It’s pretty clear that I find myself traveling more and usually I’m putting less emphasis or excitement on these little trips. It’s exciting and fun to travel but the past year has kind of numbed me to preparing or being too excited about a new adventure like this. Prior to October 2008 (just over a year ago) I had never been to many cities in the US outside of where IDG held Macworld Expo which was NYC, Boston and San Francisco. I wasn’t “well traveled” but it didn’t really mean I was less adventurous, just didn’t have a reason to visit these places.
In the past 15 months, I’ve traveled up and down the west coast twice from Seattle to San Diego, been to Las Vegas 4 times, Reno and Lake Tahoe twice and Austin, Chicago and many more US cities. It’s been quite an adventurous year for me. On Sunday morning, my friends JM and Jonathan emailed me with an invitation to join them in LA for some meetings. I emailed my boss to make sure I could take the time off and at noon on Monday I had my day bag and was on a plane to LA. Just over 30 hours later, I was sitting in LAX boarding a 5:30PM flight back to San Francisco. Yes, this is what travel has become. I admit that just last year I was a bit too caught up with travel so much that I wouldn’t go anywhere because I thought it was so much work and planning. Now we buy tickets on Sunday and hop on a plane. It’s nice to have this emotional freedom to not feel a lot of planning is really needed when you’re flying solo and only going somewhere for a day. Still, this trip to LA was special because I met some amazing people and splurged a bit and thanks to my friends, it was a low cost trip with a very high value.
I’ve enjoyed letting my photos tell the story lately. It’s more fun to capture moments and caption them on the site instead of being long-winded where you won’t read it anyway.
Southwest Airlines flight from SFO to LAX (Photo: Jean Marie Reed)
The Standard Hotel - West Hollywood, CA (View of LA)
The Standard Hotel - West Hollywood, CA
Jonathan and I @ http://joespizza.com (Photo by Jean Marie Reed)
Me. Lighting brought to you by an antique lamp. Photo by Jean Marie Reed
The Standard Hotel - West Hollywood, CA
Art Deco Chairs - The Standard Hotel. Photo by Jonathan Richina
The Standard Hotel, Art Deco Lamps, Shag Carpet on the ceiling (semi-optical illusion)
The Beverly Hills Hotel - Photo snapped at 35 miles per hour.
Avenue of The Stars - Century City, CA
It was an exciting trip spent with friends and we had some meetings that might have opened up a few new opportunities for me. Either way, I enjoyed some amazing food and drinks and got to explore another part of LA that was completely new to me. Thanks for reading. The entire photoset is below and you can view the photos in full screen mode.
Today is December 26th and I’m lying on my bed, drinking some tea and listening to the sound of thousands of cars pass by my apartment on their way to a better place. There were two experiences today that inspired me to title this blog post like I did. As many of you know, I don’t title blog posts until after they’re written but this time, I knew exactly what I wanted to say.
Church of Christ - Van Ness & Eddy
After having coffee and taking photos in Union Square today, I was heading back to my place in lower Nob Hill and decided to take a detour and head through the Tenderloin. I never have a “direction” when I grab my camera and go for a walk but the journey took me to city hall and down to the Mission. I stopped at Starbucks to grab a coffee and catch up on some work.
I stopped briefly at Ellis and Jones in The Tenderloin to take a photo of the street corner. It was perfect lighting and I only know this because every other photo of street corners came out way too over-exposed despite tweaking my camera settings forever. This one came out great. (pictures)
Corner of Jones & Ellis
As I stood there, a black man in his 60s equipped with a baseball cap and a cane spit near where I was standing but he was walking by and since I’ve been pissed on and stepped in human feces while walking around the Tenderloin, it meant nothing to me. He stopped, faced me, hocked a loogie and spit directly on my shoes just as I snapped the photo that you see above. I turned to him and politely asked, “is everything okay?” The dialogue is as follow.
Him: “why don’t you take fucking pictures in your own neighborhood?”
Me: “I am. I live a block away in that direction”
Him: “you’re a fucking liar. Your fancy camera, you don’t below here. get the hell out”
Me: “Sir, I apologize and I mean no disrespect. This block is beautiful, historical and I like it. I was walking to Taco Bell and I wanted to grab a photo.” [He Grunts and starts to walk away]
Me: “Sir, what’s your story? Mine is that I moved here over a year ago and don’t make enough money to move out of the Tenderloin. I’ve grown to love it now and I want to stay here for a while but the reality is, I can’t afford the rent anywhere else in the city. My life story isn’t as “great” as you think it is and this is my home too. Please tell me more about you.”
Civic Center Plaza
He said, “you wouldn’t understand” and walked away. I wanted to understand. I wanted to hear his story and I wanted to embrace my fellow man but he wouldn’t let me in. Whatever the reasoning in his own mind, I think that by explaining his story and letting me in, he would cease to hate me and he’d rather live with hate in his heart than learn to understand me and bring us both to a higher level. I could have learned more about his life and it may have brought more understanding to the struggle that people are dealing with in The Tenderloin that never has a newspaper or journalist been able to convey in words. Instead, we both walk away just as ignorant yet now I have phlegm on my shoes.
The Tenderloin National Forest http://www.carbonfarm.us/tenderloin.html
Our meeting was accidental and it wasn’t planned. We feared each other and our lack of knowledge and understanding brought us to hate and hate is simply too common in our modern world. I admit, as a white guy with a fancy camera, I am afraid of some parts of the Tenderloin. I’m not afraid of being attacked, robbed or harassed which is why most people simply avoid the area. I’m afraid of being misunderstood. I’m afraid that I’m looked at as, “some white guy that’s walking through our neighborhood to get to his fancy SOMA loft apartment.” or “look at that little rich kid. he must be lost.”
The Tenderloin National Forest http://www.carbonfarm.us/tenderloin.html
I don’t live in the Tenderloin for cheap rent anymore. Trust me, my $1600 a month studio apartment isn’t cheap. The reason I live in the Tenderloin is because I want to constantly be reminded of the human struggle which we all are going through. Living somewhere that’s “quiet and safe” is completely the same except they have fancier drugs and more elaborate crimes. By living where I do, I pass a homeless shelter, free food lines and many more “outreach services”. The constant reminder that I, at any time, can lose my job and be on the streets or an unfortunate sickness or illness could land me in the same food lines and the constant reminder that I have absolutely nothing to feel “down” about because I have a roof over my head keeps me living life to the fullest.
