The Mayhem Papers

So Bruce, what did you do last Thursday?

Glad you asked!  Every year a bunch of us from work have a spring ski trip up to Kirkwood.  We all meet up at McAfee HQ at 5am and head up for a day of skiing, usually to return around 8:30 or 9 that night.

Irony was in full effect when our scheduled trip was cancelled because of TOO MUCH SNOW!  Ok, yes I realize it would have been difficult to get the bus up there due to the road conditions, but it’s still funny.  It’s like cancelling a BBQ because it’s too nice out.

So our trip was rescheduled to a date on which my friend Michelle had tickets to see a show at the Fillmore.  Since I try to collect clever and devious friends, a plan was hatched in her braincase to attend both the ski trip and said concert.  Since I’m always up for a good caper, she asked me to join her.  Instead of heading up in the bus, we’d drive up in a rented truck, leave early and drive to SF for the show.

I admit, my participation in the plan was fairly begrudging at first and based mostly on not wanting a friend to make that drive alone.

At 5:30 the mastermind of this plan showed up outside my house in a massive truck, one that she seemed to have a hard time seeing over the steering wheel in.  We headed out, loaded up with snacks, ski gear and two iPods full of music.  We actually passed the bus our co-workers was in on the way up.  Much honking and waving was done as we barreled past in the massive RED truck.

I was sweating it a bit when I saw there was chain enforcement about 1 mile out from Kirkwood.  Luckily we just locked in the hubs, dropped the RED behemoth into 4wd and powered through with no problem.

Mev and the Behemoth

The weather was pretty nice and the snow a bit on the slushy/icy side, but it definitely beat a day in the office.

 

We skied all morning and had a great lunch with the ever awesome Gaylynn and then started on to phase 2.

On the drive down, we saw some interesting sights, 

stopped at a EXTREMELY shady “spy outlet”,

and used the awesome Slurpee iPhone app to keep ourselves hydrated and hopped up on sugar.

Around 7:00 we rolled into SF and headed to Mev’s gym.  I signed in as a guest and grabbed a much needed shower.  I came out of feeling so fresh and so clean and ready for the rest of the night.

We headed over to the Fillmore and had time to grab some Shabu Shabu before the show.  I was starving so I ordered the all-you-can eat and chowed down.

On our way to walk into the show, I realized I had my little pocket knife still in my front pocket. 

Since they were patting people down, I handed it to Mev to stow in her purse.  This is probably the only time I have ever seen someone at the door give more than just a quick glance into a lady’s purse.

This dude was practically up to his elbows digging through her purse, all the while asking “nothing dangerous in here like pepper spray or a pocket knife?”  He apparently had his hand on the knife at one point, but it was right next to a phone charger so I think he just passed it by.

I’m pretty certain it was because of the stealth black finish.

That madness aside, we walked in and were greeted by a crowd that seemed to be somewhat heavy on the fratty side.  I was already in for a penny, so we found a good place to stand and waited for the show to start.  Luckily we got there about 10 minutes before they started so we didn’t wait around too long.

While their music was a bit on the formulaic side, I found Two Door Cinema Club to be very entertaining and solid musicians.

The show was over around 11:30 or so and we made an uneventful trip back home.
View Larger Map

I got home about 20 hours after I left that morning. 419 miles of driving, snow, good friends and live music. Pretty solid day for a Thursday.

I settled in to the Clarion Hotel in downtown Cork.  Located right in the center of town, it’s a pretty good base of operations.  Plenty of interesting spots in the city within walking distance with the bus and train stations a short walk away for destinations beyond.  It’s a very modern hotel and they gave me a nice room on the top floor with a decent view of the surrounding area from the balcony.  Unfortunately, they hold the honor of having the most uncomfortable bed I have ever slept on so sleep is in short supply.  On my next trip, I’ll definitely avoid this place.  It’s a shame really, considering how nice the rest of the hotel is.  Oh well.

The McAfee office is very nice, full of very friendly people (even though the security guard looks angry) and very modern.  Not a bad view out the conference room window either.

forgive the poor iPhone picture

Not too sure what I’m going to do tonight.  I have a call from 5 to 5:30 with some folks back in the States and then my all important chat with my girls.  After that, will most likely find a place close to the hotel to eat and then lay around and read.

International business travel is so thrilling!

