Up and comer

So I figured I would be best served to recap the first part of the trip this morning before heading out to Troy’s place.

After receiving two emails from US Airways that I could upgrade to first class for my flight to Philly for not a ton of money, I decided to splurge and do it.  My logic was the regular flight expense was already being picked up by RunSignUp so I didn’t feel too fiscally guilty.  Plus I can only recall flying first class once before as a kid while traveling with my grandmother.  I figured what the hell, why not…

I woke up on my own a full 30 minutes before my already terribly early alarm of 3:30 AM. I hoped to get up without waking Cindy but that is pretty much an impossible task.  I figured laying in bed awake for a half hour wouldn’t do me any good.  We were out the door on the way to the airport right around 4AM.

Cindy was sad when she dropped me off.  I never have been the type to get sad when leaving on a trip or dropping someone off for a trip since I know they/I are going to be coming back.  I knew before I knew it I would be back in southwest Florida.

I had packed all of my stuff in a small piece of luggage, thinking I could just throw it in the overhead bin.  All my tech stuff and trip paperwork was jammed into my laptop bag.  Since US Airways is one of those shitty airlines that charges bag fees I figured traveling light would be best.  I wound up checking the bag anyway because I had some toiletry items that may get flagged in carry on luggage and I was flying first class so bag fees didn’t apply anyway.

Having never flown first class as an adult it was a different experience.  Once boarding was announced I was one of the first people on the plane.  On my seat was a pillow and blanket, waiting for me and free of charge. (I think they normally charge for that too)  As soon as I got situated the stewardess immediately served me coffee even as the lowly coach customers were still filing in.

My seat number was 1A, literally the first official seat on the plane.  It actually was not a great seat when compared to the rest of first class because I was up against the bulkhead.  There was no seat in front of me that I could slide my laptop bag under so my bag had to go up in the overhead bins at least for takeoff and landing.  There was no flip down tray for food, instead I had to share a  wide armrest that was supposed to be a pseudo table with the guy next to me whom didn’t speak a word.  I was also surprised in this day and age that US Airways did not have any sort of in flight entertainment system in their planes, despite them charging an ancillary fee for everything.  Maybe I am just too spoiled by JetBlue.  On the positive side the seats were very comfortable and obviously I had a ton of legroom.

Originally I had thought maybe I would pull out my Galaxy Tab and do some Plant vs Zombies during the flight.  I didn’t for two reasons.  Since I was a 46 year old man sitting in first class, I felt like playing PvZ may possibly give away that I am not a typical first class passenger, many of which were reading the financial section or some serious literature, not that it really matters.  However more importantly, I was very tired.  I wound up reclining my seat and using my first class pillow to shut my eyes for at least an hour of the flight.  As soon as I was awake the stewardess was back in my face with the food tray which I was allowed to take whatever I wanted in as much quantity as I desired.  Perhaps my lifelong coach traveling training is why I only grabbed a single raspberry fig bar along with a bottle of water.

We arrived in Philly slightly ahead of schedule which was nice.  I figured I could get checked in to the hotel before heading over to the conference across the street which was scheduled to start at 11 AM.  At the Budget rental car office I commented on how rental car prices were dramatically higher than 5 weeks ago when I visited.  The girl said it was because of a shortage of cars related to the storms that delayed travel last week.  I saw plenty of cars sitting around but hey, ok.

Online I was pegged to get a Hyundai Elantra but I wound being given a black Nissan Sentra which seemed like a bit of a step up to me.  It felt like a smaller version of the Camry we rented last time.  According to the gps it should have only taken me 15 minutes to get to the hotel, the reality was much longer. Once I got into the heart of Philly traffic was shitty.  Since I last drove in the city they have changed some stuff around.  Many of the streets now have the right hand lane branded as BUS ONLY, which is also used by bikers.  That leaves one lane of traffic available to everyone else.  Of course since this is a large city, there were vehicles double parked everywhere, meaning you were trying to maneuver around bikes/buses to continue moving forward.  Plus if you wanted to make a right turn you again have to awkwardly cut into the bus only lane.  I appreciate the idea behind this setup to benefit mass transit and bikers but it’s actual implementation seems poorly conceived and dangerous.