Glide Childcare Facility - Tenderloin
Without a constant reminder that we are so damn lucky to have what we have, we will cease to live and seize the moment at every moment of our day. This is why I live in The Tenderloin. It’s not to gentrify the neighborhood or laugh at the homeless or experience cheap rent. It’s to feel alive when I walk to work every day and know that everything can change so fast and that I’m so lucky to be alive.
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Immediately after my photowalk, I went to a Starbucks to get some work done and enjoy a cup of coffee. Before I even opened Microsoft Excel, a woman in her 30s struck up a conversation with me asking, “are you seriously working the day after Christmas?” Soon, another man joined in and the three of us talked about life for 2 hours. Eventually, my laptop was closed and we were all reclining in chairs telling our stories. The woman, moved here from Indiana in 2003 and has been unemployed for over a year now. The man is also unemployed and despite being a banker, 4-star chef and therapist to at risk adults suffering from diseases of the mind, he’s now trying his luck as a carpenter and going to a vocational school because he doesn’t ever want to get too comfortable at anything. The three of us shared our lives like old friends and it was awesome.
As a human, I sat down at Starbucks and immediately labeled the two of them in under a second and my label and prejudice toward them was completely incorrect after only hearing them speak a few words. My prejudice was no worse or better than that of the man who criticized me for taking photos in “his neighborhood”. Hate exists within us and without it, what makes us humans will no longer exist. However, seeking knowledge, education and finding out more about your fellow man is the first step to turning that hatred into love and with love, we can prosper and make the world a better place.
I wish you a happy new year. Thank you to the man who spit on me and thank you to the two strangers at Starbucks who taught me more about New York and Indiana than I ever could have imagined and let me share my stories which, as boring as they might be, seemed to entertain them for a brief moment in time. Thanks for reading.
I’m doing awesome. In fact, the past 3 months have been phenomenal and I’ve been blessed with some terrific lessons and wonderful teachers. The past few days have not been so sunny but it’s a culmination of the holidays, being alone and feeling slightly disappointed about my accomplishments in 2009. Naturally, I’m over it now and I’m going to go back to how I felt and was living before. Each day something creeps up that inspires me to simply walk away from social networks, walk away from the web and become a sous chef or an auto-mechanic or go back to farm work like I did when i was a young kid. I love what I do but I have my doubts that this is contributing adversely to our future and that I’m “building the matrix” but, a decision to give up on something I’ve been doing for 10 years doesn’t come easily.
More than ever, I’m being more honest with myself and realizing the true problems with being so open online. You might be thinking about how much you hate people of a certain color or how you don’t respect people in the fast food industry but when I tweet it, suddenly I’m the bad guy and I get the fingers pointed at me. For a long time, my openness has helped me get to where I am. The adventures and lessons I’ve learned would have been drastically different had I not embraced this medium of sharing whatever was on my mind. I’m happy with what has opened up for me simply by being honest. At the same time, the misunderstanding into what kind of person I am and what truly inspires me has caused me to feel virtual communication and messaging has a long way to go before it replaces human to human contact.
A friend today told me how people think of me and what those people think about my lifestyle and what their analysis is of me simply based off my tweets.
Attention Seeker
Shut-In
Workaholic
Psychopath
Fucked up childhood
Loaner
Confused
Interestingly enough, I agree with these speculations because, based on my tweets and blogs, it’s pretty much in line with the “persona” that I project. The thing is, I’m not any of these things and I had a great childhood. If you, the reader, were as honest and open as I was on your blog or Twitter account, people would say the same thing about you simply because it’s hard to be “open” and not sound a little crazy. So what’s the solution? I’m not going to change and I’m not going to change who I am because I’m happy with who I am and i have a wonderful family and wonderful friends. The misunderstanding and speculation of who I am based on what I tweet is getting old but I’m the only person to blame because I fuel the fire each day.
New plan: I’m just going to chill out a bit. I’m not going to leave Twitter (after I return on the 1st of January for my holiday break) but I will be tweeting differently. My goal is to share more links, tweet more of my “philosophical” thoughts and be there for friends, both virtually and in real life. Along the way, I should be able to reclaim a bit of my sanity and earn the respect of those who follow me and the only way to do this is to share less. Share more and it gives more things to attack me on and assume about me.
If I am unable to do this, I’ll still be tweeting for companies in my daily job but I’ll simply be absent from Twitter on a personal level. I’m much too happy and much too content with literally every aspect of my life to be so misunderstood but 5 thousand people who have never met me and don’t truly know me.
Two people truly know me. My Father who has spent hundreds of hours learning what makes me tick at home, on vacations and in the dojo where I was forced to survive or get my ass kicked. He knows more about me than anyone else and he’s the first person to set me straight when I’m really screwing up. Just last week, after reading my latest posts and talking to me for a few hours, he said, “I’m proud of you, son.” Thanks Dad.
The other person is Laura. No other person in my life has known more about me on a personal, spiritual, mental or intimate level than Laura knows about me. She’s the first person outside of my family that I’ve ever “let in” to my world. Her undying support and love for me over the past 4 years gave me faith in humanity and showed me that my job, passions and love of all people wasn’t for nothing and there is something to live for. She is owed my forever gratitude to opening my eyes and teaching me how to love someone more than they love you. Thank you, Laura.
It would be my honor to meet and fall in love with everyone who reads this blog. I want to meet all of you and share with you what helps me sleep easy at night. I want to learn about you as well and be your best friend and through Twitter, that simply isn’t possible. I’m tired of speed dating and it’s time to get to the root of this. As always, I appreciate you taking the time to read this post.
Have a happy holiday season and a joyful New Years. Me, well I’ve already talked about what I’ll be doing for the New Years but for Christmas, I’m going to be taking photos from now (Wednesday) to when I go back to work (on Tuesday). I have a new camera and you can check the photos I’m taking over at FLICKR. I don’t have anyone to hang out with so I guess I’ll just be alone this holiday. It’s fine and it’s not the first time I’ve spent days upon days all by myself.
I pulled an all-nighter at the office which was totally not supposed to be an all-nighter. I wasn’t feeling very well yesterday so at 3PM, I laid down for a nap (since I worked from home) and slept until 8PM. My to-do list for the day was completely ruined but I worked a bit more and around midnight, I simply decided to head to the office for some ultra productivity. My plan was to work until 2AM and go to sleep at the office. Well, around 5AM I just decided to stay up. It’s been a productive evening.
At 6:45AM, I saw the glow of the sun and the buildings were still pitch black, I grabbed my Canon G10 and shot some photos. I’m very impressed with the results. Notice how the photos change as the sun comes up. These photos are all 1 minute apart. Pretty awesome!
