I am part of an organization called SHPE (The Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers) where I attended a conference, NILA 201 0 (National Institute for Leadership Advancement). I had a great week at the conference but also had some very weird experiences. Todays tip will be on time zones, you will see what to do when you travel. To some, it might be common sense but lets say I learned my lesson. I will start from the very beginning where I picked up a friend Wednesday morning.

On Wednesday, I arrived to pick up my friend and was waiting a few minutes in the car. Then, I decided to get out and stretch my legs. I got out and to my surprise a skunk appeared right in front of me. I was toast. My week ahead of me flashed in front of my eyes. I would lose the conference if I smelled like skunk. I was very scared, I moved a little, and he got into defense mode. Tail shot right up. I did not move anymore. My heart stopped. He slowly backed up and ran away. I was safe!  My heart regressed back to normal  mode and I was finally calm. I was no longer going to risk smelling like skunk. Everything was normal . I arrived at the conference and enjoyed it. I learned a lot and am happy to say that I am a proud member.

Here is where I present to you my tech tip.  It was about 4pm when I was updating OneTechTip.com  at the hotel, Sunday afternoon. I was planning to leave towards the airport at 5pm. My plane  leaving at 7:20pm. It was a good amount of time to give myself to check in, pass through security, and all those normal steps. I was working hard and looking at the time on my laptop. At 5:00ish I put everything away and was ready to go. I then looked at  my cell phone and saw it was not 5:00ish it was 6:20pm!  I could not believe it. I had not changed the time zone on my laptop! I was late and was running the risk of missing my flight. I was so desperate. I rushed to the front desk and asked for a cab. I waited outside and the cab would not arrive.Finally it did. It was about 6:45 when it arrived. The drive  to the airport was normal if you can imagine me scared to death of me missing my flight. I arrived to check-in and gave my ticket to the Frontier flight personal. I thought I was safe when he said, "you are late and we can no longer take your baggage".  I had another skunk moment, my heart dropped. I argued so much with the guy to put my luggage on board. He said due to security reason he could no longer do that. I tried everything from shipping my luggage to asking for the supervisor. He gave me no chance. I called my friend who was all ready waiting for me inside, he had arrived early because he had visited his family. I talked to him and he told me to leave the big luggage and put everything I could into a plastic bag. I desperately did that. I asked the Frontier flight personal for a bag. It was awkward because I transferred everything from my big luggage to a plastic bag and my backpack. I finally did that. My bags were stuffed. I then rushed to security and guess what. They stopped me. I was already late because of what just happened. Security asked me to take my laptop out and put in another bin. I had to take out everything and do what they said. I finally got through security and rushed to get some souvenirs and on board I got. The flight home was suitable.  I arrived home with some turbulence, the flight was about to arrive late and I was going to run the risk of not connecting my flight in Denver. Oh, and on my flight from Denver to Santa Barbara I forgot the souvenirs.  I'll say it was an awesome experience with many lessons learned.

You may ask," ...and the tech tip?" Well, check your gadgets like Cell Phones, Laptops, GPS and other electronics and make sure they have the right time based on the time zone. Some should do that automatically. The second tip is taking your laptop out or having in another bag when passing through security. I believe these are simple tips but may one safe you life.