On Sunday evening I will head off for Dallas, Texas to get some more SAP training.  I try to go once a year and learn something new.  These days I am pretty comfortable with all of SAP’s regular technology, but they keep introducing new stuff and I need some help with some of their Java-based Netweaver technology.  The class is called End-To-End Root Cause Analysis. 

Yeah, I know - but I think it really will do a lot for me.  Right now, when something wonky happens I don’t really know where to begin in diagnosing the problem and I am hopeful that this will fill in a lot of gaps for me on how the server works.

So I leave Sunday evening at 5:30pm and arrive in Dallas at 9pm.  So I should get to my room by … maybe 10-ish.  It is a five day course so I will be there until Friday evening.  My plane doesn’t get me back to Boston until 10pm on Friday.  I’m sure the little woman will be thrilled with that.  Last time I travelled I cut the trip short to come home a day early.  I wasn’t getting anything out of the trip and she was having a hard time; so I felt pretty bad about being gone.  I hope this trip goes better.

I always call home to talk to the kids to see how they’re doing.  I wind up trading emails with Liz during the day and talking with her on the phone for quite a while.  Last time I used the hotel phone and got KILLED on the bill.  I had a hard time explaining the mammoth bill to my boss.  He was a pretty easy-going guy and didn’t care much, but I felt bad about it.  I also brought the kids home some gifts from Texas.  Each girl got a stuffed Armadillo and each boy got a Texas baseball cap. 

I can’t bring myself to purchase any Dallas Cowboys merchandise.  If you have any suggestions on gifts for the kids, let me know.  I’m all ears.

This is where the classes will be held.  Its a fine facility, but nothing interesting about it.  I was there last year for a class on SAP Portals. 

I don’t know what I’m going to do in Dallas besides go to this class.  I’m not a big fan of Dallas.  That may just be because I don’t know the city.  I will be out near Addison.  Its a suburban “town” with lots of glass and steel buildings.  Lots of restaurants and strip malls.  I think there must be houses, too but I haven’t seen many.  That isn’t surprising - I don’t usually get out much on these things.  If you have any suggestions for things I can do in Dallas, let me know.

Every Easter we go to a mansion - its all closed up and everything.  Its nobody’s home - its an organization’s HQ and it has beautifully manicured grounds with lovely gardens.  Well, they become lovely later in the spring.  At the end of March everything is brown and kind of bland.  But every Easter we go there in the morning and Liz hides Easter eggs for the kids.  They run around and collect the eggs looking for the special one.  It used to be the one with a rare or special coin.  This year its been replaced by some kind of metal rabbit. Me?  I take the pictures or video of the whole event.  I have trouble getting interested in Easter.  The holiday does nothing for me, so I tag along and try not to drag anyone down.

We’re going to have some kind of special Easter dinner/lunch early in the day so I can make my plane.  I should take them out for a nice dinner instead of having Liz make something.  I wonder if its too late to make reservations.

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