While stopping by my most often visited Starbucks store last week in San Francisco, the barista recognized me as “The gold card guy” and “the guy who is in the Christmas Blend fan club” and asked if I’ll have the usual (Grande Christmas Blend). She then checked to see if I had heard of the new Starbucks Gold Level Rewards. I had not but I was a Gold Card member and wanted to hear more. Half way into this pitch she was stumbling over the explanation and just told me to go to the website to read all about it because she still wasn’t sure what it meant but she did assure me all Gold Card holders would be “upgraded” for free.
What’s Starbucks Gold? Well, it’s a program that started at the end of Summer, 2008 as a $25 a year membership that gives you benefits for being a loyal customer (despite the fact you’re paying for those benefits). Starbucks Gold has the following benefits:
10% off most purchases in participating U.S. Starbucks stores (the main benefit)
A free drink when you purchase your membership in-store (one time savings)
Option to pay however you’d like (cash, credit card, etc.) (as opposed to being forced to pay?)
A free beverage on your birthday (birthdays ftw, one time savings)
Exclusive offers and discounts throughout the year (umm, yeah, whatever)
Free Wi-Fi access for up to 2 hours each day in participating Starbucks stores (good, but the free Starbucks stored value card gives you the same thing)
After 1.5 years as a member, I never once received an “exclusive discount or offer” despite visiting 4+ days a week. Whatever, I guess. I did use those 2 hours of free wi-fi at least twice a week for meetings and times when I just wanted to get out of the house and work with a cup of coffee at my side. It’s a nice benefit. I’d have to spend $250 a year on Starbucks in order to validate this $25 purchase at 10% discounts on most things in the story. I spend $250 every 3 months ($1,000 a year) so it’s a great deal since I’m getting $100 back every year w/ 10% off. So yeah, overall, the program was pretty cool. In fact, when my membership was supposed to lapse in mid-August, Starbucks sent me a letter notifying me that they were going to extend Gold Memberships for free through January 5th, 2010 (a free 6 months) and I didn’t know why but now I do.
Starbucks’ New Rewards Program:
Starbucks has introduced the most confusing program ever that is equivalent to the rewards programs that frequent fliers deal with from those pesky airlines. This page on Starbucks.com does a decent job explaining how the program works. I’ve embedded the “easy to understand” graphic below that’s not very easy to understand.
Welcome Letter to Gold Level Rewards
So, based on this, any Starbucks “Gift card” or “card” holder that can store a balance is just a normal customer that has money to spend. Once they visit Starbucks.com and register their card, they get a free beverage on their birthday (as long as they keep a balance on their card). This is a small thank you for allowing Starbucks to email you marketing materials and know your age which is also good data to have on their customer who was previously anonymous.
My Gold Level Rewards Card
That icon “5 star” that you see is a representation of “transactions”. Every transaction in a United States Starbucks Operated store counts as one star. There’s no expiration on those starts accruing so if you go 5 times in a day or 5 times in a year, you’ll still get those points. Once you get 5 transactions, the benefits of free wi-fi, free coffee refills (brewed only, Clover Brew is excluded) and other benefits are now yours. Remember, you must use that registered card in those transactions to qualify which means you’ll need to have money on that card.
This is great for the occasional person that visits Starbucks. They get some great benefits like the ability to add soy to their latte for free or get a refill on that grande coffee and use the Wi-Fi for 2 hours without ever paying. It’s nice and you only have to use that Starbucks card 5 times and register it to get those benefits. I’m all about Starbucks opening up this previously $25 a year program to all customers.
Introducing Starbucks Gold Level Rewards:
Free Drink every 15 Transactions sent to you via US Mail
What’s this talk of “gold level rewards”? Well, once you accrue 30 transactions on your Starbucks Card, you are now a “Gold Level” member and you’ll get a free drink for every 15 transactions. Remember, these can be the purchase of coffee, tea, cookies and even ground coffee by the pound. I don’t think it counts on the purchase of coffee appliances (espresso machines and other misc. things they sell in stores). You also get a “personalized gold card” in the mail that makes you look fancy and special every time you go in the store. All of the “green level” benefits roll over to this new card.
There are always finer details so I went to their Rewards FAQ to find out more:
You can earn stars and receive in-store benefits simply by paying for a transaction with any Starbucks Card registered to your account (at participating Starbucks stores in the U.S.) You will be able to track your stars online by logging into your account.
The ability to earn free drinks based on visits is a key benefit of the Gold Level. People told us they wanted to be recognized and rewarded for their frequent visits to Starbucks and they also wanted free drinks. The personalized, exclusive card is another way to provide recognition for the people who visit us the most. Finally, the ability to receive all the benefits previously available only in Starbucks Card Rewards was a key improvement to the program based directly on customer feedback. (Current Starbucks Gold members did not receive those benefits.)
We will send you postcards that you can bring into stores to redeem for your free drinks. This is also the way the current birthday beverage benefit is fulfilled.
Starbucks Card Rewards and Starbucks Gold were both very popular with customers and exceeded our expectations. However, we are always looking for ways to improve our programs. With My Starbucks Rewards we have incorporated many of the specific suggestions we received from customers and our Partners. The new program will:
Be free at all levels – no membership fee, enabling more customers to participate
Be one simple program that is easy to understand and use
Provide tiered rewards – i.e. once you achieve Gold Level, you will still continue to enjoy the benefits offered at the Welcome and Green Levels
Recognize and reward our best customers based on frequent, personalized rewards including free drinks
No. There is no membership fee at any level of the new program. All you have to do is register your loaded Starbucks Card and you will be entered into the program and qualify to receive a free drink on your birthday.
My Gold Level Rewards Card
So, there you have it. Let’s discuss these a bit. I already covered the “stars” but it seems that every single transaction in the store counts but I’m pretty sure, as before, it doesn’t count on coffee roasters, grinders and other “appliances.” The main benefit is that you get free drinks simply by registering your card, hitting 30 transactions and then every 15 transactions, you’ll get a free drink! How do you get this free drink? Well, you will be mailed a coupon which will cost Starbucks money to mail it and waste thousands of trees just so you have this physical coupon that you can use in the store and can be immediately tossed in the trash by a barista.
Their reason for changing the program is complete bullshit. What Starbucks is effectively doing is canceling the $25 a year program and instead asking that you pay for 15 items (transactions) and they’ll mail you a coupon for a free beverage and they’re hoping US Mail will lose it or you’ll lose the coupon and thus they’ll never have to actually give you that free beverage.
