Nasty end to the Amsterdam trip

A couple of months ago I did what until then was my shortest trip to Europe: Depart Houston on Monday, arrive in Paris mid-day Tuesday, return Saturday.

The Amsterdam trip I just finished beats that by quite a bit. I left Houston on Tuesday, arrived in Amsterdam on Wednesday mid-day. Left Amsterdam on Friday mid-day, arrived home Friday evening.

It was a very weird trip. Our office is near Schipol Airport about a block from a Radisson where I stayed. After arriving, I showered, changed and went straight to the office. That evening I had to do some work to prepare for my talk on Thursday so I didn't get into the city at all. Had dinner at the hotel with five other folks. Six people at the table, six different countries. The entire day Thursday was spent in the meeting, including my one hour talk. That evening I joined a group of UK folks for dinner in Amsterdam. We rode the train from Schipol and then took a tram because it was raining. After dinner it was raining again so we all piled into a cab and returned to the hotel. I never really did see anything of Amsterdam.

I've got a bunch of pictures from my two previous trips there this year but I did want to see the city with leaves on the trees.

I never even took out any cash while over there. I was either with someone who was picking up the tab or I used plastic.

The economics of this trip still kind of boggle. Four days of my time taken up to do a one-hour talk. But I seem to be the only person who was qualified to do it. So it's nice to be needed.

All in all I hope not to do any trips this short again.

The nasty end to the trip came as I headed home from the airport parking. Some kid in a Honda Civic rear-ended my pickup on the road from the parking lot to the freeway. Just enough rain had fallen to make the roads nice and slick. He was driving too fast and when I slowed for someone turning off in front of me he locked up his wheels and smacked my truck. Slightly scraped the rubber coating on the bumper of the truck and seriously mashed in the front of the Civic. I'm bettin' a good $5,000 damage to it. My bumper went above his so it mashed his hood back to the radiator and did damage to both front quarter panels. I don't think his car was drivable, it was leaking either radiator fluid or oil or both. There was a cop handy so all the info got recorded. The cop sent me on my way after making sure I had the kid's insurance info.

I had someone rear-end the pickup about 5 years ago with pretty much the same results. But that time I ended up with a nice neck snap. A few days later I found myself in a lot of pain. It took a couple of trips to an orthopedist and an MRI to discover that I have a degenerated disk in my neck and the pop from the accident had caused a nerve pinch. I'm really hoping this one won't have the same results.