Home Stretch

Ray and I just parted ways in Atlanta around 6:30 AM as we make our ways to our terminals for the final stretch of the trip home which has so far been in the realm of 28-32 hours. The time change and let lag has taken over and waiting another 3 hours in an airport for a flight now seems like a walk in the park. I could be delirious though as I'm waiting in a gate that is not for my flight while randomly staring at people since all they have to read is USA Today which offers 2% the entertainment value of the NY Post.

Ray has summed up the trip pretty accurately although I was graced by the airline gods and received a 1st class upgrade from Taipei to San Fran. I'm not sure if Ray was more pissed at my good fortune or that he now had to sit next some dudes with sweet Cajun accents for 12 hours. Ray has also learned I'm the worlds worst sight seeing companion. I forgot my camera 75% of the time and make sarcastic comments on the regular. We had a blast overall and even managed to break a few rules such as drinking coffee on the subway for which we received a few evil glances.

Overall 1st class is the way to go for long overseas flights, then again when you have nobody to talk to the nostalgia looses it's luster pretty fast. The Dynasty club's provided by China air for high rollin' travelers such as ourselves made the layovers a bit easier although they do not remotely accommodate anyone from the Western hemisphere.

I did have the opportunity to enjoy some Taiwanese beer called of all things, Taiwan Beer. The 1st class flight from San Fran to Atlanta was overbooked and seemed more like economy plus. The hot towels were borderline dangerous, the food we passed on and they let Ray board the plane despite giving the attendant a ticket for someone else or a different flight.

While I tried to sleep and get back on east coast time Ray was overly enjoyed at the vast selection of TV and movies available at his disposal. I'm pretty sure he could have flown for another 12 hours based on all the programs he'd wanted to watch but we both settled for Indiana Jones which he hated. Sorry Ray.

Lost in Hong Kong

Referring to Ray's "Copy, Copy, Copy" post it's all true. I was totally lost in Hong Kong for a good 2 hours. Hong Kong is just like any other city, easy to navigate on foot and retrace your steps in the event you get a little off the beaten path right?

Hell no!

So I ventured out in search of trinkets for the SEO team and family along with some new threads to round out my fall wardrobe. I somehow convinced myself that the winding corridor of alleys and off the beaten path stores would contain what I was looking for, and I was sadly mistaken.

Given the lack of street signs, ability to cross at 8 out of 10 intersections and not remembering the address or neighborhood which the hotel was in were all contributor's to my adventure. I did manage to get some sweet pictures of signs telling me things that I cannot do along with receiving various propositions from hookers.

And as you can see I made it back in one piece, just a little more jaded than I was before.

Also in reference to the lunch meeting where Ray ate the cow stomach, during the lunch meeting in the airport I was teased by the sight of a Popeye's Chicken and Biscuit restaurant.

If you've had the luxury of enjoying a Popeye's Po' Boy sandwich you know exactly how tempting it can be so on the way home I made a point to try it out in Hong Kong, knowing damn well I would be setting myself up for disappointment.

A Sighting?????

I didn't think it could get any more obscure than seeing Gene Simmons in the Portland airport but it did. As Sean and I are making our way to our gate in Taipei we see this big white guy in a leather jacket walking towards us. I notice because there are very few white guys here. An airport attendant asks him if he is transferring and he says, Yeah- to Bangkok and I recognize him immediately.


It was Michael Madsen. No not an A-List celebrity but this guy has been in a hell of a lot of things and is probably most known for his role in Reservoir Dogs. Regardless, Sean and I were happy to see a celebrity.

Random Rules

I'm not sure if the novelty of Hong Kong wore off the second time or if I wasn't as observant this trip but I didn't find as many amusing things this trip as I did last. I think Sean put it best when he said that Hong Kong is the land of NO. Every possible thing you can imagine has a sign on it telling you what to do or what you can't do. I'm thinking the sign maker is the richest man in Hong Kong.

Subway Rules

This sign was in the subway stating what you cannot bring on the subway. Pets? ok, Poisons? probably a good idea, I have no idea what the top right one is, but Balloons?? I honestly could go weeks without seeing a balloon yet in Hong Kong, people have brought them on the subway enough to warrant a sign.

Pool Rules

These were the rules of the Sheraton Pool. A few of my favorites.