My Gold Level Rewards Card
The only benefit I can see is that any Starbucks card on your account counts. So you and your wife use two separate cards that auto-reload every month and in one week, you can both use Starbucks once a day and accrue a free beverage each week. You’re still spending a shit load of money on Starbucks where the 10% discount would be worth much more.
A few loyal customers and employees gave their thoughts on my favorite blog, StarbucksGossip.com
Eric Writes:
This is a lousy deal for loyal customers.
Here’s the breakdown:
Let’s say I’m a gold card customer who buys one $5 drink every day of the month.
The cost savings at %10 are $0.50/day or $15/month. The new rewards plan would have to give 3 free $5 drinks to add up to $15, which is unlikely with the current “buy 15 drinks and get one free” plan.
For those who buy cheaper drinks, the new plan will be about the same, with about 3 free drinks needed per month to equal the monthly 10% savings.
However, Starbucks doesn’t just sell drinks: it sells pastries, sandwiches, cups, gifts, CDs, and is soon to be selling farm equipment and airplane parts. At the least, the gold club card got a discount on food, and under the new plan food won’t count towards your free drinks.
I suspect this will dramatically reduce the likelihood of some people buying expensive drinks, and will certainly lead to people ‘gaming’ the system, by purchasing multiple cheap ($2 or less) drinks to increase their ‘drink count’ in order to get the freebies.
SatX Writes:
assuming an average sale of around $4, a customer who comes in 4 times a month will spend $192 a year with Starbucks. A customer who visits 3 times a day with that same average sale spends $4380 a year with Starbucks. So the company will need to gain roughly 22 new casual customers to replace every one loyal customer it loses. At the store level, it frankly is financially profitable to tend to the loyal customer who knows where to stand, how to order, and brings in their whole family on weekends. And it’s a lot more fun for barista and customer alike.
Rodentius Writes:
I get one free drink after buying nine. With the new deal, as far as I can tell, I get one free drink after buying 15. Hmmm, 9 vs. 15.
Talk about dumbing down…thanks, you SB management holes. They should go to a tiered system, with the new cards being called something else and give us the option to continue indefinitely with our Gold Cards if we desire.
Talk about stupidity….read the comment 3 back from Satx; it is so right.
And finally, someone writes:
Just check this out:
https://www.starbucks.com/card/rewards/faq/
Yes- postcards mailed to you to redeem free drinks.
And whatever happened to the tried & true 80/20 rule of marketing…that 80% of your profits come from 20% of your customers? And Business 101- that it is easier/less investment/more profitable to keep a current customer than replace with a new one?
Guess that wasn’t part of the analyst call on fiscal report results today or any SSC discussion before making these changes.
So, overall it seems that the whole thing stinks. Everyone is unhappy across the board and really it’s those that are the most loyal customers. I’m also disappointing in this new and would rather pay and get 10% off every transaction in the store. My $4 latte saw .40 cents off at the register instead of getting that free drink every 15 transactions. It only encourages me to get 15 small coffees and then splurge for a $4.60 venti mocha frappuccino when I get that coupon in the mail. What do you think fo the new program?
We’re less than 10 days away from the year 2010. That’s something pretty odd to say out loud. I remember being at my grandmother’s house as the ball dropped into 1999. We were watching MTV as Carson Daily’s “ball dropped” because, back then, MTV was actually a good place to catch news, watch some good content and see music videos. In 1999 I was only 13 and I was already dreaming of being in Times Square as an adult and how awesome that would be. Every New Years since 1999 was a blur. Looking back, they all kind of rolled into one.
New Years Misogi. Taken December 30th, 2007
Two memorable New Years celebrations were in 2004 and 2008. It was 2003 and I was 2 weeks away from my first Macworld in San Francisco. I was out with a girl who had asked me to be my girlfriend but I was still on that “no girls” kick. We were seniors in high school and our 2003 to 2004 transition was spent out on the beach on a blanket as we watched the ball drop on someone’s big screen TV that we could see looking into their beach house from 30 yards away on the sand dunes. That was a fun evening and I still have photos from that night that are simply too embarrassing to share.
New Years Eve Celebration. Pearl's Jacksonville January 1st, 2008
The transition from 2007 to 2008 was excellent as well. Laura and I were at Pearl’s in Jacksonville which, to this day, is still my favorite club / bar to go to. We danced to postal service and kissed as the ball dropped surrounded by friends and very cheap beer. That was an incredible evening because my first New Years with Laura was very low key. This was our first, “let’s go out and party” kind of evening and I had an awesome time.
Last year was my first New years in San Francisco. It was memorable but didn’t go exactly as planned. The past year has been a complete whirlwind. So much has changed, yet so much has remained the same. I’ve lost a few things and gained so much more. There isn’t a single thing I’d change about 2009.
December 31st, 2008. At a Warehouse in San Francisco for a "burning man" style NYE celebration.
I find it odd that so many people say to me on New Years Eve about how much last year sucked and how next year will be better. That has never ever made sense to me. Oh and congrats cause your first day of the new year, you’ll be waking up with a hangover. Congrats! That’s not really the point though, it’s just something that’s always bothered me. I’ve never met someone who has told me that last year was awesome and this year will be awesome too. Why not? I’m pretty sure I can find someone who had a worse year than I did. Anyway, let’s move on.
Let’s talk 2010. Since 2009 was so freaking epic, how could I possibly top it? Ya know, that’s not really important. I’m just taking things one day at a time and squeezing every bit of awesome-ness that I can every single day. It’s been working pretty well so far. Let’s talk resolutions.
I will save $10,000 this year. I want to save up a nest egg and this lofty goal is unattainable but I set high goals for myself and then it pushes me to try harder. I’m making more money than I did when I moved here. Still not enough to pay my rent but I think 5 grand is achievable, 10 grand is a pipe dream. Either way, I have zero savings now so the sky’s the limit and I can only go up.
Cut out red meat and beer COMPLETELY. I eat too much red meat and I drink too much beer. This needs to stop.
Become better at my job. I don’t want a new job nor do I want a higher paying job. I want to become better at my job and impress myself every day.
Sell my book. The book is done. I need to sell it. ’nuff said.
The resolutions aren’t big and most of these are already in motion. I don’t feel that dates should be set on things. Just start doing them and see where they go. These are some goals I have for this year. Let’s see how it goes.
2004. Camping in Florida on Spring Break.
So what are my plans for New Years Eve this year? Well, when I lived back in Florida, I never went to spring break like normal kids did. Kids would go to Mexico or Daytona and party. Not me. I’d pack up my car and go out into the woods for a week by myself. I’d reflect, relax, read, study and cook over a fire. It was my time to relax and get away. I haven’t done this since moving to San Francisco and I’m getting a bit restless to get back out there and take some time to myself.
