Author Archive

I’m taking a page from Gary V’s playbook today and looking on the bright side of things.  I’ll be on 9 planes in the next 10 days.  I’m heading out to San Francisco for TechCrunch 50 with a 36 hour layover in Los Angeles to see some west coast friends.  I get back next Thursday morning after a red-eye and then get back on a plane Friday to go to Boston for 1 wedding and 1 wedding shower.

So what I want from you are some good travel experiences.  We all like to bitch & moan about cancelled flights and delays and shitty hotels and rude cab drivers.  I want some positive stories.  Tell me about that flight attendant that made your day.  Or the time you got upgraded to a suite at a hotel for no reason other than you gace a friendly smile to the person on the other side of the check-in desk.  I know those stories are out there, we just never hear enough about them.

I grew up in the Northeast. Born in Queens, where I lived until I was 10. Then I moved to out the suburbs in New Jersey. Did a year of school in Pennsylvania. Lived a year in Connecticut. Worked in Manhattan for 6 years.

Then I decided to pack up and moved to Knoxville, TN.

The differences in lifestyle between there and here are sometimes little things. I never had the sensation of being given a sweet tea, instead of unsweet, until I moved here. I never really understood the difference between Texas and Carolina BBQ. I still don’t understand how one area can have so many Teetotalers while half the people I know also have locally distilled moonshine.

That said, there are some times where I occasionally have to step back and say “Really? Did that really just happen?”. This may very well be the first in a series of a posts about those moments.

This past weekend I purchased a lawnmower. It made me feel very domestic. It also made me feel kind of old. Regardless, the 3 foot grass around my house needed to be chopped down. After looking around Home Depot, we decided to purchase this fine model. However, we also needed some new shrubs and soil. This ultimately meant 2 trips to Home Depot. After dropping Lindsay, 5 shrubs, and 2 bags of dirt off at the house, I made my way back to Home Depot.

After finding a flatbed, I walked to the lawn mower section. There was actually an employee there who offered to me get the box down off the shelf. Something to be expected at a store like Home Depot, but a little surprising that someone was actually there to help. With my new mower in hand, I then decided to take a lap around the store, just in case I saw anything that caught my fancy. While I didn’t find anything else worth buying that day, I did encounter 3 other patrons of the store. All 3 made some comment along the lines of “Looks like someone has a lot of work ahead of them, har har har”. Did I mention that all 3 also had nice big wads of tobacco shoved into their cheeks? I kindly just chuckled at all of them and made my way through the checkout to the car, where the thought of “OK, now how do I get this thing in here all by myself” finally occurred. Not 2 seconds go by after I open the trunk when some random stranger walks up and says “Need a hand with that? I always find that 2 sets of hands are better than one.” I kind of looked stunned for a moment, said that I’d really appreciate it, and the two of us easily haul the thing into the trunk.

Now here I am cynical New Yorker thinking “OK, whats the catch? There has to be a catch. The guy at least wants the flatbed.” At which point the guy just turns around and walks away. I thank him again and get into the car. I’ve never had this happen to me before. Someone just offering to help for the sake of being a nice person. Maybe he was paying it forward. I know that I sure will.

So that’s my first “Do things like this really happen here?” story. Maybe next time I’ll recount the story of how I was proselytized on a plane ride or how I amassed a collection of tracts left in the bathroom stalls of my office over a few months time.

What are some of your “Did that really happen?” stories?  Is my cynicism just from the Northeast, or do Californians feel the same way?  Anyone out there from the south but now living near NY?

I know where you think this is going, but its not.

Is anyone else scared of bees or birds?

We’ve been having some really nice weather down here in Knoxville for the past few weeks. Recently I went out to my car and realized that the bushes nearby were covered in bees. I hate bees. And when I say hate I mean I’m terrified of them. Always have been and I’m not sure why. I never had a traumatic moment growing up at summer camp where I wandered into a hive. Never had a queen hide in my lunchbox out on the playground. But since I can remember, I’ve always been scared of bees. After seeing them near my car that day, the whole ride home I was on edge. Every time the wind hit me weird, I thought I had a bee in my hair. Every time I had an itch, it was a bee crawling up my leg. I know one day I’m going to reenact this scene from Tommy Boy.

My one big bee experience, the one and only time I’ve been stung, occurred at a Cluck-U chicken. I was eating lunch, a dozen very saucy, very spicy wings, when a bee flew in and got me right in the neck. Immediately my sauce covered hand went straight for me neck. Now I imagine that a bee sting in itself it somewhat painful, but covering it in hot sauce did not help the situation. So along with a pain in my neck, I had to suffer the rest of the workday (did I mention I was on a lunch break from my first real office job?) smelling like wing sauce with an orange collar.