1. All persons are required to shower with soap before entering the pool/jacuzzi. Who's job is it to check?
2. Do not use soap in the pool or jacuzzi. Really? Did this happen enough that they had to add it to the rules?
3. Spitting or blowing of the nose is prohibited. I actually like this one but it's ridiculous that you have to tell people this.
4. Appropriate swimwear must be worn, no cutoff jeans or long pants allowed. Ok what jack ass goes swimming in long pants? Apparently enough to warrant an addition to the rules.

The people running Hong Kong have to be the most anal people in the world. Either that or they are related to the sign makers and are funneling government money to them.

Last Day in Hong Kong

That Temple is Sik

Today is the last day in Hong Kong for Sean and I. We had time to kill and hours left on our 24 hour subway pass so we decided to go to Sik Sik Yuen Wong Tai Sin Temple. The extra Sik is because the place was off the hook. Ok bad joke. It's actually a popular temple in Hong Kong where Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism are practiced.

Temple Entrance

Lanterns where people were lighting incense sticks.

No idea what this was but people were standing in front of it waving incense so I'm guessing it was important.

There was one rule that had to be observed at the Temple. Don't climb the artificial rock. Regular rock climbing seemed to be cool with them.

Overall the temple was cool but Sean and I were the only non-Asians and felt like we were trespassing on sacred ground.


Nan Lian Garden

Next we moved on toNan Lian Garden which was this scenic public garden with a lot of rules. 12 to be specific. Here are some of my favorites.

No Tripods. I can't imagine what provoked them to outlaw tripods in the park but it must have been some incident for them to take such a drastic measure.

Ok, no littering is a given anywhere but I found it funny that they chose an apple core as a symbol of litter. The can I get but the apple core seems out of place.

Ok I have no idea what paddling means but they chose a picture of a kid parting the water like moses which adds zero context to the term paddling.

This one cracks me up because like the tripod, there had to be previous incidents that lead to this rule. "Charlie, we have a problem. People are bringing their stray fish and turtles to the park and letting them go". Ok, I'll call the sign maker.

Other than the stringent rules, the park was absolutely gorgeous. Here are a few pics.

Cool Pagoda

Oh yeah, there was a nunnery in the park.

Inside the nunnery. Wasn't really supposed to be taking pics but I snuck one.

The park was worth the trip, but here is where Hong Kong fools you. The park is 2 years old. Like everything in Hong Kong, it is new and build for tourists. I have yet to find history here.

Sean and I are lounging in the Dynasty Lounge which is China Airlines first class club. It is eerily quiet in here and Sean and I are the only two white dudes. 2 more hours till our first of 4 flights.

Copy, Copy, Copy

So Thursday Sean and I do some work in the morning and head out around noon to do some sight seeing. We decide to go to The Peak since it is just an awesome site. We take the subway which I have to say is super easy. Good job Hong Kong. While I got us to the correct stop, I inadvertently take us out the wrong exit from the train station. We follow the signs and begin this crazy hike up a steep street.


This picture doesn't really do it justice, but this street seemed to climb for ever.

So we finally make it to the point and it is as awesome the second time as it is the first. Not as clear a day as last time I was there but still cool.

The Peak Observation deck

2IFC building which was featured in Dark Knight. It's the building he is standing on.

After The Peak we proceed to the Ladies Market to do some shopping at the suggestion of our client. I am hoping it is like Stanley Market and will present the opportunity to haggle. And no, it wasn't a market just for ladies.

After walking through about 5 blocks of tents we were very disappointed to find that every block seemed to be the exact stuff. In addition, every tent was selling copy watches. Every tent had people grabbing you saying "copy wathces? you want copy watches? copy, copy, copy!. As if that wasn't annoying enough, we walk by one woman who I'm pretty sure says to me "Hey Pussy, you want copy watch?" I ask Sean if I heard her correctly and he thinks I did. I hate the Ladies Market.

After that, Sean and I head back to the hotel since we are exhausted. I do some work and take a nap and Sean apparently went out for a walk and got lost for 2 hours. He'll have to explain how that happened.

Meeting with Cathay

Ray is wrongly accused and punished

So Sean and I get up on Wednesday to go to Cathay, and our biggest concern is that the taxi driver takes us to Cathay's headquarters and not to the Cathay terminal at the airport. So the cab driver knows exactly where we have to go and we arrive at 9:15 for a 9:30 meeting. Perfect timing. As we are checking in, one of my contacts comes up and asks if either of us are Ray. Not a hard deduction since we are the only Americans in the lobby. She then informs us that we are late and the meeting was at 9:00. I begin to feel like an ass because not only have I made the mistake and feel embarrassed but Sean is guilty by association.