Mount Diablo. Taken by me in 2008.
Therefore, on Thursday, December 31st I’ll be driving to Mount Diablo. The elevation is nearly 4,000 feet which is another great elevation for my training and it’s going to be super quiet on New Years Eve because there’s no alcohol permitted in the park. I looked at New Years Eve parties all of them range from $50 to $200 just for tickets. For $30 and a rental car, I can drive up and take photos during the day and camp out at night. The lights of San Francisco are visible from the top of the mountain and I will hear nothing but silence and the occasional raccoon who’s looking for a meal.
Mount Diablo. Taken by me in 2008.
I find it funny that everyone thinks I’m insane but I couldn’t be more excited about this quick getaway. Living downtown is crazy so if I decided to stay in on New Years Eve, I’d have to deal with the most insane noise as partiers roam the city. Going out means alcohol, expensive tickets and doing irresponsible things. Here’s the view from Mount Diablo.
Mount Diablo w/ Fog
I’m going to start 2010 the right way and it’ll be simply amazing. Friends of mine are welcome to join me but it’s going to be a quiet and relaxing evening w/ an open fire.
I look forward to a new year with new experiences and new loves. I hope I get to meet YOU in 2010 and I hope this blog continues to keep you occupied. Thank you for reading. Have a great day!
Tonight, a friend told me that my online life is huge in a way that I share every single moment. Not only is the level of data simply enormous but my sharing causes confusion and leads to negative attention. In a blog post from last month titled, “Embracing The Hate” I wrote about the situation If find myself in much too often. I wrote:
This value greatly exceeds the loss of giving people more crap to throw at me. Sharing selectively has been my goal ever since AdamsBlock happened. Share less, more often which results for a lot of unusable information like linking to a news story or a funny video. This info isn’t leveraged for hate and only serves as filler for the really important stuff.
That’s how it’s been lately. I do share a lot but most of it is useless bullshit that no one should really care about like links, photos and tweets about nothing. I try to imagine if members of my family tweeted like me and how that would paint them. What I realize is we as humans all have regrets, faults and “aspects” of us that would be considered unacceptable in modern society.When is the last time a married man looked at a beautiful woman or a married woman thought about her life with that other guy that she knew in college or how often does a guy think about quitting his shitty job and simply tells a friend later over beers. Everyone has these moments that aren’t shared or spoken to anyone other than our own self-conscious and that’s where they’re supposed to remain.
I disagree because I believe honesty and being translucent is an enabler to great things. Most of you that have started following me in the past year have really seen the Adam who is censored. That’s pretty hard to believe but it’s true. The last 12 months have been full of censorship and I’ve had many people who I knew 3 years ago upon joining Twitter who told me things have changed and asking me if I’ve changed or just my tweets. The answer is both but I consciously leave tons of things out and I’d rather not.
Twitter has been a tool that did a lot for me. Twitter is responsible for 80% of my blog’s traffic, 45% of my Flickr photo views. My friend Scott Beale posted a tweet linking to my resume for my move to San Francisco and helped me land a great job. Another fellow san franciscan sent me a link to an awesome apartment that I live in now. A friend helped me get free tickets to shows in Vegas, another give me a place to crash for the night in a Los Angeles Hotel and another random Twitter friend bought me a beer in Seattle. Nearly 75% of my income is based on Twitter related work and, until just 3 months ago, all of my relationships were based on people who I met through social networks. I did realize the problem with that and fixed it.
Lately, everything I do doesn’t start with Twitter and it has lead to some great projects and relationships but I admit that there are so many opportunities that never would have happened had I not joined Twitter back in 2006.
If Twitter makes life so awesome, why am I contemplating walking away? The main reason is relationships and people. I have realized a few things. Going back to my first point about humans and how flawed we are, I realize that the micro-celebrity concept is applying to me. The more I share, the more people have things to hate me about. Think of it like dating. The first date is attraction based on their looks or “replication value” that you assume they have (money, personality, beauty). As you go out a 2nd and 3rd time, you learn more about them and soon realize how incompatible or different you are from that person. There comes a time when you deal with it which would make you shallow and fake or you are honest and tell them that things aren’t really working out.
Twitter is the same way. You see my follower count and tweet count or you like a photo that I post and you follow me. Soon, you learn I love coffee, my family and that I don’t like crowds or partying. I don’t like certain kind of music and I tweet about my dates and how they went. You learn everything that I am willing to share and soon you follow me for different reasons. Either it makes you feel good or bad and sometimes you’ll just unfollow me.
This relationship I’ve had with Twitter and the people that follow me is very interesting and it’s something I’ve never been able to wrap my mind around but what I do realize is that more people don’t like me or rally against me and what I do based simply on what I tweet. This is terrible and it’s something that I can’t really help. I have no way of taking each follower out to lunch and sharing with them truly what’s going on. I can’t say hi in person and get to know them. This is the fatal flaw of online social networking.
One big life change that happened recently really opened my eyes to this. I realized that so many people assumed a lot and said a lot and spoke of me a lot in conversations simply based on what I said on Twitter & my blog. It’s human nature to talk about other people but too often do people talk about others with an ignorant mind. I’m ignorant to so many things and I try my best to not talk about things I don’t know anything about. This is an effort I fail at way too often.
So I could curse those who don’t understand me and don’t understand what I’m really doing but I can’t because I gave them no reason or tools to know the real me.
So why would I leave Twitter? To put a stop, once and for all to the confusions, doubts, gossip and failures to understand the real me and what I really have to say. There is so much that you and I could learn from each other but we can’t do it in 140 characters and we can’t do it over email. It has to be in person with a handshake and a hug and until that happens, we’re just assuming we know what’s up and only getting 5% of the story.
I might still be on Twitter by sharing interesting links and photos and blog posts but the concept of sharing “what I’m doing” may soon come to an end. I hope this post cleared some things up. Thank you, as always, for reading.
I read this story today in the Washington Post. As you all know, I love bringing a bit of reality to my friends via writings and posts about humans and our interaction with the universe as well as the disconnect that’s growing each day.
Please click through and read the entire post HERE by author, Adrian Higgins.. I’ve copied it below because it’s simply amazing.
You know you have crossed the river into Cyberland when the guy coming your way has his head buried in the hand-held screen. He will knock into you unless you get out of his way, and don’t expect an apology. It’s as if you aren’t there.
Maybe you’re not.
