The World According to Mitch

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A lot of people have said to me over the past few months that they would love to have my job. Admittedly I do have a pretty great job.  Someone once said that if you do something you love you will never work a day in your life.  I don’t know about that, because I do love what I do… but as I embark upon my new tour I look back on the last month that I have spent preparing for it, and know how hard I – along with a great team – have worked. Having said that I would not trade it for much – as I said, I love doing what I do, and cannot think of too many jobs I would rather have – but there are a lot of sacrifices one has to make. Last night I sat down after a conversation with a friend and decided to look at my agenda from the year 2007.  I made three lists – quickly, so they are not going to be VERY accurate, but accurate enough, for the year 2007: 
  • Number of nights slept in beds that were not my own (including hotels, visiting friends): 210
  • Number of flights (not flight segments, literally just the number of times I walked into airports for the purpose of flying: 48
  • Approximate miles traveled by air: 83,600
 This does not include road trips – There were four round-trips from Montreal to Ottawa and back, three from Montreal to Toronto and another three from Toronto to Montreal.  I drove from Toronto to Buffalo once to save on a flight, to Ohio with Theresa and the menagerie for Thanksgiving, to Waterloo four times, Hamilton twice, and Niagara Falls once. Between Harry Bs, Brad & Nadine`s, and my parent`s – both in Montreal and in Florida – I count about thirty nights away from home and NOT in hotels, so that makes roughly 175 nights in hotels – ranging from a ought-to-be-condemned residence hotel hear building 40 in Redmond to the opulent Grand Hyatt in Seattle.  The leader would have to be the Silver Cloud Inn Redmond, accounting for enough nights that I have enough rewards points for three nights right now.  I have three hotels left before the year is over, so The Hyatt does not get the prize for nicest YET, but it will have to be a contender. Speaking of reward miles, I have purchased three round-trip flights this year using reward points – one trip to Seattle, one trip to Fort Lauderdale (both from Montreal), and one trip from Omaha to Toronto (I missed my flight and the airline which was not my regular would not accommodate me).  Still I have about 50,000 points in my Aeroplan account, not including the 11,000 or so I should earn on my way to Hong Kong this morning. A lot of people have commented that with all the travel that I do I must have enough reward miles to fly anywhere, and they ask where I would like to go to relax.  The answer is easy: HOME.  Theresa and I are planning on driving Aaron to his grandparents` in Ohio the last few days of December and then continuing along as a couple to New York City.  It will be a nice holiday, but an exciting one.  For relaxation I would rather be home in my own bed… something I only got to do 156 times this year. While discussing time away from home, it is interesting to note that February of this year was the first month since 1996 that I was not in Canada at all, and the first entire month ever that I was away from home… ever.  I flew to Calgary on January 26th, from there to Seattle on the 30th, and back to Montreal sometime after MVP Summit near the end of March. I want to be clear that I would not trade it for anything, but when I started out as a Road Warrior a few of my peers – people who have been at it longer than I have – warned me that I would not be able to keep it up forever; I knew they were right then, and I have at no point since changed that opinion.  However as I embark on my last business trip of 2007, I am excitedly waiting to get my schedule for my first trip of 2008 – where will it take me, and for how long.   Thinking back to where I was a year ago today – Calgary and on my way back to Montreal, not entirely sure where I would be in the New Year.  I was reticent because I was wrapping up my first mini-tour, having left the safe haven of full-time employment only six weeks prior.  Had I known then what 2007 had in store for me I would have been much happier with where I was then.   It has been a tough and stressful 2007 and I will certainly blog about so many of my developments as Year-End approaches, but is has also been a very successful year, and one that makes me shiver with anticipation at what the future now holds. They just called my flight, and for the first time since I don’t know when I am excited because I am boarding a NEW aircraft… not only one that I have never flown on, but one that joined the Air Canada fleet in 2007.  Looking back on this article, I suppose so did I!

 

Posted: Dec 02 2007, 09:34 AM by Mitch | with no comments |
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