John Mac's Travels

This weeks column is directed specifically to my Team at DIRECTV .  For the last 8 months I have been writing a weekly column on my travels across the country working for DTV. Before the column, I used to write a weekly email to my management team so they were aware of my work promoting the DIRECTV brand. six months ago I started posting my weekly columns on LinkedIn . I didn't really have a plan, I just wanted a place to post my thoughts.  I was so excited every week when my Blogspot stats would come out and showed that I had "50 Likes".  I was over the moon with joy.   This week I received an email from LinkedIn that basically said, "You have never looked at your analytics, and you should probably do that sometime..."  I didn't know that LinkedIn kept track of that kind of thing, so I did.  In the last 90 days my weekly columns have had over 30,000 impressions on LinkedIn. In the last 22 days my four latest columns have had over 10,000 impressions. M...

When I am traveling, my diet is always a challenge.  For the most part I get to choose when, what and where I eat. I can save a lot of money if I were to eat fast food, gas station food, or truck stop cuisine. The trade off is that this food is just NOT GOOD for you.  My children call it "Mystery food" as the only two ingredients you can count on to be present are MSG and deep fried oil. When I say my diet is a "Challenge" it's because this food is on almost every street corner. Healthy food on the other hand is much harder to find in a foreign city, and is usually twice the price(or more) than fast food. I value my body though, and I value my health, so I make a conscious decision to eat better. I am willing to spend more money to eat healthy. Like millions of Americans I have insurance. I have several different insurance policies. I know that I do not have the cheapest insurance available, but I am confident that I have the right policies for me and my family....

  This week finds me back in Peoria, IL and of course back at the Pere Marquette Marriott hotel . I stay in this hotel frequently because I can support two different DMAs(Designated Market Areas) from one single location. When I arrived on Monday the manager met me at the front desk when I checked in and thanked me once again for helping to resolve their DIRECTV issues during my previous visit in November. To read more about my last visit to central Illinois click HERE .   I was able to watch the NCAA Men’s championship game from the Great Room Restaurant in the Hotel Lobby.   Not the best game, but always a good time.   Thanks to Jessica and her team for always treating me so well when I am in town and allowing me to interview her for this article. Originally built in 1926, this historic hotel was the anchor property for downtown Peoria during the roaring 20’s and set the bar for upscale lodging.   The hotel was painstakingly remodeled and restored to it's ...

  Over the last seven years or so the most common question I get as I travel around this great country of ours is “What do you do for DIRECTV anyway?” For those interested, this week’s column is dedicated to my “Day Job”. Enjoy… Greetings from St. Louis! It's Sunday morning and my Battlehawks won a nail biter last night against the Arlington Renegades.  It was an amazing game and I was one of the 40,315 in attendance. Life is good.  Here is this weeks update. I decided to take a week to dedicate a column to my Field Engineering team. I am sure the optics might lead one to believe that I travel around the country staying in hotels, meeting with the hotel and bar staff and promoting DIRECTV. That is maybe 5-10% of my week though.  I am part of a team of 11 Field Engineers who are strategically placed throughout the country to support local channel contributions to DIRECTV in all continental US markets.  We are 100% travel allocated engineers, so we are on the r...

I still remember the day he was born like it was yesterday.  I was a first time father and over the moon with joy! I had so many plans, so many things I wanted to do, so many experiences to share with him just like my father did with me. When he turned one, we thought something was “off”.  He wouldn’t sleep.  At the time we just chalked it up to the natural process of a growth spurt. When he turned two, we knew something was wrong but just couldn’t pinpoint the issue. He still wouldn’t sleep at night.  He fought the sleep daily only succumbing to it when his body finally gave out. What we didn’t know is that his brain was running a high speed marathon and he didn’t know how to shut it off. Neither did we. We started showing Disney movies on VHS tapes to pass the time in the evenings. My wife slept on the couch night after night, changing the movies every two hours until the sleep would finally creep in. When he turned four and could talk, we realized t...