Technology has drawn us into our interconnected webs, in the office, on the street, on the park bench, to the point that we exist virtually everywhere except in the physical world. Robert Harrison, a professor of Italian literature at Stanford University, laments that when students pass through the school’s visually stimulating campus, iPhones, BlackBerrys and all the evolving devices and apps draw them into their blinkered personal realms. “Most of the groves, courtyards, gardens, fountains, artworks, open spaces and architectural complexes have disappeared behind a cloaking device, it would seem,” he writes in his book “Gardens: An Essay on the Human Condition.”
This retreat from the natural world is most evident in the young, but it is not a generational phenomenon, he argues. Instead, the ubiquity of the computer is changing the very essence of the human animal. We are in the midst of a historical change in “our mode of vision,” he says, “which is bound up with our mode of being.”
According to a recent landmark study of viewing habits, adults spend an average of nearly three hours a day interacting with computer screens. Add TV viewing and you get a screen time of about 8 1/2 hours. “People are spending more time in media and especially screen media than anything else they’re doing in life,” says Bill Moult of Sequent Partners, one of two organizations that provided the study.
But you don’t need numbers to know how absorbed we have become by screens and their mesmerizing qualities. In October, two Northwest Airlines pilots who flew their jet 150 miles past their destination told investigators they were distracted by their laptop computers. Walk the streets of downtown Washington and you will see many people, a majority perhaps, plugged in to a two-dimensional world. Peer into the vehicles, and tally a scary number of drivers on hand-held cellphones, even texting. This may be illegal in the District, but the temptation is too great. We have become digital zombies.
Actually, we have become symbionts, says Katherine Hayles, author of “How We Became Posthuman.” Just as a lichen is the marriage of a fungus and an algae, we now live in full partnership with digital technology, which we rely on for the infrastructure of our lives. “If every computer were to crash tomorrow, it would be catastrophic,” she says. “Millions or billions of people would die. That’s the condition of being a symbiont.”
Hayles is among a number of intellectuals who see this dependence as not necessarily bad, but as advancing civilization and, above all, just inevitable. “From Thoreau on, we have had this dream we can withdraw from our technologies and live closer to the natural world, and yet that’s not the cultural trajectory that we have followed,” says Hayles, a professor of literature at Duke University. “You could say when humans started to walk upright, we lost touch with the natural world. We lost an olfactory sense of the world, but obviously bipedalism paid big dividends.”
In the Computer Age, “we are making our environments more responsive to humans’ needs and desires than ever before.”
Adriana de Souza e Silva, assistant professor of communication at North Carolina State University, says the widespread acceptance of public phoning, texting, surfing and tweeting on mobile devices has changed our lives so that we exist in a duality of the physical and electronic worlds.
“What we are witnessing now is a different kind of public space composed of people who are physically there [but talking to] people who are remote,” she says.
She argues that this has actually made us more aware of our surroundings because so many devices are driven by their location and the user’s awareness of place. “The BlackBerry might be looking for a local restaurant and a person two blocks away, not overseas. If you’re walking downtown and you can access information that’s been tagged there, that information suddenly becomes part of that location.”
The difficulty, Harrison argues, is that we are losing something profoundly human, the capacity to connect deeply to our environments.
Landscape designers talk about bestowing on a garden its genius loci, or spirit of the place, that bubbles up into your consciousness if its presence is strong enough and the visitor meditative enough to receive it.
Harrison says a garden truly reveals itself only when its own depths and those of the beholder flow together. But that takes time. “For the gardens to become fully visible in space, they require a temporal horizon that the age makes less and less room for.”
He is captivated by the Czech writer Karel Capek, who gave the world the robot in his play “R.U.R.” and in it warned that technology would be our ruination. But Capek was also a passionate gardener who wrote “The Gardener’s Year,” published in 1929. “No one knew better than Capek that the cultivation of the soil and cultivation of the spirit are connatural,” Harrison writes. He believes gardens hold the key in leading us back into the visible world, because they are three-dimensional and made of living plants that speak to our “biophilia.”
“Gardens are the best place to begin this reeducation,” he says. Without it, he fears that the prophecy of the German poet Rainer Maria Rilke, in his Duino Elegies, will become so. “Earth, isn’t this what you want; invisibly to arise in us? Is it not your dream to be someday invisible? Earth! Invisible!”
Opening: I stated on Thursday when the iMac came in that I only review new technology after I’ve been using it for 2-4 weeks. It’s been 5 days and I’m already fully prepared to review this amazing machine. The key reason is that the iMac isn’t a notebook. A notebook sits in your lap, at the cafe, in your bag and at your desk. Aesthetics and the bond you form with that lifestyle machine is significantly different than a desktop PC. So, although the iMac is simply amazing, it doesn’t need the extra 2 weeks of “travel” for me to fully evaluate it.
The Apple iMac is a machine that I’ve always respected but never lusted after. Apple continued to win my heart with smaller, faster, lighter and more beautiful notebook computers beginning in 2001 when I first toted a Tangerine G3 iBook under my arm. Each iteration seemed to compliment me with orange to white to black and then to aluminum. Apple continued to innovate until I arrived at the MacBook Air. It’s the ultimate portable Mac and it’s far more of a workhouse than many PC counterparts with similar specs (and without the portability). I’ve owned every generation of Apple laptop since 2003 from 12 to 17 inches from G3 to Core2Duo. I think my laptop reviews are pretty accurate from a user perspective.
My first Mac was a Mac Plus, followed by an SE/30 (it was a hand-me-down) and then a Graphite G3 at 600Mhz. I ditched desktops but got a great price on a Dual-Processor 2Ghz G5 PowerMac in 2006. It was used, fast and heavy. so heavy, that I actually cut my toe wide-open when I walked into it at midnight while walking to the bathroom to pee. Seriously, the thing was a beast.
The iMac’s slow product cycle became boring. I was interested again in 2007 and 2008 when the iMac went aluminum with a black mirrored glass front. I waited for the redesigned MacBook Pro to ship in October and realized that I could get a similarly speced MacBook Pro for only $250 dollars more and have the same power with okay portability. Sorry Apple, I stayed true to the MacBook and, for a while, I was happy with my purchase.
I realized though around August, after purchasing the MacBook Air that the MacBook Pro was a great machine that never left my desk. It was a lot of aluminum just sitting there losing value and doing the job of a desktop machine. The iMac was still the same speed as the MacBook Pro which meant resale value of my 4 month old MBP was higher than a new iMac from Apple. Of course, when the iMac was updated, I immediately knew it was time to sell the MacBook Pro and go back to desktop.
What made me switch? What was so compelling about the iMac that inspired me to click “Buy Now” on Apple.com?
