Copyright 2003 by Dalton W. Williams

The Summer Trip back to Colorado

The trip to Colorado was an exercise in delayed and missed flights.  The flight from Granada to San Juan was on time and no problem as was the flight from San Juan to Miami.  But in Miami, the weather was bad and they held my flight on the ground such that I would miss my connecting flight.  They rescheduled me on a later connecting flight which I also would have missed except that it was delayed two hours.  I made it into Denver and to an airport hotel 23 hours after getting up in Granada.  I have come back from Romania in less time than that!

I drove on into Vail the following afternoon.  I had forgotten how truly beautiful the Rock Mountains are and especially how picturesque the town of Vail is as you descend down Vail pass and make the sweeping turn into East Vail, the golf course along the river and then town.  I drove on through Vail and on west to Eagle where the headquarters of WestStar Bank is located.  I figured correctly that I would recognize someone’s car and would drop in for a visit.  Sure enough, there was Peg Brown’s car and I walked around the building and tapped on her window.  As she let me in the door she said I gave her a fright, thinking I must be in the islands and there I was!

It all ways amazes me how little things change.  Peg (the CFO of the bank) was there on a Sunday afternoon working on budgets.  We visited for an hour and then I drove back to Avon checking out several places to say.  The best deal was at Christy Lodge, a timeshare complex, where I got a room with a microwave and icebox for $68.00 a night for two weeks.  After checking in, I found out that Monday was Memorial Day so I had another day to relax and play tourist where I lived for 18 years.

Vail had changed not at all from when I had left, but Avon had grown by leaps and bounds.  There were two new exits off the Interstate, a huge new shopping center with Home Depot and a Super Wall Mart, and a new high rise Sheraton hotel under construction.  This is quite a change in a valley with a population of around 8,000!  I drove by the duplex that I own and lease to check it and the neighborhood out.  The yard, driveway and appearance of the house was neat and clean, but the vacant lots on either side both had new houses under construction.  The house north is a single family house and on the south side will be a new duplex. Perhaps when all of the construction is finished I will finally be able to sell my half of my duplex at a profit.  When I left 18 months ago the market was down but now seams to be rising again.  Here’s hoping!!

I had a meeting with Mr. Chester, Chairman of the bank over dinner where he outlined what he wanted me to do.  I was to do a complete survey of the IT operations from the perspective of the users of the systems to determine how the systems were functioning and then to survey the operations center to determine what improvements could made to improve overall system responsiveness.  I was also to report back my general overall impressions of how the bank was running and any employee issues that needed to be addressed.  With my marching orders in hand, I started a tour around the system of 23 branches scattered through out the Colorado mountains.

My travels were quite enjoyable as I enjoyed the work and got to see many old friends.  But I was surprised, no shocked is a better description, at how quickly I got sucked into the high stress life once again!  I found my self once again skipping breakfast or lunch to have more time to work, scheduling meetings over dinner to have more time, and in general reverting to my old “Type A” working personality. I did this in a matter of days!!

A couple of things also surprised me; I remembered many more technical details that I ever thought I would and second, two projects that were half complete when I left were still not completed 14 months later. And of course there were new things... In several instances people had selected a solution before thinking through all of the ramifications and now that was beginning to cause problems.  My talent was all ways my crystal ball in seeing completely through complex technical projects and understanding what had to be planned for up front to make the project work beyond expectations when complete. For me this is natural, but it is apparently not for others. 

My plan was to be at the bank for two weeks and then to spend one additional week traveling to visit friends.  It became apparent that I was not going to finish up everything in two weeks and I tried to reshuffle my flight schedule to make a quick two day swing, but American Airlines would not budge on allowing any schedule except to fly directly from Denver back to Miami and on to Granada.  Well they would, but I would have forfeited my remaining ticket and the new ticket would have been outrageous!

I did get to visit with two friends when I made a trip down to Cisco at Denver.  It was really great to see Mary Berwyn who is WestStar’s sales person at Cisco.  Mary is one of those special sales people who genuinely has here customer’s best interest at heart and besides all of that, is a good friend.  I could only wish she was single! {laughing}  Later that evening I had dinner with Debbi Bell who at one time was the operations manager for WestStar.  She now manages a large division at First Data Resources where she spends most of her time on the road or testifying before congress on money laundering and fraud issues.

After conducting my survey of the branch in Estes Park, Colorado, I had a wonderful visit with Samantha who was with WestStar when I joined the bank in the 1995.  Samantha retired from the bank to take on the even larger job of being a full time mother to Erin who is now ten if I remember correctly.  Erin had just won a state wide piano competition and will be competing in a national competition later this summer.

