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May 11, 2017
Thursday Morning
In the morning, the alarm goes off at 6:00 a.m. I get out of bed and start packing for a different time zone. Going on the road. Make sure you have keys for Colorado, and take off. It's 40 miles to Pomona from Riverside, and I'm always tryin to find a route where the traffic isn't so bad. And every morning, I set the alarm clock for a little earlier.
We're supposed to be at Cal Poly Pomona at 9:00 a.m. I'm there by 7:00 a.m. Like...you don't want to be on Highway 60 at 8:00 a.m. That's rush hour. Bad idea.
At the Kellog West conference center, they're setting up breakfast for us. Coffee and danishes. Cupcakes. Fruit.
We get breakfast, and then settle down to work. There's a lot going on.
People trickle in, and begin to form clumps an talk, in anxious hurried dialogs. Nothing's really working right, and you don't have to look far to find a slew of problems. Pretty soon, I'm in a telefconference on my cell phone with a guy in Atlanta, and a guy in Mumbai (formerly Bombay). I walk outside to escape the mayhem of the conference room. So I can hear myself think.
"No. I'm not making myself clear. Every single person is broken in the budget system. Pick anyone. At random. It doesn't matter. Go into the Budget, and you'll see the incumbent's salary is doubled. It's twice what it should be. No...it doesn't matter. They're all this way. Ok...you'll figure it out....ok...I'm hanging up now..."
And so it goes. Just madness. Madness at a blistering pace. By noon, I'm stressed out and we break for lunch.
Every day, at noon, they serve us a buffet lunch. Then, after lunch, we stroll around the grounds, admiring the flowers, the coi ponds, the rose gardens, the hummingbirds and squirrels. Pigs. Goats. Cows. Like...it's literally a school in the center of a farm in the center of the Los Angeles basin. Stunning.
But today, there's no time for a walk. Everyone breaks for lunch, but then it's off to the airports of Los Angeles.
But I'm heading to Chapparal Motorsports. To see if they have my new bike. Chris says they have me an Africa Twin. So, I ride 20 miles past the Ontario airport only to learn that Chris isn't in, and they've got the bike in the back of the store, turning it into a Honda Goldwing. Adding saddle bags and a bunch of shit I don't need or want onto it. Filthy bastards.
So, back onto the I-10, and east for 20 miles back to the Ontario airport, where I wait for my flight to take off, some time later in the day.
Posted by Rob Kiser on May 11, 2017 at 3:31 PM
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