Minneapolis - Medtronic AirMagnet Training

Monday was a day to catch up on work, and some Christmastime errands for Jill, then off to the Airport for a flight to Minneapolis.

It was 4 degrees late Monday night when I picked up a rental car. Brrrr.
Three days teaching for Medtronic - mostly Help Desk and Desktop Support staff as well as a couple of folks from Network Support. They are an AirMagnet customer and I mostly showed them to use the tools to help troubleshoot Wireless Network problems they've been having. Medtronic is the company that makes most of the heart pace-makers in the world!

One night I had some time and was able to see a couple of movies. The first was August Rush - though universally panned by the critics, I really enjoyed it. I can wholeheartedly recommend this movie to those who like something either sentimental (I'm sure getting that way in my old age) or just like great music. This film has both in abundance.

Then I just had to watch the latest film adaption of a book I've read. I really liked the Golden Compass (and the other books in the Trilogy) - but like always the book was so much better than the movie. Not enough time for character development. The movie is well done, but just a bit disappointing when compared with the original book.

Wednesday night the Midwest Airmagnet sales guy and a contact from Best Buy took me to dinner at Manny's - a 5-star steak house - ranked the best steak-house in the Mid-west. It was pretty good - very expensive - but the food was good. Not even worth the money - but the discussion at the table was entertaining and it turned out to be a pretty good night.

A little adventure on the way home - I thought since I had three large shipping cases of equipment, I'd drop them off at Skycap before turning in the rental car. There was a sign mentioning "Skycap Service Available" - so I stopped - left the car running in the bitter cold, and unloaded my cases. No Skycap showed up (Don't blame him for not wanting to be outside in that cold) - saw a little sign inside the doorway for another "Skycap Service Available" - so I took the cases inside (But I could still see the rental car through the glass doors) and waited for a Skycap to be paged. It took about 4 minutes to compelte the checking in of baggage.

Well, when I got back to the car - a Policeman in a big Suburban behind me came out and gave me a 'dressing down' - about leaving a car un-attended. He was going to give me a $250 ticket for leaving a car with the engine running (a new Minnesota Law) - but I got off with a warning and a mere $34 parking violation. That'll teach me...