Live From Chicago, It's Saturday Night!

We made it to Chicago! John and I left Fairfield’s parking lot at 6:15 Saturday night, drove to the Doubletree we’re staying at, had dinner, and now I’m sitting in my room watching a rerun of House and writing this blog (even though Doubletree’s internet costs $11.95 a day and so I probably won’t be able to post it online until O’Hare, LA, or even China).

Let me take this moment to give free advertisement for Doubletree. They are my favorite hotel to stay in while I’m traveling for work. (Although I’m not a fan of the not-free internet at this one.) But the beds and pillows are oh-so-comfortable and upon check-in the give you the most A-MAZING walnut chocolate chip cookies you’ve ever had. They even keep them warm in an oven at the front desk for you. Plus, provided for your convenience in the bathrooms are Neutrogena products; shampoo, conditioner, lotion, soap, foaming face wash, and cold crème. Excellent additions for my guest basket in the bathroom at home.

So, some of you are probably a little curious about what exactly I’ll be up to for two weeks (or in Craig’s words a fortnight) in China. I work for a company called Fairfield Manufacturing and we make gearboxes. (http://www.fairfieldmfg.com/ to check out some of our product line.) I’ve been training in a position title “Product Support Engineer” for the past 8 months so that I can move into sales eventually for the company, and as it turns out they needed someone from service to go to China and teach employees and some of our customers about our products and how they are assembled, disassembled, and some common troubleshooting techniques. Well, since my boss does not care for the country of China in the least, they sent me instead. So, I’ll be helping set up a new assembly line while I’m there, teaching service schools, and helping to organize a new service center for our facility in Suzhou. It will be a busy two weeks!!!

Please be sure to check back and correspond with me via this blog or email. I wish I could call all of you everyday to share stories directly, but unfortunately international calling is a wee bit expensive. So a blog will have to do. I hope you’re all doing well, but for now it’s bedtime!

~CBuss