Bittersweet

Ah, today is my last day in my NYC office. (I'm technically not moving for another couple of weeks, but given my travel schedule, today was the day that I promised to pack up my office and move my stuff out so that the next person can move in.)

I have managed to cram everything I think I'll need in my new office in California into one box. One rather heavy box, but one box nonetheless.

I also just turned in my old laptop and Blackberry. (Have to admit that I'm kind of excited about being sans Blackberry for a while -- there is definitely such a thing as being TOO accessible.)

A quick list of what I will miss not being in the Broadway office any longer:

-- The chance to witness some of the crazy stunts that Letterman pulls off on 53rd Street (the Ed Sullivan theatre is right across the street; remember when he drops turkeys from the top of the building at T-giving etc? Those are the fun things you can stumble upon on a random afternoon.)

-- The chance to physically run smack into P Diddy yet again on the street

-- Popping in on Rupert at the Hello Deli

-- New England clam chowder from The Daily Soup (even on warm days)

-- Friday's pasta special from Cafe Metro (surprisingly yummy, especially with Tuscan meatballs)

-- Being mistaken as "someone" by aggressive paparazzi outside the Letterman stage entrance

-- Always being able to hail a cab at the corner of Broadway and 53rd within about five and a half seconds

-- And, of course, all of my great co-workers.... (who better come and visit me in CA!)

Hopscotch in Spanish! (or "Girls' Night Out")

On Tuesday night, Ally, Stacy, Oda, Dina and I headed down to Allen Street to check out Rayuela ... it's Restaurant Week in NYC and Ally was on top of her game enough to actually get us reservations in advance.

On the back of the adorable, tiny, square business cards is the definition of "rayuela": (1.) spanish for hopscotch: a game played usually by children in which they hop into a series of squares drawn on the ground. (2.) a ray of light. (3.) an innovative novel by Latin-American writer Julio Cortazaar, based on the twists and turns of the game hopscotch.

I love it when there's a story behind the name.

We mostly ordered from the prix fixe Restaurant Week menu and sampled a variety of fare from chicken livers (not me!) to chile rellenos stuffed with lamb to fufu balls (still am not quite sure what those were) to a flan-like desert that had an olive tapenade base as a crust of sorts -- interesting to say the least and mostly everything was pretty tasty. Especially the TWO pitchers of Rosada sangria.

I also loved the design and decor of the restaurant. The first floor was the bar and lounge and featured an open staircase leading up to the actual dining room and patio on the second floor. We were seated in a cozy booth with gauzy curtains separating us from the tables on either side and had a perfect view of my favorite thing about the restaurant -- the huge tree that was growing out of the first floor and through numerous cut-outs in the second floor.

Another great night out with the girls with lots of great updates, laughter and fun (and sometimes crazy) stories. I'll miss you guys when I move!

TechCrunched

What do I, MC Hammer, Chamillionaire and a about a thousand other tech/internet folks in Silicon Valley have in common? We were all at the third annual TechCrunch party/meetup at August Capital in Menlo Park Friday night.

The TechCrunch event is apparently *the* event of the year in the Valley, bringing together hundreds of key decision-makers from all sorts of tech companies, venture capitalists and the media. As one of my colleagues remarked early in the evening, it's the Hollywood of Silicon Valley. And looking around, reading the name tags of the attendees, that wasn't far from the truth.

Bringing a slightly more traditional Hollywood vibe to the shin-dig were Grammy Award-winning rap star, Chamillionaire, and music sensation turned internet entrepreneur, MC Hammer. I have yet to piece together the former's connection to this world of bits and bytes, but Hammer is behind the recently launched DanceJam social media destination site.

I can see why everyone looks forward to this event in particular -- it was a great networking venue and a excellent place to reconnect with people you haven't seen in a while. My company, Kaboodle, was a sponsor of the event and provided a mini photo studio complete with red carpet, to help revelers capture the evening for posterity. Check out the pic above of some of the Kaboodle crew with MCHammer... Can't touch this!

(You can see the rest of the event photos here.)

Is My Map Upside Down??

I already know what my biggest challenge with Northern California is going to be -- it's not going to be trying to resist the call of wine country, or even the minimization of driving time/distance because of $4.50 per gallon gas...

No, it's much more pedestrian than that. I have the lofty goal of simply not getting lost.

I generally have a pretty good sense of direction and I don't really get lost all that easily, but NoCal is proving to be an entirely different story. My intuition and inner compass seem to be exactly 180 degrees off. I will swear that with every fiber of my body, I'll feel like I'm driving south, but I'll actually be heading north. I would bet my bank account that San Francisco is up ahead of me when it's actually disappearing further and further into my rear view mirror.

