Those of you who are familiar with my work situation know that I have been traveling either out of state or at least 50 miles one way to a client site for well over 9 months and if you omit the 3 monts I spent working 80 hour weeks to try and recover a failing project well over 18 months... prior to that time I had lost over 20 lbs and had gotten my diabetes under control.

So where are we now... well the answer is I've gained back all 20 lbs I lost, my physical fitness is so bad that I'm skipping my NCCC road bike ride tomorrow because I was embarassed by my last ride and tomorrow's is described as 'Hill isn't a 4 letter word'... unfortunately neither is die which is what I would do on that ride.

How does not needing to make that 50-60 mile commute effect my day....

Let's compare today with my past 8 months (excluding those times when I was over 1000 miles from home).  On a travel day I need to be out of the house before 7AM to make it to the client's location on time.  At the clients location I sit in a non-descript cube and work for the day. Today I left home at 7:40 and made it to the company offices (less then 10 miles) well before 8 AM.  I went to my window office and spent the day working at my desk with access not only to all of my online resources, but to all of the books I have accumulated over the decades of my career.

My work day ended at the same time, I left the office today and was home by 5:15.  My wife and I  went out (since it's Friday) and we were home from dinner by 6:30. From there I went off to my computer and got caught up on things and even had time for a blog entry before it was time for me to go to the gym around 8PM.  After a short (and painfully weak) work out at the gym I still feel good, have time for another blog entry before bed.  On the other hand, when on travel I'm lucky when I'm home by 6:30 and then dinner takes till almost 8PM.  Of course this throws off my sugars and more importantly when it's that late there's no chance of getting to the gym and the result is I fall farther out of shape... which over time leads to where I am now.

This was my, based on my request, my last week of 100% onsite and until I get my diabetes back under my control my last week of even 50% travel.  The project finished a major milestone and both the client and my company were informed of this situation in advance, so even if I am: too valuable to not have on-site; I'm not going to be on-site, so either I'm valuable enough to work from the office I agreed to work from when I was hired or I'm not.