So my GPS directed me to what it said was the address of the Westin however I didn’t actually see the hotel.  I wound up doing a series of left turns to come back around before I turned into the underground parking garage of Liberty Place. I knew the Westin was somewhere close by but I didnt see specific parking for it.  I parked 4 floors down and emerged up into the mall area of the building.  I found an exit to the street and finally saw the entrance to the Westin.  I figured I would get a better deal if I parked there.  Well I asked the valet what the parking situation was.  He said where I was parked was actually correct unless I wanted to have the car valet parked.  Shit.  I am not sure what the daily rate for parking is, all I glanced at was the $8 for a half hour number and originally thought I was only going to be there temporarily.  I can hardly wait to see the parking bill.

So I had to walk all the way back down to the car and grab my stuff before going to my room.  The check in staff were all super polite and professional as you would expect with a high end hotel like The Westin.  I unloaded my stuff in the quite luxurious room and then only had time to walk down to a Dunkin Donuts a couple blocks away before heading to the meeting.

The conference was being held at an office building right across the street from the Westin which was super convenient.  It was in a space called The Hub on the 14th floor. It was a GREAT meeting space, modern, tech filled, beautiful with a great view.  RunSignUp really cut no corners with this event, despite it being a year one thing.

I got to meet a number of people that I only knew from primarily emails and the occasional phone call.  Bryan, who has been my main customer support contact with RunSignUp was the one I was most interested to meet.  He consistently responds to any question I have within minutes, almost regardless of the day or time of day. In fact the only reason I gave RunSignUp a try was because Bryan started working there after leaving our prior online race registrar.

I also got to meet Bob Bickel, the owner of the company.  It took all of 5 seconds to understand just how passionate and committed Bob is to the success of the company.  He evidently has a track record of building successful companies from scratch.

I met the rest of the RunSignUp crew which has been rapidly expanding in recent months due to their success.  Every single person was young, positive and energetic.  In a way it reminded me of how things were when I first got into the computer business with Entre Computers where we had a young staff of talented guys that helped grow the company by leaps and bounds in a very short period of time.

I also got to talk with other timers and race directors in the room.  Throughout the two days I picked up TONS of good ideas just by picking their brains.  So Friday was the the meeting for the Customer Advisory Board, which I was asked to be in.  These were a group of people that RSU identified as being key in helping form the direction of the company.  The meeting started with each person giving a background of themselves along with touching on some ideas that were asked of us ahead of time.

As I have always professed here, I am 100 times better at writing out my thoughts than delivering them verbally.  I had typed out a bunch of notes ahead of time to help me during my intro.  When it came time for me to do my part I only touched on part of what I had written down as I clumsily delivered my speech, oh well.

The RSU co-founder, a brilliant coder named Stephen was very interesting.  I could immediately tell he was like me in that he was uncomfortable speaking to the room yet had was going 100 mph in his brain as he was literally coding while others gave their intros. The guy that writes the software I use for timing races was also at the conference.  Being able to meet and interact with him in person was another great benefit.

Day one of the meeting went well and it was followed up by a social Friday evening at a nearby boathouse.  RSU arranged to have a van take us there.  The trip was rather, um, terrifying.  5:30 traffic in Philly is not good normally.  Things were made worse by an impromptu “Free Palestine” march that went down the middle of Market Street, causing a mess.

The van driver was extremely aggessive, cutting people off and then honking his horn at the person he just cut off, like they did something wrong.  At one point he pulled across and blocked a lane of oncoming traffic and then again beeped his horn, like they were the assholes.  I felt fortunate to step out of the van without requiring a neck brace.

