Importance of Checking E-mail

Yesterday I woke up thinking I had a relaxing beginning of the week. Foolish me. Right now I am in San Francisco working on a new project. I am glad to be here and this is going to be a great assignment. However I think it is funny how I got here.

The day started out pretty normal for a Sunday. Then it got exciting. At noon I was asked to help out with a local HAM Radio emergency response system. The idea is that if there is a monumental disaster and usual forms of communication (like phones) don't work, there is a HAM radio operator in the neighborhood that people can leverage to get help. Of course this will require me to get my HAM license, but my background in Electrical Engineering helps make that a fairly trivial task.

I didn't think much of the invitation and decided to catch up on some sleep with a bit of a nap. That didn't last long as I was given a call and told about a HAM emergency drill that would be taking place at 9pm last night. I didn't really have a pen to write information down and so I told the caller to send me the details in e-mail and I would attend. Then I went back to my nap.

At about 5:30, I wandered down to my office and checked e-mail. In addition to the HAM meeting, I also had a request from my old friend Wister to come to San Francisco. He wants to start this project immediately and wondered if I could be there in less than 24 hours. He would even pick up my airfare. I let my wife know about the meeting and she told me to go. I booked my last-minute flight arrangements on Southwest who had the lowest-cost flight.

This morning I was up at 5am so I could get ready for my 7:30am flight. I picked up another hour of sleep on the flight and was in downtown San Francisco by 9:30am.

I'm glad I checked my e-mail on Sunday. Otherwise I would have gone into my office this morning and it would have been too late to make my meeting.