We arrive to the meeting with roughly 20-25 people waiting to hear our presentation. I jump right in and am flying through my slides which is making me nervous because I need to make it last the entire morning and I've already made it through 10 slides in like 10 minutes. Thankfully an Australian dude with sweet glasses begins to break the ice and ask questions. His inquiries open the door for others to ask questions and stretch the first half of our presentation to almost noon which is great.

With the embarrassment of being late still in my head I didn't think the day could get worse. Then we went to lunch. We take a shuttle bus over to the air port to have lunch at a Dim Sum restaurant. The Cathay team orders a bunch of stuff for the table to share, very similar to Tapas. So as stuff arrives they are polite and wait for Sean and I eat first. They are also very persistent with filling our tea cups which never seemed to reach half full. I'm not kidding, two of the guys with us were literally jumping across the table to fill our cups every time we took a sip.

So as I was saying, the food arrived and they wait for us to begin. I ask the logical question of, "what are each of these dishes?" to which they responded; "eat first and we will tell you later".

So being a good account director, and not wanting to come off as an ignorant American I begin to try everything on the table and fumble with my chopsticks. I am proud to say I refused utensils. So there is one dish on the table that just looks nasty. Very similar to the following pic:


So my first assumption is that it was cooked in curry. I like curry so I am thinking that it will mask the taste but I still don't know what the hell it is. It has these sort of pockets and reminds me of Sponge Bob Square Pants so I think to myself, it's probably some sea urchin that I am unfamiliar with. So I take as little as I possibly can and begin to eat it. While it is loaded with curry, it is the most vile texture I have ever tasted and I do a quick mix of chewing and swallowing to get this down. I quickly take a huge gulp of tea to get rid of the taste and feeling. The tea is scalding hot since these dudes are not letting my cup cool off. Regardless, It was a blessing in disguise because I burned my taste buds and didn't taste much after that.

While there was a part of me that didn't want to know what the hell I ate, I am just to curious and had to ask. I don't know what my face looked like when they said Cow Stomach, but I'm sure it wasn't good. Now looking back I realize that I am the only person at the table that actually ate it. They must have been punishing me for being late.

So as we get back to Cathay I am still bothered by the cow stomach and the fact that we were late. Sean and I have some time before the second half of our meeting begins so I go back to my email to check the meeting times. What I am happy to find is that I was correct. Proof below:


So now I am left with the dilemma of vindicating myself or letting it go. Since my laptop is hooked up to the projector I leave the email up on the screen for a few minutes as people filter in but decide to pull it down since it has passed and they didn't seem too concerned.

Flight to Hong Kong

So my flight to Hong Kong was no where near as nice as last time. Sean and I are unfortunately booked on 4 flights to get here. My trip takes me from Philly> Salt Lake City > San Francisco>Taipei>Hong Kong. The first two legs of the trip are on Delta and are fine. Sean and I meet up in San Francisco since he flew out of Albany. The next two legs are on China Air. Additionally, Sean and I aren't sitting together so I have nobody to talk to which sucks, but I guess is no different than last time when I sat next to William the entire trip. ZING! Actually William slept the entire trip but I couldn't help myself.

So I typically judge an airline by whether or not they still have ashtrays in the armrest. Not only did they have ashtrays but they were big ashtrays. The plane is very dated and doesn't have the sleep pods like North West. By the time I got on the flight to Taipei I was exhausted and slept for about 4 hours. When I awoke I figured I'd watch some in-flight entertainment. To my dissaoppointment, all the good movies are being played on return flights. In addition, I had no control over what I watched. They had 8 channels that just played movies in a loop. I watched Wanted with Angelina Jolie. Sucked. I then watched Death Defying Acts which starred Catherine Zeta Jones and Guy Pearce and was about Harry Houdini. Sucked. I am looking forward to Dark Knight and Tropic Thunder for the ride home.

After the movies I decided to play some video games. The inflight games were Super Nintendo Games from 1993. Agian, giving indication as to how old this plane is. Now for nastaligic sake you may think this is cool, but they had the worst choices of games. Other than Super Mario and Street fighter they sucked. Give me some Tecmo Bowl or RBI baseball please.

Looking at the big picture, the plane got us there safely and with very little turbulance so score one for China Air.

Irony?

