Planes, Trains & Automobiles

I just came back from having dinner at my little Mexican restaurant; they make some good tacos there. Not as much food as I would normally eat, but it’s tasty. I don’t know if Madrid once suffered a major power outage but trying to get up the stairs is downright dangerous.

The motion detecting lights only stay on for a couple of seconds. If you do anything less than speed walk directly to the door, you’ll be left in total darkness stranded on the second flight. Assuming you reach your door, you proceed to the safety and sanctity of your own flat… only for the lights to turn off on you inside the apartment while you’re locking the door. That’s right, motion-sensing lights outside and inside. Speed walking doesn’t even cut it here – you need a slight gallop to get down the long hall before the lights turn off. Sometimes it’s just not worth it to save that last three cents.

My trip is coming to a rather rapid end. I thought I was going to stay until November 1st or so but today marks one week exactly before I hop a plane to head back to the states on the 13th. A number of pressing logistical issues like signing my tax return before October 15th and taking care of my car insurance have come up that I can’t really sidestep or take care of while here. I’m not complaining though as I’ve had a fantastic trip. Leaving early means I miss the WRC round but that’s OK. Last weekend I saw Granada and this weekend I’m going to Sevilla with Gabriela for 3 days via the high speed AVE train. Then the 12th of October is a National holiday so there will be a lot of partying and it will be an excellent exclamation point to what has been an incredible experience.

I have a couple of busy weeks when I first return which should keep me motivated. Although I wasn’t missing home at all before I decided to return, now that I am going back I’m pretty stoked. I can’t wait to see my friends and have a burrito at my favorite Mexican restaurant and ride my motorcycle and see San Francisco. My itinerary back includes a one night layover in New York so I can celebrate Jerry Tam’s 29th birthday in Manhattan. At around 6am, I head back to JFK for my flight out. I’m going to crash a night in San Francisco before driving a rental car up to Redding to get my car and go to my 10 year high school reunion. I’ll probably stay a few extra days in town to see my folks and then come back in time to meet up with a potential Pukka client at an Infineon Raceway club race. The weekend after is Halloween which marks a friends’ birthday (and my brother) and she always throws a big bash that is heavily attended. Then Nov 6-7 is a BMWCCA driving school at Infineon where I’m instructing so a little more play time with Jason. We don’t get to hang out that much since he bought a house in San Jose so I am looking forward to that.

November 14th is still tentative launch for Pukka 2.0 but I think it might be a little aggressive. What I haven’t counted on doing yet is fixing the attendee side of things to reflect all of the new functionality. The admin I think will be done by then but the rest of it could prove trickier. Plus, I need to do some research and a usability test to find out exactly what is needed. Even still, I could launch with some basic changes but I’d like to be “ready” with 2.0 for 2005.

I ran some financial projections last week and was surprised actually at what kind of success I think I’m going to be able to pull. September was a record-breaking month for the company and we broke an important milestone in terms of dollars per month processed. After hearing Acteva (an online registration system for non-motorsports events) has 8000 customers, I’m encouraged that I’ll be able to best my conservative numbers for next year.

Enough gabbing; back to the product.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 6th, 2004 at 10:00 am and is filed under Sabbatical 2004. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
Keyword tags: Madrid, Mexican food, airlines