"Sac-town, Bay area and back down"

All,

After work Friday in the L.A. area, I caught a flight to Sacramento out of the Ontario airport (a frequent stop of my Dad's in his travels) to see my brother and his girlfriend. The weekend was awesome as we were able to visit many of the great sights of Northern California. Saturday, we drove to Napa and spent some time at a few vineyards doing some tastings. The wine and food up there were unbelievable! I now understand why everybody goes crazy for the area. Sunday, the three of us took off for San Francisco, and went to some of the main tourist stops - Golden Gate Park, Fisherman's Wharf and Haight Ashbury. Though the nasty weather followed me from SoCal, the weekend was a blast! I'm glad my work travels allowed me to spend some time with family out here.
I type this while sitting in the Sac airport getting ready to fly back East to Charlotte, where I'll be until Thursday. I then fly back West to Phoenix, where I'll spend the weekend at a trade show for a hardware supplier out there.
Thanks for reading and I hope you all have a great week!

On the road,
Matt

Gloomy Southern California

Hello All,

My time in SoCal has been awesome, however the weather hasn't been the greatest-cool and gloomy every day! I've still had a great time, though. Santa Barbara was the first stop, then down to Santa Monica, and now I'm staying the night in Fullerton, CA, outside of Anaheim.

Tomorrow we will wrap things up around Pasadena, at which point I will hop a flight out of Ontario up to Sacramento for the weekend.

As promised, I've included several pictures from these travels. Clockwise from top left: Santa Barbara Coastline from my hotel, downtown Santa Barbara, Santa Monica Pier, Santa Monica coastline, Santa Barbara coastline from Pacific Coast Highway.

Hope you all enjoy and I'll have more to come soon.

On the road,

Matt

Santa Barbara...with an ocean view

All,

I flew in this afternoon to LAX and after fighting some nasty traffic for around two hours or so, my co-worker and I made it up to Santa Barbara around 7 West Coast time. Though it was pretty dark once we got north of the LA metro area, driving along the Pacific Coast was pretty sweet! I'm really looking forward to tomorrow morning when everything will come to life.

My hotel overlooks the Pacific Ocean, so that's pretty cool, even though it's just for tonight. Tomorrow I'll be working up this way, but then making my way South towards Orange County.

That's all for now, more to come.

On the road,

Matt

California-bound

All,

It's been a crazy last couple days since my last post from Tennessee. Due to the recent inclimate weather I've encountered, and the amount of miles on my old truck (truck-125k, trailer-400k ish-not all from me!), my managers have cancelled my "run" for the next two weeks. I was supposed to be working with a hardware distributor in the Chesapeake region (D.C., Delaware, MD, Northern VA), but instead, ended up driving back to Charlotte, which is "home base" for my division, and had the chance to hang out with friends here, as well as down in Columbia. I caught up with old friends from school including my buddies Josh and Danny H., as well as Josh's new fiancee, Leslie. The amount of travel for this job doesn't seem so bad when I'm able to spend time with friends and family when I'm in their neighborhood!

Since I now have two weeks without appointments, I am heading to Los Angeles to assist the rep out there and work with some accounts on the West Coast. I'm thrilled with this opportunity! Having only been to Cali as a baby, and not remembering it, I'm eager to get back there. I'll be in the LA area all week, and then Friday I plan to fly up to Sacramento and spend the weekend with my brother and his girlfriend, Amber, in NorCal. Hopefully we'll make it out to wine country, something I've wanted to do for awhile.

I'll probably have some nice pictures to put up here for my next post (i.e. not from google images), so I'll try to keep the camera at the ready.

Hope you're all well and thanks for reading.

On the road,

Matt

Biodiesel in Tennessee? The times they are a changin...

All,

I said this job would be an adventure, and this day certainly lived up to that billing! The day began in Charleston, WV, where I crashed for the night. Today was a travel day, as I had roughly a 7 hr. hike to my current location, Nashville, TN. Along the way, however, I encountered a few obstacles, inclimate Winter weather and a cracked windshield, to be exact. These inconveniences were forgotten after a bowl of Mom's chili, though. Yes, I was fortunate enough to be able to swing through Louisville to say hey to my parents and 92 yr. old grandfather who is staying with them for the week. It was nice getting to catch up, even for just an hour or so.

On a random note, As I mentioned in yesterday's post, my truck isn't exactly fuel efficient. I don't have issues with this, necessarily, because driving is a big part of my job. However, as we hear more and more about our "Carbon footprints" and all, burning through gallons and gallons of diesel sure seems like part of the problem, not the solution. That's why tonight as I rolled in to Nashville and stopped at a BP by my hotel, I was surprised to see Biodiesel B20 where the typical diesel would be. To my knowledge, Biodiesel is a more widespread alternative out west, not as much in the Eastern U.S. Though a blend, and only 20% at that, I was glad to be able to put a tank of this stuff in my truck. Until now, I hadn't seen it at a gas station, only heard of it from friends or on TV, but it's a far better option than gas, diesel, or even ethanol. It burns cleaner, is American-made, and is basically derived from oils that are essentially kitchen waste. If this stuff could be economically viable on a large scale, what a difference it would make.

That tangent got a little political, I realize, but it got me thinking a little bit tonight. I know, that can be dangerous. Let's get a dialogue going, I'd love your thoughts on the subject.

I appreciate your time.

On the road,

Matt

The other Charleston...

Friends,

This post is being sent from a hotel lobby in Charleston, WV. I spent much of the day in and around SE Ohio and WV. For those of you that consider yourselves to be "green," please forgive me, I nearly burned through 2 TANKS of diesel today. To say that my truck is inefficient would be an understatement. I guess that's what you get when you combine a 6.0 Liter V-8 engine with these mountains!

I have to say I'm not going to be moving to West Virginia any time soon. The mountaineer people have been great, but not having cell phone service in the downtown of a state's capital seems a little pre-historic these days. For a sales person, his pen and cell phone are basically extensions of the body! And that reminds me, I bet there's a good chance my brother, Ryan, stayed at this very same hotel when he was covering WV as part of his territory. He and I will have to talk about that.

I think this job will take me through many of this country's great college towns The past three days alone have taken me through Columbus, Athens and Morgantown. I'm just hopeful that my stops will coincide with major athletic events.

Well, the snow's falling and I have some work to do, so that's all for now. This post was really random. Hope you're all well.

On the road,
Matt