So while I was waiting to board my first flight for my HK trip I was standing next to a mother, daughter and the daughters son. So the mother was concerned because a guy they were sitting with had left his bags and didn't return. So she is conveying her concern to her daughter who replies with "I don't care, it doesn't effect me and my life". I understand that she doesn't want to cause an airport evacuation and I'm sure it was probably nothing, but the irony of the whole situation was that her son is standing there wearing a Ground Zero 9/11 baseball hat.

Trip to Pittsburgh

William and I came to Pittsburgh to present Social Media opportunities for PNC Bank. So, far nothing much to report on. Unfortunately, we are not here to site see so we won't be able to enjoy what the city has to offer.

We got in pretty late, got stuck in traffic, didn't eat until late, food was not good and stayed up late making last minute changes. Today, waking up early to get ready and present for two hours from there we'll eat lunch and off we go back to Philly. See told you not much to report on.

Although, ironically I ran into a few alpaca instances. Now, I believe alpacas are following me. See for yourself.

LOL! Who wears an alpaca t-shirt? Especially if your a guy. It seemed this guy had this t-shirt for a few years. I think I could be a good paparazzi. My flash went off and everyone was staring at me.

Then I was looking for something to watch while I was waiting for room service and what do I see on TV an alpaca commercial. It was offering people the opportunity to start an alpaca business. No, don't even think that I will call this number or go onto their site.

Mmmm, carpet!

Ray and I agree that the San Jose suburbs look like New Jersey, but cleaner and with palm trees. There are tons of chain restaurants and strip malls here.

Some other observations:

This place is called MMM Carpet. "Mmm, carpet!" Sounds filthy.

We also saw a Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm-Flailing Tube Man. This is not it, because I couldn't get my camera out in time. But this is a reasonable facsimile.

We also saw a giant metal Tyrannosaurus Rex on the side of the road.

Do you know the way to San Jose?

Well, Ray and I have accomplished our number one goal in our trip to San Jose. Because, you know, the client meeting is secondary.

When we pulled up to In-N-Out, we both heard angels singing. No joke. I housed my double double, animal style fries and vanilla shake and it was heavenly. Oh. yeah, you bet your ass we both took photos of the food on our trays.

This is my double double with animal style fries and vanilla shake.

Ray's double double with fries and a Coke.

Now I'm at the Fairmont, groggy from the long day of travel (woke up at 4am) and all the junk food in my tummy. The view from my window is amazing (you'll have to take my word for it). I bet Ray's is even nicer, he's 8 floors up from me. We're having an early dinner with the folks from TiVo (just what I need, more food) and then we've got a long meeting with them tomorrow morning.

Here is Ray eating his Double Double:

And here is the view from my hotel room. Purdy, huh?

First Class Again

I just checked in online and found out I was upgraded to first class again for my flight to Seattle. This is my 4th first class upgrade in a row. I am beginning to take back all the negative things I have said about US Airways in the past as they are doing a great job of making up for all of their past mistakes with these upgrades.

Bellevue Bound

I am in the Philadelphia airport bright and early on this Sunday morning. I want to follow up on Sean's earlier post about the conditions here, no air conditioning again today and I must be sitting in the same gate with the same ripped up seats as Sean was (see his pictures from previous post).

Thats it nothing interesting to talk about on this trip yet.

Stranded

It's official, Whippy and I are stranded in Ohio. With little sleep, no breakfast and last minute presentation updates we ventured out to find a place to print our presentation materials. Where else did we go but FedEx Kinko's, (sorry Jenny, we were not mentally capable of utilizing the online print section of the site).



We spent the majority of the morning at FedEx Kinko's watching the presentations get printed, admiring an actual Dairy Queen shop in the adjacent parking lot and reading the humorous b-day cards for sale in the shop. William had been calling giving status updates on his whereabouts after being stranded in Chicago and the presumed whereabouts of his luggage. I've had many surprises in the hours before a presentation but none like this morning.

Sean: "Hello?"
William: "My luggage is lost, if it's not here by 10:00 we need to go shopping."

Everything worked out well including a trip to Starbucks where Whippy was insulted by an overachieving barista for simply asking for a straw. I also realized you get the "stink eye" from such barista's when you order a small iced coffee without using the proper terminology.

The Garmin got us lost on the way to meet the NYC team but everything worked out for the best and the business aspect of the trip was a huge success. Now for getting home, that's another story. It seems some storms on the east coast grounded all flights to Philly and NYC. After being taunted by US Air for 5 hours I threw in the towel when the plane returned to the gate. If a pilot ever "promises" you something, don't believe it. I think I also annoyed the nice girl sitting next to me as William and me passed issues of Complex Magazine and cell phones across her for an hour or so.

