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

Business Trip

This week, I went on my first ever business trip. Sort of. I work for a small nonprofit in Pittsburgh, so traveling on business isn’t all first class and hotel rooms and expense accounts. It was more like there was a web 2.0 conference in NYC I wanted to attend, and I know a guy, who knows a girl, who got me a free table (being a non-profit and all), and I stayed with my bff from high school who now lives in Queens, so the trip didn’t cost the organization a cent.

And me? I got to hang out in New York, get my social media nerd on at a great conference, and was out of the office for a week without having to use a single hour of vacation. We all win in this situation as far as I am concerned.

I grew up only an hour train ride away from NYC, and even though Philadelphia is closer to my hometown, I spent far more time in New York. Whenever I go there, part of me is always afraid I’ll wind up wanting to move there. After this stay, in which I hung out with locals, did nothing touristy, and finally started to get a handle on the subway system, I thought; I could live here if I needed to. Thing is, I don’t want to.

I moved to Pittsburgh for college, and by the time I was in my junior year, knew I didn’t want to leave when I graduated. Pittsburgh is a great town. People say thank you to the bus drivers here. You can go out and have a good meal and get fairly intoxicated for $20 or under. They put French fries on their salads. Pittsburgh taught me to love sports, which if you knew me in high school you would understand the significance of this statement. There’s a great local music scene, real estate is basically free (at least when you compare it to NYC), and it rains a lot, which I know sounds depressing, but I’ve learned to find very comforting. Also, rainy climates are better for your complexion and guard against wrinkles.

Pittsburgh may be my adopted city, but I feel more at home here than any place I’ve ever been. Tomorrow morning I fly back. It’s gonna feel so good.