I don't know what it is. This is the first place I've been where I am constantly getting turned around, turning the wrong way, or getting on the freeway going the wrong direction. It's quite annoying. I did get a GPS for a couple of my trips (especially when I was looking for a place to live), but then this week, I got all cocky thinking "I know where I'm going now!" and then I promptly got lost again.

If they make a human equivalent of a dog collar that says "If found, please return to...", I better get myself one right away. Or I'm bound to wander the tree-lined streets of Mountain View for weeks.

Staycations -- A Sign of the Times

I'd love to take credit for the term "staycation", but I have to admit I read it in the Sunday New York Times this morning, in an article that described how more and more people are electing to stay home this summer instead of taking actual traveling vacations because of the skyrocketing price of gas and airfares.

While I love to travel and will take any opportunity possible to visit a place I've never been (near or far), I have discovered that a staycation is actually a great break and an excellent way to take a few days and recharge from an otherwise busy and draining work and life schedule.

After weeks of tossing around various travel ideas for the July 4th long weekend, Special K and I finally decided to stay local in Southern California and just check out for a few days. (It didn't help that I had been sick the few days prior to the weekend.) We stayed home for those three days and did nothing but barbecue, eat, go to the grocery store (for more bbq'ing provisions), read, nap, watch movies and lounge in the backyard. Complete with margaritas and Special K's special blended concoction of something fruity, icy and vaguely alcoholic, I actually did feel like I was on vacation... and all it cost was a few dollars in groceries.

Even better was the fact that we had three solid days of truly quality time together and by Monday morning, I felt more truly refreshed than I had in ages.

I will still always love to travel, but the staycation is definitely here to... well, stay.

I Have a Confession

We have to talk. I haven’t been completely honest with you. I know you and I aren’t destined for anything permanent or long-term, and I feel like I should tell you that I’ve started seeing someone else. I didn’t really mean for it to happen. It’s an old flame of mine – we broke up about two years ago. While it started with a bit of harmless flirting, we’ve spent increasingly more time with each other over recent months and it didn’t take long before we were spending the night together. In fact, all those nights I wasn’t with you, I was … well, you know.

New York, I’m sorry, but I’m getting back together with California… and I think this time, I think it might stick.

This Relationship is Over... Sort Of

I think we’ve both seen this coming for a while now. We’re just going through the motions and we both know it’s not working. We hardly even make time to see each other anymore. It’s kind of tragic actually because neither of us has done anything wrong – it’s just that now we’re on different paths…

You should know that I still love you with all my heart and I’ll always cherish all the special memories and all the time we’ve spent together. You’re one in a million, that’s for sure. For once in my life, I’m actually confident that after this parting of ways, we’ll be able to stay friends and see one another occasionally without it being awkward and uncomfortable. In fact, I suspect that whenever I do see you, we’ll effortlessly slip right back into that easiness we’ve always shared… you know, the feeling that existed between us from the time we first met years ago, even before we were officially “together”.

I would never ask you to change because it’s the way you are that makes you so incredible in so many ways. I will miss your unpredictability, your love of life and your diverse and ever-expanding interests. I loved the fact that we could be perfectly happy wandering peacefully through a museum one day and then enjoy a rowdy night out with friends the next night. I loved that you could always delight me in some unexpected way and often, I didn’t even see it coming. Some of my favourite moments were when I could just be alone with you and feel like I had you all to myself, even though your popularity kept you in very high demand, both professionally and socially.

I’ll always love you, but I just can’t BE with you any longer.

New York, I heart you and I’ll miss you.

Best Friends -- You Want Gas Option?

I've been traveling into San Jose on a pretty regular basis over the past 10 months or so. I always rent a car from Avis, and quite frequently, I show up on a Monday or Tuesday morning after having taken the short flight up from Orange County. As a result of my somewhat predictable schedule, I tend to encounter many of the same Avis employees and we're starting to recognize one another and say hi.

My favorite Avis buddy is Ranjit, an Indian man, complete with turban and silvery beard, whom I would guess to be around 65 years old or so. He works the exit booth (mornings, it would appear) and so he is the guy who checks my paperwork and driver's license when I'm leaving the lot with my rental.

He has always enthusiastically said hi, giggled a lot, and made some funny banter with me in his musical Indian accent. (And of course, he sniffed out my own partial Indian heritage almost immediately, keeping a growing line of cars waiting behind me as he quizzed me about where my dad's family was originally from.)

Because I spent most of June back in NYC and because my travel schedule has been anything BUT predictable lately, I hadn't seen Ranjit in many, many weeks until I showed up this morning, fresh off another OC flight. As I rolled down the driver's side window to hand him my paperwork today, his face lit up when he recognized me and he exclaimed "Shari!!" (which comes out sounding more like "Sheddy!!")

