Travis' High Sea Adventures

Travis had some story-worthy adventures last weekend worth blogging about.

Let me set the stage.

Travis went to Galveston (Island), Texas for this year's ADM grain division annual meetings. Travis is the Center Gulf Regional Safety Manager for ADM, one of the five U.S. Regional Safety executives within the grain division. The Regional Safety Managers play an big part in each pair of annual meetings ADM holds. He and his colleagues are responsible for making presentations at the meeting about topics they are assigned, for making people feel welcome (aka hobnobbing), and making sure the meeting run smoothly. Only upper management (from each facility and region) attend the meetings, but there are still too many within the grain division to accommodate at one location.

Travis's first meeting was from Monday to Wednesday. He then had a meeting with only the other four regional safety managers and regional superintendents Thursday. That left Friday, Saturday and Sunday before the next meeting started on Monday. The kids and I came down for the weekend and Travis participated in two "team building" exercises with his colleagues.

Jeff, Travis's boss is a man who likes to have fun. So, he scheduled some "Team-Building" exercises for the executives to do between meetings.

Friday was the first "team building" exercise, deep sea fishing. Travis and the guys arrived at the dock at 7:00 a.m., with their guides nowhere to be found. The first guide showed up and explained it was too windy to go out into the Gulf and fish that day, so they'd be staying between Texas and Galveston Island. He took a group of guys out on his boat. Travis waited with a few other guys for the second sailor to show.

The sailor showed up in a much smaller boat a couple hours later. Travis and his friends questioned whether this was going to be a good day, but got on the boat, anyway.

Much to the despair of the first group that went out in the fancy boat with the first captain, Travis's crew reeled in about 50 fish that day! Travis said his guide said, "I know where the fish will bite." and took them straight to the best spot. Other guides would call their wise captain during the day, but the captain would tell the other guides they were only catching a few and downplay the success so others would not come crowd the good fishing waters!

By the way, did anyone try to call Travis's cell number Friday-Wednesday? I called a couple of times Friday, as the kids and I were driving to Galveston, but his voice mail picked up immediately every time. I figured he didn't have coverage out in the boat. Turns out, Travis took a little swim with his Blackberry. His Blackberry held all of his phone numbers, addresses, connected to the Internet, served as his work phone and he could do business with it by sending and receiving e-mails. A HUGE loss. He tripped on a part of the side of the boat he was standing on on and dropped one of the guide's fishing poles into the water so he could use his other hand to keep from falling in. Then he saw the pole in the water and his knee-jerk reaction sent him diving for the expensive, sinking fishing pole. Travis climbed back into the boat, only THEN realizing what he had done. He got a newer, fancier Blackberry to replace the old one and Travis was blessed to have saved all of his phone information onto the hard drive of his computer. He just uploaded his old phone info. to his new phone. He even has the same phone number now!

We got to Galveston at about 7:30 that night and the maintenance man on Travis's hotel floor had to let us in the room. Tired fisherman Travis was sound asleep on the bed and didn't hear us knock! He proudly showed his pictures to me and the kids and we enjoyed listening as he told us every last detail.

I could have done without every last detail about his second "team building" exercise on Sunday, but it's still hilarious.

Travis and the guys met the same sailors at the same dock Sunday, this day hoping to make it out to deep sea fish. The guides told them they would take one boat deep-sea fishing and keep two boats in the bay since the waves were still pretty high due to wind. The guide taking the boat to the deep sea warned the guys (and gals) that the waves were high and for them not to go if they had weak stomachs.

Okay, ladies and gentlemen. Is this not a direct challenge to a first-time deep sea fisher?! Travis saw it as a challenge. "I guess I'll go," he said confidently. Another two guys volunteered. The other crew, including Travis's boss, Jeff, whom had been deep sea fishing before, stayed in the bay to fish. For good reason.

Travis said he was on a 18-footer (boat) and huge waves were hitting the boat about every six feet apart. Do you see where this is going? Travis was okay at first. The captain then noticed Travis looking a little pale. He asked Travis if he was okay, and when he said yes, the captain encouraged him to eat some potato chips and take a drink to prevent heaving his breakfast. This captain's stomach has apparently been steeled by the sea so much he has forgotten that food and water on an upset stomach only come out one way, the way they came in! Travis had to hang his head over and evacuate his stomach a couple of times and was miserable most of the day. To boot, they only caught two six-pound catfish and a small shark! The guide told them to come back in the summer for a better experience, when the spring winds aren't tearing up the water.

"Hey, Ralph!" Jeff (Travis's boss) hollered as we came out of the hotel elevator Sunday evening on our way to supper. As Jeff was poking fun at Travis (Travis gives as much as he takes, trust me), he said with a smile, "I knew that at least one of you would end up losing it (throwing up) before the day was over. This boss knows his employees! He! He! I have to mention. The other two guys on the boat with Travis weren't laughing much. Although they didn't toss their breakfast overboard, they felt queasy, too!