With my bags barely unpacked from Ireland, I packed them again and headed to Georgia for a work trip last week, this time to ride around with regional manager Bryan Setzer, who oversees the territory managers in Texas and Louisiana and himself manages the territories in Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and part of Louisiana.
Riding with a TM is on my official list of goals for the year at work, to better understand their role at Vermeer and the scope of everything their title entails, to learn about regional markets around the country, and to meet a few of the dealers in those areas. I definitely did all of those things.
Bryan lives in Montgomery, Alabama, so my tour started there after an early flight on Monday. Montgomery has a great deal of history involving the civil war and civil rights movement. We drove to Cumming, Georgia afterward. We called on two dealers in the area the next day, stopped at a customer's place to help him set up a TM850, (editor's note: this customer happened to be Bill Elliott, the winningest NASCAR driver ever. He's also a very agreeable fellow) and hiked to Amicalola Falls, which is on the approach trail to Springer Mountain, the starting point to the Appalachian Trail. We met four dealers on Wednesday all over eastern GA, and wound down to St Simon's Island that night. After breakfast on Jekyll Island on Thursday, we made a long haul west to Elko to the aptly named Perfect Equipment, a long-time farmer-dealership. Though I'd known nothing about it before seeing it, we stopped at the Andersonville Civil War Prison Camp and National Cemetery. Learning about the unimaginably miserable conditions in a place where 12,900 people had suffered and died and seeing the resting place of those soldiers and those of other wars was very powerful. We made it back to Montgomery afterward, with a wander through the Auburn University campus. We'd covered 1440 miles in four days
The food on this trip was outstanding. Bryan has been doing this for years, so he knows all the best places. Georgia and Alabama offer both good barbecue and seafood. Gator tail and whole steamed shrimp on the Alabama River, listening to live blues out on the patio wrapped up the trip very well.
Being a TM is tough to imagine; 60,000 miles on the road a year, managing and dealing with scores of people, and keeping a handle on so many constantly changing ins-and-outs are all daunting tasks. I much better understand that end of the business after this educational trip.
4/14/14
4/3/14
Trip to Ireland
Sarah and I got back from Ireland Tuesday night. We left the morning of the 26th, flew to Newark for a day-long layover. A bus and train ride took us to Hoboken where we toured Noah and Jean's new house, had a walk round town, had lunch, saw the New York skyline over the Hudson river, and watched Lydia play. It was a very short visit, but a day well spent.
After flying overnight with little sleep and getting picked up at the Dublin airport Thursday morning by David Kelly, we dropped our stuff off, got breakfast, cleaned up, and headed into Dublin. David had the day off so he showed us around. We braced for rain on the way to the city, but it quit after the twenty minute train ride; we were very lucky the entire trip as far as weather went: Saturday was a little damp, but it didn't rain otherwise. Thursday took us to Dublin Castle, St Patrick's Cathedral, the Old Jameson Distillery, then O'Connell and Grafton Streets. I was randomly picked to do a taste test of Irish whiskey versus Scotch and American whiskeys, and now proudly own a certificate of my accomplishment. We collapsed into two pubs on Baggott Street, which has several old "still as they were built" pubs, which were exactly what we were looking for. It was here that Sarah was introduced to proper Guinness, not the questionable stuff gotten in America, and she was instantly converted. She's also a fan of Irish coffees. After a full day of touring on next to no sleep, we collapsed into comas after having been awake for 37 hours.
David had to go to class for grad school on Friday, so we adventured on our own. A day-tour bus took us to various places. we went through the Irish Museum of Modern Art mostly because it was close to the Kilmainham Gaol. The jail had operated for 250 years and would have been a very foul place to be, and was even a step up compared to city life in the rougher times. Much Irish history had been affected by what had happened there and by who had gone through it.
The rest of the day was spent idly listening to the bus commentary, walking around the O'Connell and Grafton Street areas, having dinner together, and getting drinks with David and his wife Amy on Baggott Street. Another fine day.
We headed west on Saturday and had lunch with David's parents and brother Ciaran in Tober, Co Offaly in the center of the country. Sarah and I took the train to Galway afterward. Galway is on the west coast and is a city of about 75,000, much smaller than Dublin's 1.2 million. It's known for it's music and festivals and many pubs have music every night.