After a scramble to reschedule flights for Wednesday, William braved it out at the airport while Whippy booked us a hotel that could double for the Overlook Hotel that was used in the Shining. The following pic sums it up.

Ohhh, Hi Oh

This is my first illustrious post to the SEO travel blog and we're off to Columbus, Ohio. My journey started off in Albany, NY (yes my hometown) and also known as "An All American City". I recently only found out we received that award years ago and the city likes to keep re purposing it in an event to curb the fact that it's a lovely city nestled between two terribly bad neighborhoods and reeling from some scandal involving a powerful politician. Either way, I'm departing from Albany International. Not sure about you but "International" kinda leads me to believe you could leave the country from here. Well all that Albany International can do for you is bring you to an airport that will fly you out of the continental US. It does have flights to Canada but I don't consider that international, they are more like a good neighbor with lots of trees.

So I flew from Albany to Philly (ironic yes) and it seems as if the Philly airport is doing it's part to save electricity by not turning on the AC. The entire experience was horrible, I mean if your not going to run AC when it's 100 degrees out at least funnel that cash to get some new seats while I wait for my flight that is already 45 minutes late to board.



Before I landed in Columbus, William asked me to rent a car for the trip as we were both unaware of how difficult it would be to get around in a cab. I made it to the rental car area and jumped in the shortest line (not the best decision) and anticipated leaving the airport in some swanky ride for the next 24 hours. Well, swanky in Ohio means a late model Chevy Impala (sorry William, no BMW's here.. i tried). I was also asked if I required a GPS system for my travels to which I responded, "hell no, just tell me how to get to the Sheraton".

Well it turns out this is how I fell into the scam. Nobody knows where your going so you are forced to rent a Garmin. Also note that nobody knows how to work the Garmin either. I was literally asked if I have used one of these devices, to which I responded, "no". Their answer, "we don't know how to work it either".


Yes I took this pic with a Treo doing 80 while lost in Columbus, I like to live on the edge.

After an hour (stupid Garmin), I found the Sheraton Suites. For the past 2 years I always ask William where he's staying and it's always the same answer, "the Sheraton". I'm not sure if it's brand loyalty but this Sheraton beats the hell out of the one in NYC. My room is about 200% bigger, has 2 TV's, a couch and other things I will never use but just like to have. (I'll post some pic's tomorrow)

After I got all checked in I decided to see what Columbus was all about. I stay away from the hotel bar and sightseeing activities cause all you'll find is tourists. So what did I do? Well I took my classy ride out and cruised Columbus for the mecca of all culture, the local Gas-n-Sip. In this case it turned out to be a Speedway gas station.



The local Speedway was full of amusement, and to my delight they had an actual Beer Cave! How sweet is that, a cave full of beer chilled to a perfect 34 degrees!



While I marveled at the brilliance of the beer cave I noticed something was wrong, Columbus was having AC problems also and the beer cave was not cooling properly. The pic is hard to see but it says, "Beer cave not cooling properly. Sorry"



After a quick chat with the clerk I also learned I could score some fireworks down the street and that the local kids have been trying to rip off the 1$ an night DVD rental kiosk outside.

After those shenanigans I met with Whippy and we worked for a while on our presentation and learned that William was stranded in Chicago... again.

Dinner and the Skyline

Here is my dinner from this evening.



Here is the skyline.

Weekend in Seattle

Instead of flying back and spending a day and 1/2 in Philadelphia before flying back to Seattle, I decided to stay for the weekend and do a little site seeing.

Saturday started late as I took the opportunity to sleep in and sleep off a few Manhattans from the evening before. I can drink quite of few of these in a short time when I am at the bar by myself, which I will have to keep in mind for the future.

Once I got up and I started the paperwork for Dan Coe's last day at AA|RF after reading his latest blog post. Please wish him well in his new endeavors and bring a camera to his going away box packing.

Next it was time to find some breakfast so I headed over to Pikes Place to check out the local bakeries and see if I could see some fish being tossed around. I found some good pastries for breakfast, but no flying fish. I would post some pictures, but I didn't bring my camera on this excursion. From Pikes Place I took a scenic walking tour around the city going from Starbucks to Starbucks, I had to keep walking as I was pretty hyped up on caffeine after the 3rd Starbucks.

