Hanging With the Wicked Smart kids, How do you Like Them Apples???

So Boston.  It was great.  Couldn't have gone much better actually.

On work:
The meetings were fantastic.  Informative, productive, more successful than I think any of us had originally anticipated, and have only furthered our excitement and enthusiasm in moving this project forward.  Nothing beats an education like the one you get through learning by doing.  The learning curve might be steep for us, but it's also such an exciting space to be in.

On travel
Boston gives next to no warning in terms of traffic.  You see a sign for an exit/detour/closed lane and it happens right away.  We put our rented Camry through it's paces, but it all worked out.   Even when we got stuck, in a snow bank, in a cemetery in New Hampshire, and dug our way out with a sign.

I couldn't have made this up if I'd tried.

On Cambridge
We were staying right in Harvard Square, which actually proved to be more boring than one would think.  Apparently, the wicked smart kids spend their weekends studying or something because it was surprisingly quiet for a college campus.  This was especially strange for 3 kids that had gone to state schools.  We still managed to have a good time though; ate, drank, danced, and were merry.

Also, you can't get into Harvard's library without a Harvard ID.  You can request a guest pass, but the process seemed to require a process more intense than that of applying for a passport.

All in all, Princeton > Harvard.

On Coffee Shops
Maybe because, like Seattle, Pittsburgh is often gray and rainy, so we have a large number of coffee shops on any given street, in any given neighborhood.  And nice coffee shops too.  Coffee shops that are warm and cozy, and have good lighting and lots of table space, and comfy couches, and make you want to spend your afternoon working there.

This is not the case at Harvard.  There are apparently only 4-5 cafes in the neighborhood, meaning that on a Saturday, they are swarmed and overflowing with students.  This lack of space resulted in us holding an afternoon work session at a Mexican restaurant.  As it turns out, margaritas and queso sauce, make for a pretty good time while outlining operational processes, and drafting financial projections.  Note to self: Hold more meetings at Mexican restaurants.  Note to Cambridge: More coffee shops.

"For Boston" - The Hold Steady