Stories

I always tell people that we're travelling at 80k miles an hour around the sun,
but if the earth is 94.5 million miles from the sun, then are we travelling at 34k miles an hour, aren't we?
Happy Labor Day Weekend to you all.

BTW-This is Labor Day, not Memorial Day, right? And Labor is spelled Labor and not Laber or Labre. haha

Circumference = Diameter x 3.14. (That sounds about right).
The Earths distance from the sun = 94,500,000 miles, but that could be debated.
Its circumference of travel = 94,500,000 * 3.14 = 296,730,000 miles. (Sort of, discounting any wobble).
Days to circle the sun = 365.4, or 8770 hours (you can prove this by calibrating a sticks shadow to a watch).
Miles per hour = 296,730,000 mile / 8770 hours = 33,834 miles per hour.
Add to that,
The Earth has a circumference of 24,901 miles (at the equator, maybe), (once again with sticks, 2 stick's shadows a mile apart can prove this out)
and there are 24 hours in a day (or something close to that),
Then we are spinning at 1,000 miles an hour (roughly).

Travelling computer consultants are a strange group.
We all have two places we call home.

We're broke between contracts, and rich during contracts.
Most people don't want to see us when we're broke, and that's usually when we are hiding in our real homes.

We've done things or are doing things that are outside the realm of normality.
One buddy is walking across the country, another has programmed the Space Shuttle, and another is bartending.
Some flourished with their own companies during the dot com boom, just to fall back into consulting.

You never hear about us, but we do change the world.
I've done some world-first, including adding some stuff to the ATM screens that you see all over the country.

Usually, we come in, do incredible projects, make it work and leave.
If it fails - We are responsible because we are idiots. Fortunately, I've never failed.
If it works - Others are responsible. They almost always get promoted.
The consultants either move on, go full time, or become managers and never code again.
Rarely, if ever, our names get mentioned anywhere. We almost never get CC'd on the "Job well done" email from the CEO.

But still, it gets into the blood.
We know what we've done. Our abilities to work either independantly or in a group, has molded our ways of thinking.
The travelling is great, the money is good, and we've gotten used to saying "Hello" and "Goodbye".
At night, we either go insane with thought, or we're happy and we do things most locals would never even consider doing.
Its an emotional roller coaster, and the adrenalene rush is addictive.
And it would be hard for me to stop.

(Spoken after 15 years of consulting, 5 years on the road, and 27 years in the business)

Airbeds - Our second airbed has gone flat in just one week.
It turned out our cot had a sharp edge. I wonder if there are other professionals out there who have had this problem. BTW - I'm not sure when or how I got so strange. Its happened slowly after 15 years of consulting.

It's 3am on a Monday, and as usual, I can't wait to go to work.

Jennifer went back to Vegas last Saturday, and I already miss her.
So now, when I say we, I mean Becky and I.
On the flip side, instead of doing just teenage things, we can do adult things too. I'm thinking Concerts!