IKEA ≠ Daycare

Well I really was trying to update this nightly, but things got way too busy. I will try my best this week. Last weekend ended decent. I had to have Comcast come out and redo everything since they messed up my install. I finally got HDTV and it is awesome, sure worth the extra few dollars.

Work is going great; I’ve started making some dents in my-to-do list. Michelle quit on Friday. She was the event coordinator and we both started at the same time. She wasn’t really fitting in so they’re going to find somebody else. I’m looking forward to another fun filled week of work.

Here are some random thoughts from SF.

1. IKEA is one of my favorite places. I love the prices and the products. I hate how people think it is a playground for their kids. Some of us are trying to shop and spend our money while you are using it as daycare. Leave the kids at home and keep the aisles clear. I also hate how people don’t get to move out of the way when you are coming with a huge cart of oversized items. They just walk as slow as possible leaving no room for you to get around. You can yell and curse and they still don’t get the issue.
2. Closed on Sundays? I went to a McDonald’s today near my building and it was closed, so was the Chinese restaurant across the street? Don’t they know people eat on Sunday’s too? It was the weirdest thing.
3. It is weird only wearing pants, long sleeve shirts, and a jacket everyday. I’m so used to wearing shorts and short sleeves right now. I got my closet all organized and I didn’t even put out any short sleeve items, IT IS SO COLD HERE!
4. KWBLACK.COM is back up in case you wanted to check the gear out. If I ever have any free time I’m going to build the online store.

That’s it for tonight. I’ll be back again tomorrow.

Did I really hang out with the guy that came up with the idea for the iPhone today?

Today was another great day at the Dealmaker office. I spent most of the morning playing around with my new Adobe CS3 programs on my Macbook. It is a little bit harder than doing them on a PC, but I’ve got to learn. I think once I get a mouse and external monitor I will be much better at them.

I spent the early part of the afternoon meeting with Jean-Marie Hullot and Keith Teare. They have an amazing new company coming out, Fotonauts, that will change the way we share and tag pictures. Jean-Marie used to be the CTO of NeXT Software and worked in building some amazing things at Apple.  He was a key part of the early thinking on the iPhone – a recent French television program actually says he came up with the idea in the first place. Keith has founded or co-founded two companies that achieved $billion valuations or greater. To me, it isn’t everyday you get to hang out with guys like this, but in our office it is. The job is going great and I couldn’t be happier. It is the perfect thing for me, right now, until I go work for some company launching a startup (haha).

Besides that, I think Ace is going to come up to SF in early May when Dani comes up for a week. It’ll be nice to have my little guy here to spend time with and go for walks with.

That’s it for today. More tomorrow…

Websites, email blasts, and marketing OH MY!

Today was another fun day at the office. I’m basically doing a total overhaul of the marketing for Dealmaker Media. They have never really had a marketing person so there is a lot that needs to be done and it is a bit overwhelming at this point. My first big task to tackle this week is a media kit for our potential presenters. After that I will be working on a complete redesign of the website, which is going to be much cooler when done. After that, we are going to build a social networking site to keep our members and attendees in contact with each other. Should be fun!

Today I did some laundry and it felt like college. Having to take my clothes down to floor 14 and put a card into the machine for $1.75 seemed like I was back in Manor Hall at UOP.  I guess it is better and cheaper than having a unit in the apartment. I won’t miss my $250 bills from APS in the summer that is for sure.

This is the longest I’ve ever gone without being with my dog, Ace. He’s become such a part of my life and how I do things that being apart this much is hard to deal with. I miss the little guy a lot.

TV in a Taxi

So today was the start of a new week. I finally got to start working on the marketing stuff at work since last week we were so busy with UTR. I spent most of the day working with Christen. She is our conference director and has been handling a lot of the marketing thus far. She’s excited to have the help so she can focus on her job more, which is making our conferences the best.

We had lunch with Stowe Boyd,a really cool blogger. He had a bunch of new ideas and thoughts on things we could do at Dealmaker Media to improve things. I spent most of the afternoon working on our blog and made my first blog post (click here).

Over the next few weeks we will be making a lot of changes to the Dealmaker Media website. Keep checking here for my postings on the new stuff I come up with.

After work I went to get some sushi and buy a TV. I walked about a mile to Circuit City then got a taxi back. I’ve never had to take a cab home because I purchased something too big to carry. The TV is awesome and I’m looking foward to getting HDTV and watch sports in high def.

So I have been in San Francisco for 10 days and I’ve made some observations:

1. The mass transit system here is awesome. Between BART, MUNI, and even the buss you can get anywhere you want to go and for like $1.50 a trip.
2. It is amazing how quick you get used to walking. I’ve always had a car since I was 16 and now I walk everywhere. I walk 1.5 miles each way to work and it isn’t a big deal. At home, I’d never even walk down to Desert Ridge to do anything and here you do it 3-4 times a day.
3. Crosswalks are dangerous. I like to wait until the little white man shows on the signal and then I decide to walk. I don’t want to to die because I went too soon like some people here do.
4. Homeless people are everywhere. Living in Scottsdale/Phoenix you never really saw them, but you can’t avoid them here. It is hard to walk by everyone of them and not give them some money, but if you did that you’d go broke. I try to give $1 to a person each day so I feel like I do my part.
5. People are generally friendly. People at the bus stops, apartment elevators, and just walking are very talkative and friendly. It is a nice change.

That’s it for today, more tomorrow.

Love and miss you Dani and Ace!

So I moved to San Francisco this week.

Since I figured this past week has been a total blur to me, that all you out there must be wondering what in the world is going on. So here it is… I moved to San Francisco. The End.

Okay, here is the real story. About 3 weeks about I came to SF to interview with this really cool company called Dealmaker Media (dealmakermedia.com). After a bunch of interview I was offered the job and a chance of a lifetime. I accepted the offer and had a week to move out there and get started. So I naturally got started. I sold my car, packed up my things, had some nice going away parties and Dani and I drove out there. 11 hours later as we pulled into the city it finally hit me, holy cow we are in SF.

We got to our hotel, which was pretty sweet for $85 a night though the $35 to park was insane. We went and looked at one apartment location which was god awful. After some dinner we crashed as we had a long day ahead. The next day we went to see 3 different places and ultimately decided on Archstone Fox Plaza. While going from a 1400 square foot luxury town home to a 475 square foot apartment seemed like a bad choice, it was the best option. I am on the 23rd floor and have amazing views (see below).

101_2739.jpg

101_2738.jpg

101_2737.jpg

After signing my lease at 4pm we drove the rental car over and unloaded then went to IKEA to do some shopping. We got some awesome stuff and I should have my place totally furnished by the end of next week.

Tuesday I had to say goodbye to Dani. While we are used to separation, I felt like I was going to college all over again. It was so nice to be 90minutes away for the past 18 months, but she’ll be up here soon enough. We took BART to the airport and she went home.

Wednesday we were off to Mountain View and Microsoft to setup for our conference. I got to meet a ton of cool startup companies that in a few short years will change how we do everything. I’m going to post them daily so you can start to get familiar with them. We had a nice cocktail party at a local restaurant in Palo Alto then went to dinner. We went to dinner with the original creator of QuickBooks and a guy from Microsoft, no big deal in this world. The next day was our conference and the most fun I’ve had in a long time. I met a ton of cool people from the press and technology world. At the end of the day we came home and I slept on my wood floors, awesome.

I finally got a bed on Friday, thank god. I know that was a lot of recapping from the past week, but it had to be done. I’ll be posting daily from now on so you can see what’s going on in my life and at work. Thanks for the support.

Miss you Dani and Ace!