Jimbo is on the road tonight. The Fairfield Inn has an indoor pool, but even though his girlfriend told him to take his swim trunks, he didn't do it. There is no one in the pool or the hot tub, so jimbo would have felt self-conscious in there by himself. There are windows in the lobby through which everyone can observe the pool area.
There are mostly businessmen here, but I think there might be a lower division college basketball team staying here. I didn’t see a bus, but I saw a guy in the lobby who had the eyes of someone who plays the one spot and there was a rather tall young gentleman heating up something in the microwave in the lobby—probably a three or four man.
Jimbo has never been a road warrior, but he has been out on average a couple of times a year throughout his career. He’s done it enough to know the basics. First, you get your room and get your stuff into it. Hang up all your work clothes, rather than leave them in the suitcase. This place has an iron and ironing board, so a wrinkle won’t be a problem. The second step is to check out the restaurant in the hotel to make sure the food is good. If so, and it usually is, then you eat virtually all of your meals there. The place I’m staying doesn’t have a restaurant, just continental breakfast served in the lobby from six to nine in the morning, so this would have necessitated a search for someplace to eat, but Jimbo lucked into his place within a half hour of checking in. I checked the yellow pages and found what I assumed would be a fast food place a block down the street. I figured I'd go there and get a burger and bring it back and eat it. It turned out to be a sit down restaurant, so I had supper there and it was pretty good. There are a number of hotels, motels and extended stays in the area and I noticed a lot of guys at tables eating by themselves—the confirmation this was a good place to eat. When you see people by themselves (and there were a couple of lone women there, too) you figure them to be road warriors and if there are road warriors eating there, it means the food is good. The logic is that road warriors are on expense accounts and they can afford to eat at better places because someone else is paying. If you see road warriors, eating on someone else’s money, it is confirmation that the place passes muster. This one did, in Jimbo’s opinion.
The next important thing is to make sure you pay for everything on a credit card. Good road warriors have a separate credit card just for work-related travel. They charge everything on it, submit their expense reports and are usually reimbursed within a week. They get 28 days grace on the card, so they always have positive cash flow. You also use the credit card so you always have a receipt to turn in. Try collecting something from your accounting department if you fail to obtain a receipt and you’ll understand what I mean.
One of my favorite feature newsmen of all time was Charles Kuralt of CBS. It seems he spent the majority of his career on the road. I had the pleasure once of seeing him lecture at a big-city Midwestern university, and it was worth it. He was an interesting man in person as well as television. In that same lecture series I had a chance to see Ralph Nader when he was a younger man. He too was worth the time.
Charles Kuralt would always end his reports with a tagline “on the road” from wherever he was. That will be my tagline for tonight. This is Jimbo saying good night from somewhere on road in the great Midwest.
Because even in Jimbo’s world, we need to venture out sometimes.
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