The Toil of the Desktop Calendar
Anyone else feel guilty when you get behind a few days on your desktop day by day calendar? Getting a daily desktop calendar for Christmas feels like a commited long term relationship and if you're not in for the long haul you are sure to break your vows. This is how it normally goes...
The weekend came, Monday morning was crazy and before you know it papers are piled high and the poor desktop calendar gets shoved to the back. Only when you emerge from your paper disaster do you see the corner of the little desktop calender peeking from above the fray- and that is when the guilt hits. You've let him down - you promised to spend a little time each morning laughing at his cartoons, or marveling at his little bits of wisdom and trivia only he can provide.
You promise it won't happen again, but deep down you know its just a matter of time before you look down and your calendar says June 2nd and the real date is September 3rd. Sometimes you'll try to get back on track. You'll rip out an entire 3 month section to try and make things right, but you're out of the habit now. Another month passes and the same Far Side cartoon from September 4th is staring back at you - sadly, with crumpled edges. It is then when you give up and say "Next year I'll do better little desktop calendar. I promise I'll change you every day. We'll laugh, we'll cry, we'll dance a jig...until next year little calendar."
Ahh, California...
What a breath of fresh air, and warm-er air. I went on business this past week to the bay area in the California and decided to bring Mickie along for a much needed "just the two of us" vacation. We arrived (via separate flights) on Tuesday night. I had some interesting issues to begin the trip... First, I had a row all to myself and was high in the sky when a kid got sick and had to go to the bathroom. When he returned the drink cart was in his way and he couldn't get back to his seat. The flight attendent then told him to wait in the seat next to me. Not a problem - except that he stayed there the rest of the flight...not really sure why. I then attempt to get a rental car. I went to Hertz first because that is where I thought the administrative assistant had booked me a rental - but they had no record and on top of that no rental companies had any more cars!
Side rant begins here... I believe the rules of engagement for customer service need to be looked at. Shouldn't you service the person you were talking with first? You shouldn't pick up the phone and tell the person in front of you to hold on, you tell the person on the phone to hold on...this happened several times during the trip. Am I way off base here??? Okay, side rant over.
I made my way down to Enterprise rental and they must have had my name in the system because I was able to get a car - and a free upgrade! We ended up with a 2005 Silver Jeep Cherokee. It was pretty nice and balanced out the most of the fiasco. At this point I was loading our luggage and noticed my computer bag was a bit damp. (never a good sign - kinda like seeing your transmission in your rear view mirror...) A can of pop had punctured and leaked all over my bag. My company cell phone was trashed, but thankfully everything else including my laptop, and really cool headphones survived.
Wednesday I met with a client during the morning and we went to San Francisco in the afternoon and evening. We explored Fisherman's Wharf and Pier 39, made funny faces at the sea lions, walked in a bunch of trashy souvenier shops, and ate dinner at the Rainforest Cafe. Later we rode a cable car and finshed the night by driving over the Golden Gate Bridge.
We had Thursday to ourselves and went back to San Fran. We toured Alcatraz for most of the time. It was very cool. If you ever go, drop the extra few bucks for the audio tour. Most of the pictures I took were from Alcatraz. That night we drove down the crooked street, went to the marketplace and decided to leave because there were so many people.
We drove over the GGB again but this time I missed the exit and ended up going up US 101 for awhile into the Napa Valley. It probably would have been real pretty in the day time, but we were hungry and tired so it wasn't.
It was a really good time. You can see photos on our Flickr page here.
Is that really Steve?
steve_hur_comb
Originally uploaded by Josh Byers.
Mike Davidson of mikeindustries.com has been hosting a contest for the past week and a half to see who could put Apple Icon Steve Jobs in a famous movie roll. There have been over 200 entries so far. The winner gets an iPod shuffle. I don't expect to win but it was a lot of fun. Check out my four entries in the Flickr photoset...and by the way I haven't forgetten about the year in review - Ted has made a few editorial changes and we are waiting for the revisions...