The Intel Core i7 w/ Hyperthreading. The first Quad-Core iMac w/ 4 additional virtual cores, a blazing fast front side bus and amazing energy savings as it downclocks the processor within milliseconds so if you don’t need 3.2Ghz, it downclocks to 2.8Ghz.
An amazingly gorgeous 27″ LED display. It puts my $2,000 30″ Dell LCD to shame. It makes my 24″ Dell Ultrasharp look like crap and even friends who have Apple’s new 24″ display will say that the new iMac is breathtaking next to it.
A two terabyte hard drive and 8 gigabytes of ram is actually affordable. Apple really outdid themselves on pricing. Due to the recession, Apple has dropped prices all around, but I’m still making what I made 2 years ago so only $150 to double my ram from 4 to 8 gigabytes? Hell yes!
A word of warning. Apple has nearly ceased shipments of the new iMac due to quality control issues. At the time of this writing, users are getting machines that have flickering screens, yellow screens and even machines that are cracked on the edges from being too big for that iMac box that was designed back when 20″ was the largest their machines went. Be careful. If you’re ordering an iMac, be prepared to ship it back. I know 4 people who have had theirs replaced within 24 hours of receiving it.
The iMac i7 processor is overkill but it’s fast. I always get the fastest machine for resale value. 90%+ of the apps that you will find:
Won’t support more than 1 or 2 cores ( you have 8 in the i7)
Won’t support 64-bit processes / threads (Which the i7 is 64-bit)
Won’t benefit but a CPU faster than 3Ghz
Keep in mind, this machine is going to last you for 2-5 years. Plan for the future! I’ll be selling it in 3-4 months but that’s just me. I did my research and those who went for the i7 are seeing 20% gains in performance while ripping DVDs, exporting movies and ripping music. If you do a lot of content creation, the i7 is a worthwhile investment. If you’re reading this in March of 2010, then yes get the i7 because more apps will support all of those blazing fast cores.
All I can say is that everyone that went for the i7, including me, are happy with it and feel a noticeable improvement.
Do you need 8 gigabytes of ram? Personally, I have worked on this thing all day and at my peak of “normal load” my “wired” memory usage is around 4.8 gigabytes. The thing to know about the Mac OS is that if you give it more ram, the OS will take it. BSD is pretty good about giving up ram, as well. It doesn’t “use” the ram, it simply wires it for an application so when that app needs it, the ram is right there waiting but it will change the wired amount of ram constantly in anticipation for certain processes or simply to give some away to another app that you’ve launched. With
I don’t need a two terabyte drive. One terabyte would have been fine. Actually, I’m pretty happy with the upgrade simply because of the resale value. What’s nice about finally going back to a desktop is that I can store my entire iTunes & iPhoto library on the boot drive and back them up to a time machine external drive. This is awesome! iPhoto is 150 gigabytes and iTunes is 400 gigabytes. It’s nice to be able to keep this local for the first time since 2003. After filling up the drive to the brim, I still have one full terabyte of free space remaining. This is pretty amazing. Now I just have to buy a 2 terabyte external drive because my 1 tb drive won’t back up the entire iMac.
Using the machine:
This is what really matters. Once the machine is setup and on my desk and after 4 hours of copying 500 gigabytes of data over from my MacBook Pro, what is the machine actually like?
It’s no doubt the fastest Macintosh I’ve ever used. It’s 3x faster than my 3Ghz 17″ MacBook Pro. It’s 5x faster than my MacBook Air just based on GeekBench Benchmarks. You will be thoroughly amazed at just how fast this machine is. In all honesty, that’s all I care about and every thing I do relies on speed. I can honestly say that my current notebooks could never ever keep up with my speed. I’m extremely demanding of my machines and was constantly fed up with the 3Ghz MacBook Pro being insanely slow. I’m happy to report that the iMac is the first machine that isn’t too slow. I’m serious. The machine is the fastest Mac I’ve ever used and I can’t get it to slow down at any time. I guess the fact that it’s 3x faster than my previous Mac certainly makes up for that.
The display puts to shame every other display I’ve ever used. At home, I have a 30″ Dell 3008WFP hooked up to my Windows 7 machine. It’s a beautiful and huge monitor but it’s not warm. There’s nothing warm or inviting about that monitor. It’s a high resolution monitor but it’s not crisp, warm and the color seems washed out. I learned that Apple used extremely high quality displays in the new iMacs that are far better than most consumers will be able to get. If you do buy a 27″ LED display w/ Super IPS technology, you’ll pay about $1200 from a non-name manufacturer. Apple is including a computer in this amazing display.
I have my 24″ Dell UltraSharp display hooked up to the iMac as a 2nd monitor and there’s just no comparison. The Dell looks like shit compared to the iMac. It’s not even noticeable in the Apple store but once you get home and assume typing position do you realize just how epic this screen is compared to any other computer. Even if you don’t need the power, just get the base $1699 model if only for that amazing screen.
With all of that space, I kind of hoped Apple would have included an SSD option as a boot drive w/ a 2nd hard drive internally. Booting to a 128GB SSD in 10 seconds and having all of my data accessible on a 2nd drive would rock. Instead, my MacBook air is up in 10 seconds and the iMac takes about 45 seconds. Clearly, the hard drive is the ONLY bottleneck on this machine. I could buy a 512GB SSD but it would cost the price of a new iMac so I’ll just deal with it. Luckily, at launch it takes about 2.5 minutes for all of my apps to start and do their thing and then, since everything is in ram, my machine is ultra fast moving forward. An SSD is really only useful for launching and opening things. Once you’re up and running, it’s totally fine so this isn’t really an issue that I should be talking about.
Hey look at my new computer!
As far as bragging rights go, this machine is the ultimate Mac. Not many PC or Mac users see a Mac Pro and drool because that Mac Pro could be an old dual-core machine from 2006 but the iMac is 27″ of beauty with an edge to edge display, small footprint and amazing look & feel.
The sound is loud and rich. It has great sound and maybe all iMacs have this but coming from a MacBook Pro, I’m amazed at how loud the new iMac can get. I just sold my speakers that were hooked up to my notebook because I simply don’t need them anymore.
NO CABLES! Seriously. Look at my desk and sit down. I don’t see a single cable. It’s simply amazing how much this affects my workflow and my overall mood. It’s not until I plug in my MacBook Air that I have a power cord running across my desk.