We headed out Saturday evening, including my fiddle, and stepped into Taaffe's bar which had a sign for music, and we were not disappointed. I asked the session leader if I could join, and the Seattle-native offered me a seat. I knew a few of their tunes, taught them one, and loved it. The leader invited me to another session a few blocks away across the river at the Crane Bar later that night.
The Crane Bar has two floors, and the upstairs is exclusively for nightly sessions. The place filled in after 10, including a nicely varied bunch of about a dozen players: younger at about my age, older to about 80; fiddles, banjos, flutes, a bouzouki, and a concertina. It was also supposedly a quiet night. There were songs sung as well. Nothing against bodhrans, but I particularly liked the rhythm kept by the stamping of the session leader's feet on the wood floor. I liked being part of a session in a place where everyone present was there for the music and what it evoked. I've missed sessions, and playing in these two have inspired me a great deal.
Sunday was a startlingly sunny day; indeed the best Galway had seen yet that year. We booked a day tour into Clare to see the Burren region and the Cliffs of Moher. I had no knowledge of the Burren before then, and was intrigued by its ruggedness, its surprising biodiversity, its history, its lack of touristiness. It is a hilly limestone region that is home to a majority of Ireland's biodiversity. The limestone allows its seven feet of rainfall to be absorbed into the ground, making it one of the driest places in Ireland in terms of surface water. Its stone fences are a practical relic from another time and are endearing. An ancient tower and an abbey were in the valley.
The tour took us to a farm in the Burren that covered 100 acres of pasture and 700 acres in the hills. Their Angus and Charolais cows grazed in the valleys in spring, summer, and fall, and wintered in the hills because the weather is that mild. The guide was local and had been formally trained in Irish history. One of the most poignant topics of the tour was the stone fences built over the hills, dividing nothing. Instead of putting their tenants to work doing any number of useful tasks to earn their soup rations during the potato famine, landlords had instead given them busy work. How terrible it would have been to barely survive a famine by performing menial, pointless labor.
The Cliffs of Moher are an often photographed icon of Ireland, but cannot be given justice unless seen with your own eyes. The 700 foot drop straight to the sea is truly awe-inspiring and just has to be taken in. Most of the five miles of the cliffs are a park and are fenced off, but part of them are not, so the edge is unguarded and available to anyone interested in peering right over the edge, namely me, to Sarah's disapproval.
After the lovely ride back along the coast, we found another session at the Tig Coili. This one was smaller but in one of the best-known music pubs in Ireland. I didn't know any of their tunes though, and they were just about wrapped up when we got there. We were exhausted after this anyway, after being out late the night before, the early rise for the tour, and the lost hour due to daylight savings. We were not thrilled to have caught the worst night of the year twice.
We went to mass Monday morning at Galway Cathedral, then walked along the pier and the busy Shop Street. We rode the train back to Dublin and spent a perfect last evening of the trip out to dinner with the Kellys. They were perfect hosts, and we enjoyed that they are in nearly the same spot in life as we are. David and I always seem to have plenty to talk about, and I thank him and Amy again for making my time in Ireland even better.
The flights back to Iowa were uneventful, and back to work on Wednesday, another adventure in the books and batch of stories collected.
After flying overnight with little sleep and getting picked up at the Dublin airport Thursday morning by David Kelly, we dropped our stuff off, got breakfast, cleaned up, and headed into Dublin. David had the day off so he showed us around. We braced for rain on the way to the city, but it quit after the twenty minute train ride; we were very lucky the entire trip as far as weather went: Saturday was a little damp, but it didn't rain otherwise. Thursday took us to Dublin Castle, St Patrick's Cathedral, the Old Jameson Distillery, then O'Connell and Grafton Streets. I was randomly picked to do a taste test of Irish whiskey versus Scotch and American whiskeys, and now proudly own a certificate of my accomplishment. We collapsed into two pubs on Baggott Street, which has several old "still as they were built" pubs, which were exactly what we were looking for. It was here that Sarah was introduced to proper Guinness, not the questionable stuff gotten in America, and she was instantly converted. She's also a fan of Irish coffees. After a full day of touring on next to no sleep, we collapsed into comas after having been awake for 37 hours.
