Florida & work

When you live in New England, a trip to Florida in February sounds like paradise. But not so much, when you have to work. It could have been a lot worse of course. It's silly to complain when I could have been sent to the Edison, NJ facility or Cambridge, OH plant.

It was Physical inventory time (a little earlier this year...) and my first time to our Florida facility!

I was also fortunate to travel with another co-worker, Michele. Traveling is always less stressful when you are with someone else.

Our flight was early Friday morning - 6:30 am. Weather was a little dicey (mixed rain/snow), but there was no delay - yippee!! We had a quick layover in Charlotte, NC (no direct flights when you can save $$ for the company) and then we were in sunny Tampa, Florida!

Absolutely Love the water - it is everywhere!!

Driving over the causeway.

Our Florida warehouse

The plant manager of our Florida facility used to work with us at headquarters. It was good to see him. And I was able to check out his latest medals (he's also a triathlete, every once in a while)

Friday afternoon, we spent the day doing a fixed asset audit. Wow, there are a lot of machines & it is really cool to see them work. A lot of cool photo ops, but cameras are a 'no no' in the plant.

Friday night dinner with the plant manager: a cool tapas restaurant

Saturday, I was up early and went out for a run. It was so nice to run outside in shorts! The weather was a little cool - only in the 50's, but it was still a nice run. It was one of those mornings where I could have run forever. Nice easy pace; quiet roads; beautiful scenery....

But reality always sets in. I had to get back to the hotel and get ready to go to work.

Physical inventory audit - oh joy! It actually went really smoothly. We only had to audit the finished goods section - no raw material or wip to review. There were plenty of warehouse employees available for any questions and there were no major errors or corrections needed!!

We were done by 1:00 and out the door at 2:00. Our flight wasn't until 7:00 pm, and there weren't any earlier flights. We decided to have a nice long lunch and go for a walk on the beach. It was pretty windy & cool for Florida, but warmer than New England!

Lots of jellyfish washed up - this was one of the biggest ones that we saw:

Cool shell

Very nice home - sweeping staircases & neat pools. My pick for best beach house.

We headed to the airport a little early because we still had work to do - lucky us!

Our flights home went smoothly and we were back in MA by 11:00 pm Saturday night. A nice short work trip.

It was nice to be home for Sunday - to sleep in and go out for breakfast. And of course - a major workout: Sweat Test - 3 hour bike ride, with the last hour at race pace. We had to turn up the heat (to simulate a race day) and adhere to our race nutrition plan. I lost 3 pounds of water that last hour - And I had even drank 22 ounces of water, and had 2 gel packets. Wow!

Sunday evening - Relaxation (oh, and do some more work on the computer...)

Ahhh, it's nice to be home...