For the afternoon, I found a local municipal golf course to try out, Jackson Park Golf Course. It was quite overcast when I started the round and I was expecting to get wet from the rain at some point in the round, but the weather held out and it was an enjoyable round. I shot a 43 on the front nine, but forgot how to play golf on the back nine and shot a 57 - yes that is a 14 shot difference and about 8 golf balls donated to the course on the back nine. Again, sorry no pictures, but then who wants to see pictures of a golf course anyway.

For some reason I find a round of golf to be quite tiring and decided to stay in for the evening and order room service. I was quite surprised that the California Cobb with Citrus Roasted Chicken was as good in taste and presentation as I expected. So now the Westin has two of my favorite room service meals, the cheeseburger at the Ft. Lauderdale Westin and the California Cobb here in Seattle.

Sunday I was up nice and early, sans hangover, and took a quick run down by the waterfront. Went to a local bakery for breakfast and then back to the room for some work. As I was working and looking out the window in my hotel (picture below) I decided I would face my fear of heights and go visit the Space Needle.


I took the monorail to the Space Needle and with great apprehension went up the elevator which is glass so that you can see everything on the trip up which lasts 41 seconds. 41 long seconds if you have a fear of heights.

Below are the pictures of what I was able to see from up there, which after the Hong Kong observation deck up in the mountains was a little less spectacular.



The rest of today is for preparing the deck for the Victoria's Secret pitch and other miscellaneous work. I will update later with any interesting, or maybe even not so interesting, food pictures from dinner.

My Rebuttal and Conclusion.

First things first...I didn't wear that sweater again during the trip...no there wasn't a goat involved in Vegas... and i wasn't groping Lisa in that picture while I was trying to do revenue recognition (she was dancing and I was trying to swat her away). Also, the pics Jenny took were of me not of Brad Pitt...I know, I know, I've been mistaken for him more than once but it's something I have learned to deal with...The resemblance is uncanny.

So we know that Jenny and William are still out there missing Lisa and my company, but I'm sure they'll survive...at least I hope so. Here's my version on how things went down since I last wrote...

Wednesday was a whirlwind (to be modest). We've been taking advantage of the free continental breakfast at the hotel which consisted of scrambled eggs (yum), bacon (yum yum), english muffins (pretty yum), fruit (not bad), and muffins (blueberry muffins rocked). Sorry, no pics to show here...but just wait...this is going to be a long post...

Work-wise, Wednesday's SMX sessions were probably better than the first, but unfortunately some things came up so I wasn't able to concentrate on them as much as I'd like to. I'm pretty sure all of the presentations will eventually become available which is good since I had one ear on the sessions and two eyes on my laptop.

Here are a few pics from the first night's dinner at the Icon Grill. William dined there before and the theme of the restaurant was comfort food, which in short, means that it's delicious but you're going to feel like crap afterwards. Not very comforting...just look at William's face for proof.

During a conference break, Jenny, Lisa, and I headed over to Pike Place Market which was just a few blocks away from the SMX conference. They were kind enough to show me around since it was my first time in Seattle and it was definitely worth the trip. Jenny covered some of these in her last post, but here are a few additions from my standpoint. The photo's probably don't do it justice, but there was lots to see in marketplace.

Flowers...check. fish...check. hippies...you name it, they had it. That lady in the orange shirt? Total hippie (she reeked of pot).

Is that Jenny Du above? Anyway...In the convention center, we stumbled across an interesting advertisement for the City of Seattle. According to Ron Burgundy (Anchor Man reference), I used to think that "San Francisco" meant "Whale's Vagina" in German...HOWEVER!...according to this picture set we were obviously wrong (sorry mom)...

Here's a Seattle advertisement that was in the conference center SMX was held. Unfortunately I don't think the agency that created it has ever heard of photoshop.

Well...at least Lisa and I thought it was funny...

Anyway, because uploading and positioning photos on blogger is a pain in the ass, here are the final few from the last group dinner at the Metropolitan Grill. Amazing steakhouse and as Jenny mentioned, we had a great time and succeeded in embarrassing ourselves (pics of me in Jenny's post below). A sincere thanks to William for taking us out.

Well, I think that just about sums it up. I've posted even more uncensored X-Rated Seattle photos on my Flickr account (including uber-exciting pics of us doing revenue recognition and more eating and drinking) so feel free to check them out.

Sorry for the crappy formatting, but blogger sucks. Please don't fire me.