John Mac's Travels

  Today marks the one year anniversary of my first column on Blogspot. It's a special day for me because When I started this blog I had no idea it would take off the way it did, or that I would still be posting today. Unfortunately, this is also the last weekly blog post I will be submitting to Blogspot. Before I explain why I am sunsetting the blog, let's go back and look at the evolution of how the blog came to be. HOW IT ALL STARTED I am a career traveler for DIRECTV . 48 weeks a year, 3-4 nights a week. I was traveling before the Covid-19 pandemic, I traveled through the pandemic, and in early 2022 as America was "Re-opening" I noticed that most of the hotel, restaurant and Bar staff that I had come to know pre-pandemic were no longer employed at my favorite establishments. Hospitality businesses across the country were hiring anyone willing to work, experienced or not. This new team of service workers were doing their best to learn a job that many had never perfo...

This week I celebrated my 8th Anniversary with DIRECTV . This is my 2nd stint with the company, but my first as an internal employee. I have been traveling 4-5 days a week, 48-50 weeks a year since I returned to the team in 2016. Because 99% of my travel is over the road I have driven hundreds of thousands of miles and stayed in well over a thousand hotel rooms.   The nature of the work I do to support my team at DIRECTV requires me to keep a truck full of equipment in order to fix just about any issue we might find in the field. I sure wish I could fly, but driving is the most productive way I can travel. To learn more about my work with DIRECTV please click HERE. I have had many interesting experiences while on the road. I have responded to Hurricanes, a tornado and numerous natural disasters. I have visited or supported almost half of our 200 local receive sites in the US. I once responded to fully engulfed car fire on the side of the freeway in rural Texas, and even got r...

  The original DIRECTV Logo from 1993-2004 When DIRECTV launched in 1994 our plan was to offer the best Direct Broadcast Satellite (DBS) service to all of America.  Thirty years ago  cable infrastructures were prevalent in some major markets but not in the suburbs. Most Americans were getting their television service from an aerial antenna attached to the roof of their home. In the Rural Midwest, cable was basically not an option.   It was aerial antenna or no television at all. DIRECTV’s service was a revelation to those whom at the time had no other option for TV service. Shortly after launching, DIRECTV began offering a local channels option to our subscribers. If you lived west of the Mississippi, you got Los Angeles Locals.   If you lived east of the Mississippi you qualified to receive Local Channels from New York City. Early on DIRECTV knew that to provide timely news, weather, and local programming in each city in the US they would have to expand th...

  The Mirage Hotel in Las Vegas Nevada In the mid 90’s I directed IT Services for a small software development firm based in Seattle. I was always on the road, traveling to support our servers and sites nationwide. I also traveled for the tradeshows.  If there was a software convention happening in the US between 1995 and 1997, I was probably there. ComDex was a big one, CES (of course) and Microsoft sponsored events were among just a few of many show I attended when I was on the “Tradeshow Circuit”. It seemed like I was always headed to Las Vegas for one reason or another, and anytime I was in town I always made it a point to stay at or visit  The Mirage  hotel and casino. After opening in 1989 The Mirage was marvel on the strip.  No other hotel compared to it. This place was nothing short of Amazing. One of the first “Mega Hotels” on the strip hosting more than 3000 rooms, it was the new standard that all other hotels in Las Vegas looked up to. Complete with...

 For those who follow my weekly articles, ya'll know that I am a CRAZY fan of the  UFL and more importantly the St. Louis Battlehawks!  I have season tickets and make the 8-hour round trip to St. Louis five times a year to see all of our home games. I usually stay at the  Hotel St. Louis when I am in town because as #3 son most eloquently put it, "its bougie" with 5-star dining and a rooftop pool overlooking the St. Louis Cardinal's Busch Stadium and the cityscape. Last Friday #3 son drew the short straw and got to travel with Dad to Good 'ol St. Louie to see our beloved Battlehawks take on the San Antonio Brahmas in the final game of the regular season and fight for home field advantage throughout the playoffs. (Note - WE WON and the Playoff game is this weekend at The " Battle Dome ". The winner will advance to the UFL Championship game, which will also be hosted in St Louis. After arriving in St. Louis friday night and enjoying dinner we headed up...

There has been a lot of change in the industry that I work in.  A lot of change at the company I work for. For many, change is hard. I am a creature of habit. I don't like change. I have struggled with some of the recent changes in my life, both personally and professionally. I decided to put the changes in my life into perspective and ask myself a few simple questions. "How does this change affect my goals? Is the change hurting me, or helping me? Is the change hurting my team at work, or helping them?" Same question for my family. I took some time to sit down in a quiet place with a pencil and paper and write down my goals. With no direction or organization at all, I just wrote down every goal in my consciousness. Then decided to prioritize by professional goals and personal goals. I realized that my personal list needed to be separated by family and personal(me) goals. As I ran out of paper, lead in the pencil and patience, I then went digital with my list. Going digit...

I think the greatest gift anyone can receive is knowledge. Tangible items will come and go, wear out, or possibly become irrelevant as time goes on. Knowledge however is both a gift to receive and share. Knowledge never goes out of style, keeps the mind focused and the person in perpetual forward motion. This week I received a box in the mail from the DIRECTVforBUSINESS team filled with Amazing books! I just completed Never Not Working , by Malissa Clark. Great book on workaholics and how to budget your time create a healthy work/life balance.  For me, this book should have been called "DUH...". Who knew that working 70hrs a week was bad for you? Ya, that would be me. I highly recommend this book to any professional who might want to recalibrate their work/life balance. Click the photo for more information. Thanks to the DIRECTV Commercial team for the gracious gifts. My career in the DBS Industry began in 1999 when I was hired as an installer at an independent DIRECTV deal...

Welcome to Spring! Showers, showers everywhere with tornados and some lightning to boot! I am on perpetual "Weather Watch" this week in an effort to be ready to roll if the lights go out on any of our midwest LRF locations. What a crazy week for weather! Mother nature is in full swing. A couple of weeks ago I wrote an article about Value Vs. Price,   and in that article I spoke about how I need to find value in the products and services I purchase in order to stay with those companies. What I like about  my company  is that we have a ton of value for the price we charge for our products and services. I realize that not all of our customers see the value that I do. That bums me out because we have so much to offer our customers. I was talking to my neighbor Joe in our cul-de-sac last weekend, and he was not aware of SignalSaver. He has the right equipment at home, but did not have an internet connection to his DVR.   Well, he does now, and now has  SignalSave...

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....