"Sheddy, SO good to SEE you! Vere have you BEEN? Haven't seen you in two, maybe three months!"

I explained that my travel schedule had been quite different lately and he repeated how good it was to see me and then kept talking as he walked around the car to check on any pre-existing damage. By the time he worked his way back around to my open window, he was still talking, but without missing a beat, looked seriously at me for a moment and asked, "You want gas option?"

When I shook my head "no", he broke into a wide grin again and said "So, see you next week, no?"

I explained that I was actually going to be staying over the weekend this time and he thought that was a brilliant idea. He handed back my paperwork and said, "You come back soon! You're my best friend!!"

Ranjit, buddy, you need to meet more people... away from the Avis lot.

Too Much Information

I'm a relatively smart person and I understand that in reality, I am not the first person to ever stay in the hotel room that I have most recently checked into. But despite my firm grasp on reality, I prefer to conceptually believe that before my arrival, this room somehow ceased to exist and was magically summoned into being simply as a direct result of my very own personal need for out-of-town accommodation. I don't want to think about what the bedspread looks like under a black light and I don't want to contemplate that the housekeeping staff may have wiped down the drinking glasses with the same cloth he/she used to wipe the bathroom floor (or worse, the toilet).

Frankly, I don't want ANY evidence to be lingering around that anyone else has even ever SEEN this room, let alone STAYED in it.

Housekeeping, I implore you, please empty the trash cans BEFORE new guests arrive.

EW!

Travel Trials

You knew this was coming, didn't you? You knew that since I haven't really complained too much about any major travel issues lately that I must be saving them all up for single "I hate business travel" blog entry, right?

Well, it hasn't really been that bad, but there have been some "moments" lately:

-- My seatmate on a JetBlue flight got called up to the front of the plane before we took off and was met by police officers. Heck, I'm just happy that I wasn't sitting next to this woman. (Don't worry, my seatmate was not an escaped convict -- he was a commercial photographer with a bunch of random equipment that the friendly officers questionned him about. He returned to his seat and made the five-hour flight right beside me.)

-- On another JetBlue flight (again, a cross-country flight), I walked right in on a guy using the bathroom. Honestly, buddy, LOCK THE FREAKING DOOR! Thank goodness he was just in the standard standing position with his back to the door.

-- The American Airlines folks are starting to crack down on carry-on's even more... I think they've all been trained to force people to check their bags so we can all pay the new bag fee. I'll strike a deal with them: If they will stop stealing things out of my checked bags, I'll consider actually checking a bag again at some point.

-- I now know the secret location of the modem in the rooms in the Santa Clara Hyatt, having had to watch a tech engineer crawl around under the TV stand for 40 minutes while he ascertained why my internet connection was not working.

-- Car rental lesson: Hyundai Sonatas get no respect. I was cut off three times just getting from the San Diego airport to my hotel. But the XM radio almost makes that worthwhile.

-- Car rental company plea: If you have the nicer car on the lot already, why don't you just GIVE me that car instead of the crappy, smokey 30,000 mile piece of Chevy crap that you TRIED to pawn off on me??

-- Car rental shuttle bus driver jack*ss: Screeches away from the curb before I'm sitting down and nearly sends me (and my bags flying). Drops me at the "preferred" area in the car lot and mumbles something unintelligible when trying to tell me what space my car is in. I ask him three times to repeat it and he finally just gets up, comes back and gets in my face with "I SAID F-22!" Well, F YOU, too, buddy!

O Canada!

I would be a highly negligent Canadian if I didn't take at least a minute or two today to say "Happy Canada Day" to all my fellow Canadians, both those still at home and those abroad in various locations. So, Happy Canada Day, eh!

We were chatting in the office the other day about how loyal Canadians are and how proud we are to be Canadian. Cristina made a great observation about how we manage to find all sorts of ways to weave the red maple leaf into so many of our brands, marketing messages and even day-to-day communications. That ubiquitous maple leaf doubles quite well as a number of different letters in the alphabet (particularly as an "o" or an "a") and it's also very cleverly used as an apostrophe and a period, punctuating signs everywhere with Canadian patriotism.

And for my American buddies who think we don't like Americans.... that's such a fallacy. We love Americans (well, most of you anyway... we admit we don't like 300-lb Bubba from Podunk, Any State who is louder than a freight train and has the social graces of a pack of hyenas... but admit it... you don't like him either). We think you're great, but we just don't want to be you. We just like being Canadian. And we're so darn polite about it.