Noisy. The iMac gets very noisy. Dual fans kick up to high even when I am ripping a CD or doing an iTunes visualizer. The back of the machine is amazingly hot. It will burn your hands if you rest them on the back of the machine. It’s clear that the i7 just isn’t ready for laptops yet. It’s only a single chip but it’s still a desktop chip which is a first for the iMac. This is mostly why the iMac wasn’t appealing to me before. The guts were the exact same as Apple’s notebooks. Why not pay a tad bit more for portability? The 27″ iMac w/ Core i5 / i7 is a desktop machine with desktop parts and thus has desktop speeds. It’s really amazing to spec the Core2Duo 21″ model versus the 27″ Core i7. It’s totally night and day.
The SD card reader is huge if you’re a photographer. I was tired of bringing around either a USB cable or SD card reader with me everywhere. It’s amazing how convenient it is to have an SD reader. Yeah my 3 year old PC had one of these but Apple is finally doing it and I love it!
The iSight is unchanged. Still not really used. I don’t know anyone that video conferences anymore.
No included remote? Seriously Apple? Remote doesn’t stick to the side of the machine anymore? Seriously Apple? I never used the remote but c’mon!
No number key on the included keyboard? C’mon! I love wireless to death but the fact that I don’t have a number key really sucks. Every Friday I do 3-5 hours of reports in Excel and I’m just going to keep my wired USB keyboard simply for those times when I’m going to do number crunching.
No full-size HDMI, DisplayPort or DVI? That’s fine. Apple likes to standardize their machines to cut costs and reduce issues and simply put the cost of adding adapters on the user’s shoulders. I had a DVI to Mini Display Port adater so I’m good but it would get expensive if I wanted to do anything else with it.
By the way, my Dell 30″ might not have the amazing picture quality as the iMac but it has about 10 different ports on the bottom for nearly everything you could imagine. The iMac just isn’t going to compete with that.
Overall:
The iMac is pretty amazing. I weighed in on the options quite a bit before deciding to sell my MacBook Pro. The machine is simply stunning and I admit that I’ve come into the office every day this week just to use it. I’m sure my colleagues are happy about that too.
It was May 31st, 1996, just before midnight and I was only asleep for a couple of hours when I was awoken suddenly by Dad. My favorite Nike t-shirt and shoes were laid out on the floor because this night had been in preparation for a long time. For the past few weeks, I went to sleep each night with a set of clothes folded on the floor so when it happened, I was ready to climb in the car and leave our home in Leeds, Alabama and head toward Birmingham. On that day in 2006, I was 8 years old and wouldn’t turn 9 for another 2 months. My Mom was in pain as Dad rushed to the hospital. I was in and out of sleep but remember vividly the back road we took through the country side to the nearest hospital. When we arrived, my grandmother and other family arrived shortly afterward. We waited for hours and I remember waking up on my grandmother’s lap as I had fallen asleep again. Dad walked out of the emergency room and he was crying as he hugged his mother and grandmother.
Cheyenne Destiny was born at 9:32AM weighing in at 6 pounds and 7 ounces on July 1st, 2006. I got to hold her for the first time about an hour later. Being nearly 10 years old and Cheyenne being my first sibling, I watched her grow, learn and explore. I was there and have fond memories of nearly every step in Cheyenne’s development. The memories of her first day at school, first steps and first time saying Mom & Dad are so clear in my mind. I was a lucky brother and still am today. It wasn’t until January of 2000 that Marley Dharma was born and today, both sisters are so close to me both physically and in my heart as I have been there for them since the moment they took their first breath.
Cheyenne and I are closer in age so there are a few things that we can align on especially now that she’s 13 and entering high school, dating and more independent. She’s a great girl, very smart and talented at school and with sports. Her curiosity sometimes gets the best of her and, this year, I wanted to do something special for her as a Christmas gift. She was paid up and ready to go on a trip to Washington DC with her 8th grade class in February. I was going to be a chaperone but I learned that only parents could join the kids so I wasn’t able to go. Cheyenne was clearly most excited about the trip because she would be able to see me. Since I moved to San Francisco in June of 2008, I talk to both of my sisters every week on the phone but it’s not the same and any time I get to see them is cherished and looked forward to.
For the past month, me and my parents have been discussing a huge gift for my sister. I live in an amazing city. It’s the home of many artists, inventors, entrepreneurs and history. San Francisco’s past and present is ingrained in every building and street. You can ski and surf within half a day’s drive. There are mountains, valleys and even wineries. It’s a beautiful city that I love living in and when I visited home 2 weeks ago, Cheyenne spent hours looking through nearly 24 thousand photos that I’ve taken of San Francisco since moving here last year. She was excited, inquisitive and interested and never once did I see her lose interest.
Cheyenne, has visited a few states in the south like Alabama and Georgia. She’s been to Orlando Florida but has never ventured out of the south. She’s also never been on a plane or traveled anywhere away from Mom & Dad or me. Granted, she’s 13 but I remember back when I was that age. I was only 15 when I took my first trip to San Francisco for Macworld. I had no idea what I was doing but I went and I loved it. It opened me up to a new world and when I came home, I wanted to travel more and I felt like there’s more out there because I’ve seen it. It inspired me to work harder in school and study more because I had to really grow as a person if I was going to travel one day and see the world. So many of my friends never left our hometown after graduation because many don’t think it’s really worth the money or time to travel.
As her big brother and someone who wants Cheyenne to see the world, learn her limits and teach her about life and living, I’ve bought her a plane ticket to come visit me. I’ll be returning from CES in Las Vegas on Monday the 11th. Cheye-cheye will board a plane on Thursday morning (the 14th of January) and she’ll be staying with me through Monday night (the 18th). Due to the amazing time zone changes, we’ll have Thursday from 2PM all the way through Monday at 5PM to hang out.
I’ll be renting a car, taking her to alcatraz, golden gate park, surfing in the pacific (she loves to surf) and exploring the city. She’s bringing the Canon SD800 that I bought her for Christmas last year and we can explore and take photos. I’ll show her Berkeley’s campus and if the weather agrees with us, we’ll get to bike across the golden gate bridge and go exploring Sausalito. We’re going to have an amazing week. My baby sister here in San Francisco with me. She’s grown up so much over the years. I included some photos below.
SatX Writes:
Rodentius Writes:
And finally, someone writes:
So, overall it seems that the whole thing stinks. Everyone is unhappy across the board and really it’s those that are the most loyal customers. I’m also disappointing in this new and would rather pay and get 10% off every transaction in the store. My $4 latte saw .40 cents off at the register instead of getting that free drink every 15 transactions. It only encourages me to get 15 small coffees and then splurge for a $4.60 venti mocha frappuccino when I get that coupon in the mail. What do you think fo the new program?
If you have feedback about the new program, tell Starbucks directly! http://mystarbucksidea.force.com/