  I got my itinerary for my trip to the Holy Land (on business) finally. It kind of perturbs me--they tell me urlLink 8 weeks ago that I will be going to Israel the third week of July (week 30) but then don't actually book the flight until 9 days before.
It would have been nice to know a little earlier...but that's all crumbs off the muffin now, so to speak. This should prove to be a rather interesting trip. I really don't get along too well with our Israeli counterparts. I think some of it is cultural (self-absorbed independent American meets do-as-I-say Israeli), some of it is my own stubbornness, and some of it is actually business.
I had been dreading it but, over the last few weeks as I have prayed about it, I'm finding that I'm am less and less worried about it. Now I'm even a little excited about discussing some of the future design of the system that links our companies. The funny thing is that the guys I'm going with seem to be getting more and more excited about the trip (in a bad, confrontational way) as we go along.
No matter what happens, it will be another chance for me to be cramped up in a coach class seat for 8 hours, drink a German beer in a Swiss airport, and see a little bit of Galilee. I leave from O'Hare at 4:40pm on the 17th (that means leaving from Rockford at 1:10) and arrive in Tel Aviv at 2:49 on the 18th. We'll drive from Tel Aviv to Nahariya--about a 2 hour drive. The roads are pretty good there--Western style--more like USA than Europe.
Then we go to work on Monday morning in Tefen. It'll be a meeting between the production and logistics (inventory planning) people from Israel (Iscar), Korea (TeaguTec), Germany and USA (Ingersoll). I'm sure there will be a vast smattering of other side issues that will basically either result in a task list that would last me until '07 or much ado about nothing.
We leave at 5:30 am (that's like the crack of dawn--if you have to get to the airport 2 hours before International travel that's like 3:30 in the middle of the night! ) from Tel Aviv on the 22nd and arrive around 12:50pm at O'Hare the same day. I should be home for dinner on Thursday the 22nd. I think I'll take Friday off to recoup and spend with the kids. 
