life as a dog…

Does it affect me?  So far, not so much.  But today, that apparently changed.  I don’t use a national bank.  I use a regional, albeit a large regional.  But they’ve done pretty well, as it relates to me, anyway.  I started looking a couple months ago to see if they were in any trouble.  They got hit by the mortgage collapse, but not nearly as badly as some of the national banks did.  So I wasn’t worried.

L and I were talking about it – she noted that the safest banks these days are the small banks.  Basically, the ones who wouldn’t have had a lot of money to finance a bunch of mortgages, anyway.  And they generally don’t have many branches.

Well, today I read an article that said Chevy Chase has put itself up for sale.   They announced it a couple weeks ago.  The first suitor mentioned was none other than Citibank.  Obviously, after this weekend, that’s probably not going to happen.  Now the possible suitors are Capital One, JPMorgan Chase, SunTrust and BB&T.  I can’t say I’d be happy with any of those.  BB&T in particular would tick me off.  When I first moved to the region, I had an account with Bank of Alexandria.  Shortly after, they were bought out by F&M.  F&M in turn, was bought by BB&T.  The fees were ridiculous.  That’s when I switched to Chevy Chase.

One of the biggest benefits of Chevy Chase has been the convenience.  All Giant grocery stores have Chevy Chase ATM’s, and a large portion of the stores actually have a working branch in them.  Chevy Chase ATMs are also located at Dulles Airport and National Airport – another benefit.  Online banking is a breeze.

But…now that Chevy Chase may be absorbed into another behemoth, it looks like it’s time to change banks.

One of the banks that L mentioned as being good is Burke & Herbert.  They are very small (they don’t even have an ATM presence in the district).  But they are rated VERY highly.  I did some scouring online, and have yet to find anything negative other than not having a lot of branches.  The Street has rated them an A – the top 10% in the industry.  So I figure I’ll switch to them.  It’s just going to be a bit of a pain to move over all my direct deposit/debit transactions.

Not too much to say about the trip – the event went as we hoped.

We stayed at the Four Seasons…I highly recommended that we do that more often, of course.  The weather was crappy.  I wish I had had a little more time and the weather was better.  The Arch was not 1/2 mile from the hotel.  I would have liked to have had time to go take some pictures (I didn’t take my camera, as I knew I probably wouldn’t have time).  Maybe next time.

Next trip… Indianapolis for Thanksgiving.  Next work trip – as far as I know, it looks like Miami in January.  But I’m sure more stuff will come up before then.

Today was the event day.  We had an official call time of 2pm with the event starting at 3:30.  But we went in at noon to do more testing.  Since this was in front of some very high people in big organizations, it had to be perfect.

The event started about 15 minutes late – which had me a little worried, as I had to do a lot of stuff once it was finished – with only 1 hour to do those things.  The event was actually two events…two sessions of the same event, actually.  The second session started about 15 minutes late, but they did pick up the pace.

All in all, it went VERY well.  The client was very happy.

Afterwards, I had to pack up everything, get it to Southwest Cargo, return the rental car and get to the terminal within an hour.  Since they sped up the pace of the second session, I was able to do everything with time to spare.

The flight back to Baltimore was uneventful.  Driving home from BWI was also uneventful – though I didn’t get home until about 1:00am.

The Flight.

The flight wasn’t too bad.  I had to drive to BWI for this trip, because of costs.  Flying from BWI to St. Louis on Southwest Airlines.  I normally try my best to avoid Southwest…I don’t like the cattle mentality of it.  But for the field I’m in, they are by far the best – their charges for extra baggage is next to nothing compared to the legacy airlines.  AirTran is close behind and JetBlue just behind them.

It was a nonstop, thankfully.  I was placed in Group B for seating.  I didn’t think it would be too bad – Group A is supposed to be Business select and preboarding.  But no…that’s not the case.  Each Group can have 60 people.  Group A looked to have that full.  So my big concern was being stuck with a middle seat.  It was an unfounded fear – I got a window seat with nobody sitting in the middle.

St. Louis airport was pretty dead.  I imagine it’s not close to being as busy as it once was – when it was the main hub for TWA.

The Rental Car.

An SUV was reserved for me.  It’s a Dodge something or other.  Not too bad.  It fit the gear.

After picking up the rental car, I had to go to Southwest Cargo to get the gear that was shipped from Las Vegas.  That was relatively painless.

The Hotel.

I am staying at the Four Seasons.  I probably don’t need to say much more than that, do I?

The room is nice.  A 42” flat panel with actual HD programming coming through an HDMI connection.  Floor to ceiling windows.  A incredibly comfortable bed.  A shower with two shower heads (one on a hose, one “rainfall” type).  A separate soaking tub that looks about 3’ deep.  Oh…and a TV in the bathroom mirror.  That one I find amusing.

After I checked in, I went back downstairs to check out the Casino next door.  Pretty weak.  I took a couple $5 bills and played slots.  Half the machines wouldn’t take the bills. They didn’t seem to have a clue why it wouldn’t work.

I then went to the event room.  There were a couple hiccups getting the test to work, but once it did, it worked perfectly.

I went back to my room to find that the hotel staff had already come through and tidied up things – my luggage was on a stand, some extras were laid on the bed.  The radio (which has an ipod dock) was set to the local classical station playing softly and the lights were dimmed.

I could easily get used to staying in hotels like this (this is the first time I’ve ever stayed in a hotel of this level).

Tomorrow is the event, and then as fast as I can, I have to pack up, get the gear back to Southwest Cargo, return the rental car and get to the airport.  I have about 1 1/2 hours to do that.  The airport is about 30 minutes away.  Hopefully traffic won’t be bad.  If I don’t have the time, the boss has agreed to get the gear back and the car returned.

Tomorrow morning, I head to St. Louis for a demo event.

The schedule:

• Tuesday: Drive to BWI. Fly to St. Louis. Setup.
• Wednesday: Event day. Fly back to BWI.  Drive home.  Sleep.

It should be a fairly easy time.  Wednesday is going to be interesting though.  The event ends at 5:45pm.  I have to then pack everything up, drive to the airport, drop off equipment at Southwest cargo AND return the rental car.  THEN get myself to the gate for a 9:00pm flight.  The last flight out.  It’s going to be very tight.

I will be doing the event with the “big” boss there.  He’s doing a demo.  So this event has to go off flawlessly.