d find one or two more things they needed added on there, so there was already money in the project.  Oddly enough, they didn’t take the money back out after that – what I did was still beyond the original scope of work.

They are also “stepping on it” when it comes to getting a check cut – the check might actually show up at the house before I get home.  Wow – that would be REALLY kick ass – getting more money than expected, AND getting it faster than expected.  Means I meet my goals just that much faster 🙂

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