Scheduling - The Egg or the Chicken - Part 2

Some problems, I have discovered, are like nesting dolls. Just when you think that you've gotten through the outer layer, you discover another piece of the puzzle inside that. And when you peel through that layer, you get to another one and another one and another one and . . . So far, for myself, I only have to worry about the calendar in the big picture. Stuff like getting dates from other organizations, planning generally when I will put week long trips, how many spots and slots I have for events and Official Visits and Receptions and such - a very general, overall sort of picture. Beyond that general picture comes another layer which I am told is one of the toughest and one which I am spared until next year. That is the difficult task of actually putting the where into the when. It is simple enough to say generally that OVs will probably go here and here and here, and an entirely different layer of problem to say, in the morning we will be here and then we will drive to there and then we will attend this there and then everyone will go home. First you have to know where your receptions will be located, which requires lining up your Grand Officers. If you are doing receptions all at onces, then you at least need to set weekends to be north and south. But if you spread the receptions out, then you really do need to know who is where because they need to be mixed in with events and Official Visits that are a reasonable driving distance from each other. Then there is weather. I am beginning to believe that California weather is not quite as perfect and balmy as all the travel ads say because we don't all live on the coast. It sure would be nice if we did, but, news flash, we don't. Did you know that it gets rather warm in the central valley in the summer? As in, fry eggs on the hood of your car warm, no need to even open the hood and put the eggs on the engine, oh no, hood is warm enough to fry them up nicely, hot type warm. And that in January and February, getting to some parts of the state is difficult, as in almost Impossible! I have rain tires on my car, but I hate chains and I've discovered that many low land California people have never seen chains, let alone have an idea of how to put them on tires. Seriously, how many people do you know that live year round in the coastal areas of California, that even own chains? Do you know what chains are? How about salt on the road? Heard of that? Unfortunately, most places in California are rather blah in the summer. That is just the way the cookie crumbles. And some places are too cold at the beginning of the year too. So now, as you go down a layer, you have to account for weather. And festivals, yes, festivals. Some places have them and you can't get hotel rooms certain weekends. And sports events, some places have those too and everyone who is anyone local is busy. And then someone else is using the hall the day you want it, so you have to go somewhere else. And then some of us, who fly, prefer to have loops that start somewhere, go out and end somewhere else. Adding it all up together and you have passed right by sunny side up to fully scrambled on the eggs of the calendar. So everyone does the best they can with the resources available, but every year seems to have a glitch or two. It would help if someone would put a nice real hub airport somewhere in the northern part of the State, so everyone up there wouldn't have to drive two or three hours down to Sacramento to catch a plane and everyone down here would be able to get farther north before getting into a rental car. How about Redding? They have nice weather and a great Chinese restaurant in the little airport there. But since that is not likely to happen in the next two years, we slog onward. Because of this, when you look at the calendar and you see some of the scheduling, you may be tempted to ask one of the following questions: Was the lady on drugs when she thought we could get from A to B? Could someone buy this person a map of California? Does she have any idea what that road is like? or my personal favorite: Are you kidding me? Try to remember that the answers to the questions are no, got one, yes and no. Desperate times simply call for desperate measures. Sometimes desperate measures include driving for nine or ten hours over bad roads. Next weekend, I will be in San Jose, Martinez, Union City and Salinas.