I've Been Missing in Action

Hi all--

I've been MIA of late. It's work related. . .I'm in Germany right now. Just a few hours ago I was in Switzerland. I'm here for work. Novartis' global headquarters are in Basel, Switzerland and we had meetings there. Now this coming week, there's an annual conference with just about every pharmaceutical supplier known to man. This year the conference in is Frankfurt, Germany. So we're spending the weekend in "Deutschland".

Sounds glamorous? Yeah, I guess it is. It can be a blessing and a curse. I've been very fortunate working for Novartis, and they have provided me with some wonderful opportunities, which include global travel. That said. . .right now I'm in a hotel room with a television that gets only one channel in English. There's carting luggage, lost luggage (that happened this trip), catching trains, missing trains -- we didn't exactly miss the train today, but we missed our stop. So instead of switching trains at Karlsruhe. . .we ended up in Mannheim. . .and we were Steamrollered. Then when we got to our final stop, there were no taxis -- so we had to get on a city bus. . .with 10 suitcases. Again, I've been fortunate. . .but it can have its moments.

And between work meetings and trying to keep up with work e-mails, my United Way stuff has slipped a bit. I plan to fix that. It's a busy time. . . but I know that you are all busy as well. And those of you in the middle of campaigns, or gearing up for your campaign are doing double duty.

More to come. As always, thanks for supporting United Way. Or I suppose I should say "DANKE SCHOEN!" ( I could do a Wayne Newton imitation, but that would just be plain scary.) Dave