…and WHAT a hike it was! Here, let me explain…the last time we spoke I told you that I am now the Regional Sales Manager for Webcetera, providers of EZLynx. Well, being an old timer in this thing of ours but new to Webcetera, the President of our company thought that it would be a good idea for me to visit our home office located in a suburb of Dallas, Texas, to meet the staff that I had not already been acquainted with, and to become acclimated to the product offerings of our company. Being extremely excited about my new position, and knowing how beneficial it would be for me to spend some time in our home office, I eagerly packed my bags and headed for Flower Mound, TX, a beautiful town “east of the Pecos” (as they used to say in the old Western movies), and a suburb of Dallas.

Excited to be training on all of Webcetera's products, like our real time comparative rating system; managements system; consumer quoting and self-service portal, and a few other products for insurance agents and carriers, I planned to arrive in Dallas on Sunday afternoon so that I can be in the office bright and early on Monday morning, and nice and refreshed in order to get a full week of learning in before I head back to Long Island on Friday evening. In addition, I was hoping that the Yankees would have beaten the Detroit Tigers, so that I could have been in the Dallas area and maybe caught a playoff game while visiting there as my entire office in Texas are die hard Rangers fans, so it would have been fun to have some friendly baseball rivalry going on between the entire company and "the new guy" from New York! Unfortunately, A-Rod and company didn't pull through, so I spent my first night in Dallas watching St. Louis and Milwaukee battle it out since the Rangers were rained out and the Cowboys had a bye week. Anyway, Monday morning comes and I arrive at the office nice and early, even though my Garmin GPS said I was in Oklahoma (don't ask, I never did figure it out so I ended up paying a visit to Best Buys that night and replaced “Lola” with "Magellan") so I spent the first twenty minutes trying to read Google Maps on my phone while negotiating traffic. Either way, I still arrived before my scheduled time and spent a wonderful week learning all about our products from some of the nicest and smartest people that I have ever had the pleasure to work with. I'll talk more about these fantastic people later, but let’s get to where they asked me to go “take a hike”.

So Thursday comes, and Pete Holcomb (whom I have had the pleasure of working with before and have known for twenty years) walks into the office that I have been occupying for the past few days, and asks me if I had plans for the weekend. “Not really”, I reply, “just flying home on Friday night. Why, what’s up?” Pete then proceeds to tell me about a weekend hiking trip that he and five other gentlemen from the office have planned (including the President and the CEO of our company), and said that they would like for me to join them. Excited that they asked me to be a part of their trip, I checked at home to make sure Ann Marie was ok with me staying another few days, changed my flight, and told Pete I would be delighted to go with them. Pete asked me if I had ever climbed a mountain before, and I responded, “Yes, but I usually take a car!” Pete then suggested that I go get myself some hiking boots, jeans, and a rattlesnake bite kit and be ready first thing tomorrow morning as he’ll be by the hotel to pick me up. “Great!” I exclaimed “I’ll be ready! By the way, where are we going?” Thinking he was joking about the snakes and that his response would be the hills behind the grassy knoll in downtown Dallas, Pete replies, “70 miles west of Van Horn, Texas. 530 miles west of here, in the Guadalupe Mountains, on the New Mexico border. The peak we are hiking to is 8700 feet above sea level, but don’t worry, we’re starting at 5000 feet, so it’s not that bad.” Pete then adds, “It’s an 8.4 mile trek: 4.2 miles up, and 4.2 miles down.” Smiling, I say “Eight miles, that’s it? Piece a cake!” “Ha! Ha!” says Pete, “That’s if the mountain lions, rattlesnakes, and bears don’t get you first!” Pete replies as he walks out of the office. “Lions, and rattlers, and bears? “ Forget the “Oh my!” I said, and then I immediately asked if I could just come along for the ride and wait in the car! “Don’t worry”, Pete said, “The vultures usually eat them before they get to you.” “Vultures, too?! Oh my!” I cried out!

Well, excited to see somewhere that I have never been before and more so just to spend some time with the guys, I ask around the office where can I get the proper clothes for my trip so that Cousin Vinnie over here can “blend” in the mountains. After all, my Bruno Magli’s don’t have cleats for mountain climbing, and a rattler can bite right through my slacks, so I ask the ladies in the office where to shop for the trip. With marching orders on where to go, I head out to Academy Sporting Goods and purchase boots, socks, shirts, jeans, and of course some snacks for the trip (there’s always room for Jello). Early to bed tonight I tell myself…tomorrow I climb a mountain! Well, let me tell you, this was an incredible experience, and a once in a lifetime trip. We drove all day on Friday, through the desert, passing everything from grazing cattle, to oil wells, to windmill farms, with a constant watch for roadrunners and armadillo that were crossing our path. One would never imagine the desert to be so beautiful; however it was absolutely breathtaking to see the barren land, with the largest mountains I have ever seen on the horizon. I was mesmerized the whole way there…not to mention that the guys and I laughed for 9 1/2 hours straight in the car! Around dinner time we arrived in the quiet little town of Van Horn, where we spent the night at the El Capitan Hotel, built in 1930 as a stopover for the St. Louis to Los Angeles railroad and stagecoach runs.

The hike lasted from 9:00 AM until about 5:00 PM, and although Pete and I “only” made it to about 7000 feet before we decided to head back, Nag, Raj, Jaideep, DJ, and Bhaskar valiantly climbed to the peak at the 8700 foot level. Although the only animal we encountered on the mountain was a salamander, I have to tell you the whole tie in of this story to the insurance business was that all the while as I gazed over the 1000 foot cliffs from the four foot wide trails that we were traversing, I kept saying that for my families’ sake I sure hope my life insurance is in force! Thanks, gentlemen, for such an amazing weekend, and for some fantastic company! You guys were truly wonderful to spend time with up in the mountains and through the desert, and I look forward to our next trip. Maybe next time you guys come to New York and we’ll do something really daring…like take a ride on the subway… you never know what you might run into down there, either!