After a nice breakfast, I bid farewell to The Brehon in Killarney.  What a great hotel.  When I bring the girls back to Ireland, we’re definitely staying there.  The drive south through Killarney National Park was stunning…and freezing.  Here are some of the sights I saw during the drive:

(direct link or click on picture for full size)

This should have given me an indicator of what was waiting for me:

Following the GPS directions, I continued heading south along N71.  Little did I know that the path the GPS had chosen was the old N71.  Instead of following a nice 2 lane paved road, I headed up and over a place called “Priest’s Leap”.

see the red line? That's where I went

I had to add in the red highlight because the line is very small on the map…for good reason.  This ended up being one step up from a goat path.  The views were tremendous, but it was seriously one lane.  In fact, a biker had to step off the trail so I could get by.  It took about 5 minutes of maneuvering the one time I did meet another car going the opposite direction.

The view from the top was amazing.  It was EXTREMELY cold and windy.  No one around but me, some sheep

and some 80 year old Irish man that was apparently out for a walk on a fine spring day.

The road behind me

The road ahead

I managed my way up and down the mountain, all the while thankful for being able to drive a stick and drove the rest of the way down N71 to Cork.  I checked into the Clarion in downtown Cork and was given a pretty nice room on the top floor with a balcony.

Tomorrow is Monday, so I’ll be back on company time.  I’m looking forward to meeting the McAfee Ireland team.  Luckily I don’t have to rely on a GPS to get me to the office!

I’ve never really understood people going ga-ga over Disneyland.  Sure it has some fun rides and a pleasant atmosphere, but it has never really been a place I would go out of my way as an adult to visit.  Having lived in close proximity to both Disneyland and Disneyworld as a kid, I took my share of trips there.   Yet when I try to think back on it, I have very few enjoyable memories.  All I seem to remember from those trips are people either rushing to have fun according to a schedule or arguing about something or other.  When Maryanne brought up the potential plan for a trip to Disneyland, I thought “why not” and set everything up.

What I was not prepared for was this:

From Disneyland

The absolute wonder that Zoë experienced when she first saw Minnie Mouse and Goofy made it all worth it.  Now I completely  understand the draw to Disneyland.  I seriously found myself contemplating staying an extra day just so she could have more time to play.

Being able to take my little girl there and have her so excited has replaced any negative memories I had about trips to Disney.  While I’m not sure how many lasting memories Zoë will have from this trip, I know I have some that I will carry with me as long as I live.

Good job Walt!

(for more on our trip to Disneyland, see Zoë and Maryanne’s sites)

My second day in Israel started off with a trip out to Rosh Ha’ayin to visit our customer Orange, the largest wireless provider in Israel. Since Eran would have had to spend an hour in traffic to get to my hotel and then another 40 minutes in traffic back out to the customer site, I took a taxi. Luckily Ben had printed out the address in English and Hebrew the day before, so I was able to just show the cab driver where I needed to go. After the first cab driver said he couldn’t go out of Tel Aviv, another cab showed up to get me on my way. The driver was very pleasant and had plenty of questions to ask me about the US.

As we drove out to Rosh Ha’ayin, chatting about the weather and “Heelary Cleenton”, I was once again impressed with how green everything was. It reminded me of the surrounding areas of Dallas, flat and green. You can see the highway I traveled on running west-east in the middle of this map. The green areas on each side were various farms. Seeing how fertile the land is gives you a little more perspective on why people have been fighting over this area for so long.

The Orange building (which was actually beige, nowhere near orange) was in this hip little industrial park with lots of little restaurants scattered around for good measure. Going inside, it almost looked like I walked in the Gap offices by mistake. Everyone was wearing jeans (or jean skirts) and t-shirts or button-ups. I met up with Eran and then we went in to visit with the head of computer security for Orange. He was very nice and went out of his way to speak English throughout the meeting, even though it slowed him down some. Once again, Israeli hospitality at its finest. We talked for a while….BORING WORK DETAILS SKIPPED…and Eran and I headed on our way back to Tel Aviv.

The ride back was very surreal. Since it was a warm sunny day, we put the top down on Eran’s little red sports car and made our way back to the McAfee office. By this time, traffic had cleared away, so we were jetting along down the freeway, through the farmland on our way into Tel Aviv. For some reason it struck me as very surreal. “Cruising in a convertible on our way into Tel Aviv”. I can’t quite explain why it was so odd, it just really felt like we should be blasting The Clash on the radio (yes, I know its technically about Iran, but I think you get my meaning).