My last evening in Colorado I visited with my baseball buddy Deb in Denver.  We refer to each other as our baseball buddy as most of the times we have gotten together we have met at Colorado Rockey’s games in Denver. Deb is a project manager managing technology installations all over the eastern US.  I joined Deb for dinner and she was nice enough to let me crash in her guest bedroom before my flight early the next morning from Denver.  When I arrived she was on the phone with some of her people and I took the opportunity to just close my eyes and relax sitting in her comfortable living room chair.  I could just feel the stress and tension draining out of my body now that I was on my way home to the Caribbean.  Half listening to her, I kept thinking to my self how lucky I am to have made the decision to change my life!

The trip back to the Caribbean was an absolute zoo.  At the Denver airport there were two American Airlines flights leaving at the same time, one direct to Miami and the other to St. Louis with a connecting flight to Miami.  I almost got on the wrong flight and had to make a mad dash across the terminal to catch my flight to St. Louis and then on to Miami.  I made the connection in St. Louis with out any problems but when the plane landed in Miami 30 minutes early we were held on the taxi way for an hour while the plane at our gate had some sort of problem.  I checked with several hotels around the airport and found that the hotel in the terminal was only $5 more expensive, so of course I just wheeled my bags directly to my room.  Very convenient as I had a large heavy box full of books and equipment.

When I went to check in for my flight, I was told that starting that very morning, American Airlines would no longer take boxes on their International flights out of San Juan and that I had to pack everything in suite cases.  In large box was a new printer for the boat and they finally agreed that I could carry that on.  That made it possible to cram, and I do mean cram, everything else including all the books, a took kit, and a new radar mount into my half empty sea bag.  Yes, I was having to do this at the ticket counter with hundreds of people looking on…  With all of the new security procedures, you no longer just hand your bags over at the ticket counter.  After they tag your baggage, you then still have to carry it to security screening where they x-ray your checked luggage.  Mine with all of the tools, radar mount which sort of looks like a cannon, batteries for the boat and electrical cables of course set off all the alarms.  I was escorted to a place where they opened my bag that I had just finished cramming everything and proceeded to empty it and search everything.

Finally convinced that everything was ok, they repacked it and I was free to proceed.  But proceed where?  The flight was not listed on any of the computer monitors!  The flight was due to leave at 1:20 and it was now 1:00.  I asked at the ticket counter and the lady said they were “switching equipment” and that the gate was not yet available.  I along with a large group of people just hung out around the ticket counter until finally at 1:15 they announced the gate number.  We all made a b-line to the gate to find no one there.  After a few minutes a gate attendant came and told everyone to be seated as the crew had not yet arrived. A half an hour later when we were boarded they apologized that the air-conditioning was not on as they had not found pilots to fly the plane as of yet.  About 30 minutes after the pilots came they announced that there was a problem with the plane and suggested that as there was no food on the flight that everyone might want to take the chance to get off and visit the snack bar.  I overheard one of the American Airlines managers in a frank discussion with the pilot that he should not have let the passengers off.  His response was “I am not going to keep those people sitting on that plane for three to four hours while they fix the generator on the engine.”  Hooray for the pilot!!  At about 5:00 the American Airlines manager put everyone back on the plane and I overheard the pilot saying he could not understand why as it would be another hour until the repair was done.  But the manager was insisting.  We finally took off for San Juan at 6:25, five hours late and arrived there at 8:45 having missed the last flight to Granada.  The ground people in San Juan were very nice and arranged for well over 100 people to spend the night in San Juan and fly out the next day. 

My flight would be the same one I was to have taken at 5:15 from San Juan arriving in Granada at 7:15. Several of us took the same taxi from the Courtyard by Marriott hotel to the airport at 1:30 and then had lunch at the airport with the lunch vouchers we had been given getting to the gate at 4:30 as instructed.  When we arrived at the gate the flight was not yet posted so we took a seat and waited.  Finally at 5:00 they posted the flight with a departure time of 6:00, at 5:30 it was changed to 6:30 and at 6:00 it was changed to 7:00.  The reason being was they did not have flight crew for the flight!  The plane was there, but there was no crew for it!!  Finally at 7:05 we departed San Juan for Granada arriving at 9:15 Monday Evening after leaving Denver at 9:30 on Saturday.

I cant for the life of me figure out what American Airlines must be doing.  They say they are loosing money, but every flight had every seat filled to capacity.  They can’t be over staffed it they are delaying flights because they do not have crews.  This on two different flight that I flew on!  It just doesn’t add up.