But wait, don’t leave yet, there’s more to my adventure! Sunday night I get back to the hotel at DFW Airport, so that I can catch an early flight home back to New York on Monday morning. Eager to get home and tell my story, I hop the Marriott shuttle bus for the 1 mile trip over to the US Airways terminal to catch my flight. In Dallas, American Airlines is the main carrier, so if you travel via any other airline you are the last stop on the bus as American passengers have the first three terminals. After placing my suitcase at the rear of the shuttle so that the driver may place my bag in the trunk area, I board the bus along with about 20 other passengers…most of whom were flying American. Therefore, everyone else disembarked prior to me, so when we arrived at my terminal I was the only person left on the shuttle. I exit the bus, walk to the back with the driver, and as he opens the back door and unveils the luggage compartment, I see that my bag is not there. I do spot the only bag left on the bus which was a similar looking suitcase to mine, however I can easily see that it is not the one that I packed my hiking boots in the night before.

What happened was that the driver of the shuttle inadvertently gave my suitcase to the wrong person, as this "unsub" (if you’re a “Criminal Minds” fan you obviously know what that means) got off the shuttle at a different terminal than where I was headed to, and before me. So now I have their bag in the shuttle w/me, and they unknowingly have mine, so off we go the shuttle driver and me, to try and find this person to switch bags and reclaim our proper suitcases. DFW is one of the largest and busiest airports in the country, and here we are trying to find an unknown subject (hence the “unsub”) before they board a flight w/my new boots...and everything else I had with me for the week long trip. Well, on the bag I was now in possession of was a luggage tag, that had a telephone number written on it. Hoping that it was the cell phone of the owner, I called the number and the lady who answered the phone was indeed the person who was on the shuttle with me, and she was shocked as she did not realized it that she had the incorrect suitcase. However, it gets better: she now advises me that she inadvertently checked my bag through to Albuquerque, NM, on American Airlines, thinking it was indeed her bag. So at this point my only chance of going home with my suitcase is to meet up with this lady, deliver to her the correct bag, then ask American to please pull that bag off her flight that leaves in 30 minutes, return it to me, and then run to hopefully make my flight that’s leaving from across the airport. The Marriott driver, who was visibly upset over mistakenly giving her the wrong bag stayed with me, shuttling me back to the American terminal to meet up with the rightful owner of this bag. I repeatedly told him it that was not his fault, that it was the fault of the woman who identified my bag as hers, and to not worry as we will get this corrected. I felt so very bad for him as he was much more upset than I was, as I figured the worst that would happen would be that I won’t have to carry my bag home as American would deliver it to me tomorrow.

Well, that’s where I was wrong…we hurry over to American Airlines, meet up with the lady, and together we explain the story to the ticket agent at the American counter and ask them to please pull the bag. American tells me that they won't pull the bag, as it's too late, the flight is boarding and they won’t delay it over my bag. I tell the lady that she should go and board, and that I will handle it from here…no sense on her missing her flight. I then once again and very politely ask them to please pull the bag, and upon negative reply I ask for a supervisor, who arrives within a very short time. Once again I kindly ask the supervisor to please pull my bag as it was incorrectly checked on the flight, and he abruptly tells me, “No” and that when it arrives in Albuquerque it will be the responsibility of the woman who checked the bag to return it to me, as American did nothing wrong and will not assume any responsibility. Not wanting to risk losing my new hiking boots as I would have to rely on the integrity of the owner of the other bag to claim my suitcase and return it to me from Albuquerque, I calmly (and with a smile) explain to the supervisor that "you and I both know that you can't knowingly send a bag on a flight without a matching passenger, so either you pull the bag now and return it to me, or I call the FAA and see what they think about this...your choice." The supervisor smiles and says that he's reconsidered and is going to retrieve my bag and return it to me, so I should go down to the baggage carousel and it will be there shortly. Well, low and behold the bag shows up rather quickly from it's almost trip to New Mexico...so I jump back in the Marriott shuttle with my new friend at the helm, and we hurry over to the US Airways terminal. I tip the driver, and told him not to feel bad as it was purely an accident and not his fault, and that it all worked out anyway… we both retrieved our rightful bags and will both make our flights.

Once he pulled away I called the Marriott, to speak with the driver's supervisor and pay him a compliment for the time that he spent with me in trying to rectify this unfortunate situation. The driver’s boss thanked me for the call, and said she would commend him. So now I get to the gate for my flight...only to find out that it’s delayed. Well at least I have my hiking boots! As fall sets in so does the convention season in this thing of ours, so next time we’ll be chatting about a couple of conferences in New York and Connecticut. Also, great job to ACORD and the New Jersey Professional Insurance Agents Association for organizing a very productive meeting in the ACORD office of agents, carrier folks, and vendors where we shared ideas and discussed ways of trying to increase efficiencies of agencies and carriers in an effort to contain the costs associated with the ordering of reports when quoting personal lines business. Moderated by PIA of NJ President Keith Savino, I truly believe that we are on the right track, and I look forward to our next meeting to continue our discussions and solving this dilemma. Stay tuned!

One last note…a huge THANK YOU goes out from me to Pam, Lauri, Laura, Lori, Rick, Ben, Jay, Suzanne, Kelley, John, Damien, Riley and everyone else over at EZLynx who truly went out of their way for me this week in Dallas, answering all of my silly questions and spending so much time with me. You were all fantastic and I very much appreciate everything that you did! Thank you!

Until next time…Ciao for now, and if someone tells you to go take a hike, do it! You never know where you’ll end up!