Bidding farewell to my friends in LA, I boarded a plane yesterday for part two of my California Dreamin’ tour: San Francisco. After some chat and catching up with my friends Keith and Marites (and their wonderful girls, Anika and Teah), we met up with Kevin for dinner at a great restaurant in Oakland called “Plum“. We pretty much ordered everything on the menu and shared it all, and it was one of the most inventive and delicious meals I have had in a long time. One of the things that is so awesome about San Francisco is its food culture. On quality they easily compete with (and often surpass) any place in the world. And it doesn’t hurt that my friends are intense foodies, always on the lookout for great dining.
Images, Stephen on January 11, 2012 @ 11:09 am — 0 comments
Satori, Stephen on January 11, 2012 @ 10:45 am — 0 comments
And a little play. I have been busier work-wise than I thought I would be out here, but such is life and I am not complaining. And in between, there are meals with friends. Dallas and I had breakfast and conversation at La Conversation, Dustin and I had lunch and fortune cookies. And Maureen, Beth and I had dinner at JiRaffe and reminisced about the LA Weekly (where we all worked together several years ago). The weather has been beautiful and even with all the work, I am glad I came. Change of pace and environment is always a wonderful tonic for me.
When I was planning this trip, 5 days (ok, 4.5) in LA seemed like a lot. I thought I could enjoy myself, see a few friends, get some work done, relax. I think that relax part just went the way of the Dodo. I already feel guilty and slightly overwhelmed by how many people there are to see, but such is life. Someone always feels left out, but there just aren’t enough hours in the day to see everyone I know that lives here. Plus, I have actual paying work to do. That said, the climate is beautiful, and I have been working with the door open to perfect weather most of the day. I arrived around 10am and had a lovely lunch with my friend Jose who picked me up from the airport, then came to Dallas’ house (in WeHo where I am staying) to get settled in and down to some work. I have a few client meetings while I am here, but I am determined to have some fun along with. La la la….
I am a technology professional who has never flown with Virgin America before, but my brand associations (due to your marketing) were of a hip, modern airline with up to date conveniences. And so when I was planning on booking my current travel to LA, SF, and back to New York, I decided to try out Virgin America. Your website and system have made me never want to fly with you again, and I haven’t even boarded the first plane. Here is a brief list of the problems I have encountered:
1. Unable to book multi part itinerary on your site and had to call in to book travel
2. When logging into my account (anytime over the past several days), site is slow and unresponsive
3. After logging in, I am often logged out mysteriously while trying to make changes
4. Unable to make changes to itinerary using your site
5. Trying to get to seat mapping/changes results in wrong or no information showing, or a wiped out seat selection
6. Once checked in, no option for paperless boarding pass
7. On my iPhone, no app available for Virgin America (for check in, travel alerts, boarding pass, info)
In short, using your company has been a royal pain before even boarding my first flight with you. Congrats to your marketing guys anyway for duping me into believing you had a handle on the modern, internet-connected world when clearly you do not.
Most sincerely,
Stephen
Satori, Stephen on January 7, 2012 @ 12:12 pm — 1 comment
I have a veritable explosion of work at the moment. Trying to wrap up a few things before Monday, because I am heading to LA and SF for about 10 days, and while I will be working mobile, it is always less productive than when at my larger monitor at home. The new year has started off well with regard to work, that is for sure. I am really looking forward to going back to California, which will always feel a bit of a homecoming. After all, I lived there for about 13 years, and it is true to say I would not be doing what I am doing now if I hadn’t. It is really funny to think how small events can completely reshape your life over the long haul. It was early 1995, and having returned from living in France 18 months earlier, I was working in a planning office in SOMA doing things as various as model building, light graphic design work, and mac support. I was invited to a dinner party and struck up a conversation with the woman sitting next to me. After explaining to her the type of work that I did, she told me that she thought I would be great in the field of “Quality Assurance“. I asked her to explain what the hell that was and she told me it was basically testing out new software for bugs and quirks. Further, she told me that her boyfriend, who worked at Apple, was trying to hire a few QA engineers, and that I should send her my resume to forward to him. I told her, right, pull the other one, but she assured me she was serious and I promised to send her my resume. I went home thinking that I was not even sure what she was talking about, and as excited as I was by the prospect of working for Apple, I really felt that I had no relevant experience — so I didn’t send the resume.
As fate would have it, I ran into her on the street a few days later. She asked why I hadn’t sent my resume and I admitted to her that I didn’t have one with the appropriate experience, and surmised that it was probably a waste of time anyway. She told me to just put one together, listing exactly the type of work that I had told her about, and she would forward it, what could it hurt? Reluctantly, I pulled one together and sent it off to her, expecting that to be the end of it.
One week later, I had a job at Apple Computer.
I worked there for a couple of years, and learned a ton about QA, the software-making process, Apple, and the industry. This led me to many other technology driven jobs and pursuits, in companies large and small and places far and wide. It is amazing to look back on the last 17 years and see where it has all led. And all from a simple conversation one evening with a stranger at a dinner party.
Images, Stephen on January 5, 2012 @ 8:18 pm — 0 comments
Satori, Stephen on January 4, 2012 @ 9:17 am — 0 comments
I have been getting a lot of great feedback on and contacts from my new site, and I am thrilled. It has been picked up by a few design sites, and this has resulted in a fairly large traffic spike. One of the gratifying things in building it is seeing how far I’ve come in the last 3 years. There are all kinds of programming and design skills I have acquired in that time. And with the experience, the time necessary for me to complete projects has likewise gone down, making me a better bargain for my clients (since at least for now, my rates haven’t moved). When one is going about one’s daily business, these things can be somewhat invisible, as they are incremental. But building my new site and portfolio have made them come into focus, and while pleased with what I have learned, can see how very much more there is to learn. There are a host of truly amazing designers and programmers out there that inspire me daily. What I love about the web so much is how open it is to sharing. There are thousands of places to learn from and borrow from and get direct help with problems. It is obvious that this spirit of sharing results in an explosion of creativity and progress (much of which would be undone by hateful laws like SOPA).
This morning I had an appointment with the Apple geniuses to deal with an overheating problem on my laptop (when connected to my new monitor anyway). I went in and dropped it off with them to be picked up later today (hopefully fixed, but I have my doubts). Being without my laptop for a few hours was, I have to admit, a slightly bewildering concept at first, not least of which because I am unable to do any work without it. My entire livelihood is bound up in it, and it gave me pause. Fortunately, it is a fairly easy thing to replace, but it is obvious that in the absence of fairly advanced technology, I would have no job. My personality is such a fit with this kind of work, that I wonder what type of thing I would have done with my life 50 years ago, or 100, or 500 even? Would there have even been an opportunity for me to exercise that part of my brain in the absence of fast-changing technology? How bored would I have been, how underutilized would my native abilites have been? How much of what we are good at is merely an adaptation to the culture and the time? Maybe in fact, I was born too early. Perhaps the best realization of my skill set is at some far flung distant future.
Apple just called (as fate would have it) a minute ago. It is time to pick up my laptop.
Satori, Stephen on January 1, 2012 @ 11:37 am — 0 comments