We got back into the office and…MORE BORING WORK DETAILS SKIPPED…then it was time for lunch. We walked down the street to the “nice” place they tried to talk me into the previous day (instead of the “authentic” place). The menu was definitely European with chicken cordon bleu and schnitzel. I had the schnitzel and was presented with a HUGE amount of food. Seeing how large lunch was, it started making sense why dinner was usually eaten later than I am used to. After lunch, we took a walk over to the little park so that Maui could have her after lunch walk. We all stood around chatting while Maui sniffed about and then next thing we knew, she was no where to be found. We split up to look for her and I ended up spotting her at a cafe staring at people until they gave her food. All across the world, dogs are all the same

On our way back, the guys talked me in to splitting some lottery tickets with them. I figured the good will was worth spending about $2US. The winnings would have amounted to about 1 million US per person, to which I told the guys “that’s hardly worth playing!”.

In case you were wondering, we didn’t win.

We worked a little later into the evening since there was a conference call that started at 8am in California that we all needed to be in on. It was good to see the guys in Israel had as little patience for some of the rigamorale involved in these sort of calls. It was definitely a bonding moment. “Hey, you hate listening to people talk just for the sake of talking? Me too! High five!”

After the call, Liad said “the guys were hoping they could take you to dinner.” Once again, the hospitality was really impressive. Everyone at the office went out of their way to make sure I felt like an honored guest.

We went to a neat little steak house tucked into the “Tel Aviv SOHO” district. This was an older area of town that was frequented by artists and has become something of a trendy place to go for dinner or drinks. The atmosphere was nice, the food was excellent and I had a great time talking to the guys. After dinner, as we walked out, Eran mentioned that you could see my hotel if you looked around the corner. He was pointing it out to me and the other guys started yelling at him because they thought he was going to let me walk the 1/2 mile back to the hotel. It wasn’t because they thought it was dangerous, they just thought it was rude.

I got back to the hotel just in time to hop on Skype and chat with Maryanne as she was getting up to start her day. This much of a time difference is really weird.

Tylenol PM is my friend. Last night I took some around 9:45 and probably didn’t last past 10:00. Woke up briefly around 6:30, but just rolled over and went back to sleep until about 7:15 or so. I woke up feeling pretty refreshed. I went down to the breakfast buffet the hotel has and was pretty unimpressed with most of it except the fruit. They had some awesome oranges. I ended up eating almost an entire plate of them!

After that, I took a cab over to the local office. I was a little worried when the cab driver asked me if the address I was going to was in Tel Aviv, but he managed to get me there pretty quickly. Once in the office, I met up with Zivan who showed me to a conference room I could use as my office while I’m here. One by one people rolled in and I was introduced to everybody. They are all really friendly. One of the founders actually yells at people if he hears them speaking Hebrew around me. “Speak English!”, he badgers as he walks by. There 2 great office dogs here as well, Maui and Simba. Maui is a friendly female golden retriever and Simba is a friendly white and yellow mutt.

The office here is on the 3rd floor and we went downstairs to a little cafe for lunch. It was super crowded and we all squeezed into one small table (the dogs camped out under the table) and had a nice lunch. They were all nice enough to give me some pointers on the table etiquette, which was basically dig in to the appetizers and don’t be concerned about using your hands. I really liked that way, it really made lunch seem a lot more personal.
I have no idea what it was I ate, it was some sort of meat patty with potato wrapped around it in some sort of red sauce on top of some rice. It was really good and SOOOOO filling. One of the people said to get 2 servings, but I really think I could have done with one.

After lunch we took a walk with the dogs around the neighborhood, enjoying the weather. All in all, its been a really nice visit.

I arrived into Tel Aviv without too much trouble, finding a very friendly cab driver to take me into town. Once I got to the hotel, things changed. It seems the careful people at Bank of America found it odd that I was using my card in Israel. I got to the check in desk and my card was declined. Having just traveled 14 hours by plane, this was very troubling to me. The people at the front counter called the number on the back of my card, which apparently doesn’t accept calls from out of the country. Then the manager came forward and said “well, we can charge you for one day and then you can get it all sorted out with your credit card company”. Of course, this didn’t matter, my card was locked. They tried and as expected, it didn’t go through. Luckily I had my laptop with Skype loaded up, so I asked “is there an internet connection I could use” to which the person at the desk said “no, I’m sorry, only guests can use it.” This made me rather annoyed, but I think I did a pretty good job of keeping my cool as I asked if there was somewhere nearby I could use for a connection. Luckily there was a bar in the hotel that had free wireless and I was able to duck in there and use that connection.

Naturally, it wasn’t as simple as calling a single number and getting the lock lifted. I went through about 25 minutes or so of getting bounced around from one customer “service” representative to another only to find that no one could do anything since my card was based in California and only a California “rep” could help me. One problem with this side of the the equation, customer service in California didn’t open until 7am PST, or 5:00pm in Israel, so that meant I had to sit around for another half hour to finally get someone to help. A very rough start to the trip.