David had to go to class for grad school on Friday, so we adventured on our own. A day-tour bus took us to various places. we went through the Irish Museum of Modern Art mostly because it was close to the Kilmainham Gaol. The jail had operated for 250 years and would have been a very foul place to be, and was even a step up compared to city life in the rougher times. Much Irish history had been affected by what had happened there and by who had gone through it.
The rest of the day was spent idly listening to the bus commentary, walking around the O'Connell and Grafton Street areas, having dinner together, and getting drinks with David and his wife Amy on Baggott Street. Another fine day.
We headed west on Saturday and had lunch with David's parents and brother Ciaran in Tober, Co Offaly in the center of the country. Sarah and I took the train to Galway afterward. Galway is on the west coast and is a city of about 75,000, much smaller than Dublin's 1.2 million. It's known for it's music and festivals and many pubs have music every night.
We headed out Saturday evening, including my fiddle, and stepped into Taaffe's bar which had a sign for music, and we were not disappointed. I asked the session leader if I could join, and the Seattle-native offered me a seat. I knew a few of their tunes, taught them one, and loved it. The leader invited me to another session a few blocks away across the river at the Crane Bar later that night.
The Crane Bar has two floors, and the upstairs is exclusively for nightly sessions. The place filled in after 10, including a nicely varied bunch of about a dozen players: younger at about my age, older to about 80; fiddles, banjos, flutes, a bouzouki, and a concertina. It was also supposedly a quiet night. There were songs sung as well. Nothing against bodhrans, but I particularly liked the rhythm kept by the stamping of the session leader's feet on the wood floor. I liked being part of a session in a place where everyone present was there for the music and what it evoked. I've missed sessions, and playing in these two have inspired me a great deal.
Sunday was a startlingly sunny day; indeed the best Galway had seen yet that year. We booked a day tour into Clare to see the Burren region and the Cliffs of Moher. I had no knowledge of the Burren before then, and was intrigued by its ruggedness, its surprising biodiversity, its history, its lack of touristiness. It is a hilly limestone region that is home to a majority of Ireland's biodiversity. The limestone allows its seven feet of rainfall to be absorbed into the ground, making it one of the driest places in Ireland in terms of surface water. Its stone fences are a practical relic from another time and are endearing. An ancient tower and an abbey were in the valley.
The tour took us to a farm in the Burren that covered 100 acres of pasture and 700 acres in the hills. Their Angus and Charolais cows grazed in the valleys in spring, summer, and fall, and wintered in the hills because the weather is that mild. The guide was local and had been formally trained in Irish history. One of the most poignant topics of the tour was the stone fences built over the hills, dividing nothing. Instead of putting their tenants to work doing any number of useful tasks to earn their soup rations during the potato famine, landlords had instead given them busy work. How terrible it would have been to barely survive a famine by performing menial, pointless labor.
The Cliffs of Moher are an often photographed icon of Ireland, but cannot be given justice unless seen with your own eyes. The 700 foot drop straight to the sea is truly awe-inspiring and just has to be taken in. Most of the five miles of the cliffs are a park and are fenced off, but part of them are not, so the edge is unguarded and available to anyone interested in peering right over the edge, namely me, to Sarah's disapproval.
After the lovely ride back along the coast, we found another session at the Tig Coili. This one was smaller but in one of the best-known music pubs in Ireland. I didn't know any of their tunes though, and they were just about wrapped up when we got there. We were exhausted after this anyway, after being out late the night before, the early rise for the tour, and the lost hour due to daylight savings. We were not thrilled to have caught the worst night of the year twice.
We went to mass Monday morning at Galway Cathedral, then walked along the pier and the busy Shop Street. We rode the train back to Dublin and spent a perfect last evening of the trip out to dinner with the Kellys. They were perfect hosts, and we enjoyed that they are in nearly the same spot in life as we are. David and I always seem to have plenty to talk about, and I thank him and Amy again for making my time in Ireland even better.
The flights back to Iowa were uneventful, and back to work on Wednesday, another adventure in the books and batch of stories collected.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)