The evening at the boathouse was really nice with a nice spread of food and free alcohol.  They only had one type of beer, some sort of IPA with 5.7% alcohol content. I downed enough of them to help ease my normal social anxiety that arises in these situations.  Ironically I found myself spending most of the night talking to the one timer and his wife whom were both well past retirement age.  Listening to their stories was very interesting.  I also got to chat more with Bryan, learning more about his background beyond life at RunSignUp.

Really the only negative of the night came when I went to use the single bathroom on the floor.  The seat was down, I am a courteous person normally so I reached down to put it up before I took a leak.  As I did the toilet seat promptly fell off the bowl and onto the floor.  What the fck??  It was not attached in any manner.  It looks like the plastic bolts/adhesive used to attach the seat had broken.  So I took a leak with the seat laying on the floor.  Afterwards I remained courteous, picking the seat back up and placing it back on the toilet.  After thoroughly washing my hands I warned a few people about the trick seat.

Thankfully the van ride back was much less white knuckled.  I collapsed in bed a little after 10, wiped out from the 19 hour day.

Saturday I once again tapped Dunkin Donuts for an XL coffee before heading to the meeting which was scheduled for 8AM.  The meeting room had been expanded to accommodate the additional, non-customer advisory people that were showing up.  A good portion of the day was a bit of repeat for me since some of it was covered on Friday for us.   I spent some of that time playing with some of the features that were talked about the day before and even playing a game of Hearthstone to pass some time.

During the day I was once again called upon to test my poor speaking skills.  The woman that organized the event pulled members of the CAB into a room to shoot some individual video of us answering questions.  Despite me talking into a camera all the time in my countless videos on my YouTube channel, this scenario again did not feel comfortable to me.  This time I had no notes to work off of and I had no idea what she was going to ask.

When I was talking I was distracted, not sure if I should be looking at her or the camera as I was answering the questions.  I haven’t seen the footage but my estimate was it was a lot of rambling with very little substance coming from it.

During the rest of the meeting my notepad which already was pretty full with ideas/suggestions continued to be utilized heavily.  I have a lot of things to look into once I get back in the swing of things at home.  The meeting let out around 4PM.  I hung around for awhile talking to some of the other attendees, again sharing ideas.  On my way out I saw both the owner Bob, and Johanna, who organized the conference.  I congratulated both of them for a job that was very well done.  The conference was a huge success in my mind.

Last night I didn’t make any definitive plans.  I went down to the Westin fitness room which was pretty decent with a full array of cardio machines, a few universal weight machines and a back room with two benches and a full set of dumbbells up to 50 pounds.  I did 3 circuits of chest press, should press and bent over rows and finished up with some dragon flags and reps on the vertical chest press machine.  The highlight was me pressing the full stack of weights (255lbs) one time, barely.

I decided to just eat at the hotel bar later.  There was a huge wedding party there when I was done working out.  I came back down after taking a shower and it had cleared out.  To my left there was a woman finishing up her drink.  She looked 40ish with glasses and  short hairstyle that looked severe.  She started up conversation with me that I politely rolled with.  She asked what I was in town for, I told her.  She said she was there for some birthday party for a guy that she used to produce music for.  She said the party was at some dance club right down the sidewalk.

It didn’t take long for me to see where she was leading.  She asked me what I was doing tonight.  I told her nothing really, just hanging out before I headed out this morning.  She then asked if I was married, despite no ring on my finger.  I told her no but I have a girlfriend.  “Oh ok, of course you do.” which I guess was a compliment.  Knowing she was barking up the wrong tree she headed out a minute or two later.

I ordered a scallop dish from the bar.  I was a bit shocked visually when my $20 entre came out in an appetizer sized dish with exactly 3 scallops in it.  Yea it tasted good but damn….  For desert I had a couple more Budlights before paying my $38 tab and heading back up to the room.  I was a bit affected by the beers, enough to record three silly Vines before falling asleep.

I will shortly be pulling out for Lancaster to meet up with Troy.  So far the trip has been a lot of fun, I expect that trend to continue.  All my pics so far are located here.