Sometimes I think my fear has more to do with the fact that bees fly. I also hate birds. Less in the fear-inducing hysteria sense and more in the creeped out sense. I still don’t understand how they make good pets. I like my pets cuddly, no feathery. Even when I got to zoos or indoor places with birds flying around, I always keep an eye open to make sure they don’t get too close. Oh and there was the one time I came home to my apartment after a night of birthday drinking to find a bat in the kitchen. It was like a scene out of a sitcom.

Anyone else have a fear like this? Have you ever had to leave a room or place or walk across the street because of something you were afraid of? Or better yet, have you ever had to run away screaming like a 6 year old?

Are you a coffee drinker? Is it just a morning thing or an all day gotta have it thing? More importantly, where do you buy your coffee?

I was spoiled when I worked in Manhattan. The best coffee around was from the coffee cart outside my building on the 36th and Broadway. He was only there in the mornings, and was replaced with a roasted nuts guy around lunchtime. Sure, occasionally I bought a donut or cruller, but the real appeal was the coffee. I almost always had to wait in line in the morning to get my coffee, but the speed of which it was poured and placed in a brown paper bag was so quick that you didn’t mind if you had a half dozen people in front of you. Starbucks was a place I went in the afternoons to get out of the office if I needed to have a clandestine meeting or to do a phone interview. Dunkin Donuts was for weekends or if I needed to sober up a bit on the train ride home out of Penn Station.

Then I moved to Tennessee. I was astonished to find out that there was only one Dunkin Donuts in Knoxville. I wasn’t expecting to find street coffee, but I thought America Runs on Dunkin Donuts. Apparently, not in the land of the Hot Now Krispy Kreme. It seems like Pilot gas stations fill the need for blue collar workers morning caffeine while Starbucks rules the roosts for the cubicle crowd. Coincidentally, my morning commute takes me on a road that has both the one-and-only Dunkin Donuts along with a Starbucks. Some mornings Dunkin Donuts does it for me, other mornings I feel the need for a triple grand non-fat caramel machiatto. (I don’t like it “skinny” because the sugar-free caramel flavoring has too much of an aftertaste for me. ) I was fine with the 2 on the go options, along with starting to brew more coffee at home in the morning while I actually eat a real breakfast on my couch instead of something quick in the car or at my desk.

A few weeks ago the Dunkin Donuts closer for renovations. The building really needed it. It looked like a building that had been converted to a Dunkin Donutsinstead of actually being built to house one. It wasn’t until this morning, when they reopened, that I discovered the real difference between Dunkin Donuts and everywhere else. Instead of going through the drive through, I decided to park, get out of my car, and check out the inside of the newly refurbished store. It was clean, it was bright, and more importantly, everyone working behind the counter had 1 thing on their mind - speed. My coffee and muffin were in front of me, delivered by 2 different people, before the cashier, a 3rd person, even handed me back my change. While Starbucks closes down its stores for an afternoon to talk about refocusing on the customer, this Dunkin Donuts was actually doing something about it.

They’ve got great coffee that’s cheaper than Starbucks, but they don’t have their own social network yet. They’ve got a bigger selection than Krispy Kreme, with the breakfast sandwiches and bagels. At least the one here is really focused on their customer service. They’ve certainly come along from here. In spite of their choice of celebrity spokerperson, is Dunkin Donuts poised to take over your morning ritual?

Is April Fool’s Day still really relevant? In a world filled with Punk’d and Improv Everywhere do we still need this one day dedicated to mediocre jokes? On a web where I already have to worry about being Rick Rolled, do I need to be concerned about bad redesigns and fake news stories?

Anil Dash doesn’t think so, but Michael Arrington disagrees. I imagine that in 1957 Spaghetti Trees on the BBC was actually funny and confused a lot of people. I still laugh that the people of Boston were gullible enough to believe the Mayor was Dead as reported by a bunch of Shock Jocks . Think Geek still does a good job at coming up with some funny products, but now its become expected of them to do so. I have serious doubts that anyone really believes they can buy a Betamax to HD-DVD converter. Google seems to have sci-fi on the brain this year, with not 1 but 2 time travel related New Products along with a new partnership with Virgin to debut in 2014.

Now we’ve got legitimate news sources confirming rumors and starting rumors along with CNN covering Careerbuilders Top 10 April Fools’ Work Pranks . This is a ridiculous list that includes everything from:

• boring items - Rigged the boss’ chair to drop suddenly during a staff meeting
• to impossible stunts - Shrink-wrapped everything in a co-worker’s cubicle
• to the just plain mean and hurtful - Called the electric company, used a co-worker’s name and told them he was moving so the electricity got turned off at the co-worker’s house

Those are just examples that I’ve found in the past hour of being awake. Most of them feel just uninspired. It has the same feeling as the guys who show up to a Halloween party wearing a feather boa and their girlfriends clothes and think they’re dressing in drag.

I’m sure more will be revealed throughout the day. Is it worth it though? Is anyone finding humor in these things? Is anyone planning on pulling a joke today?