Day 7 and 8: Lazy Sunday and I am not Siri

Well he flew along the coast,
from Seattle to San Francisco,
He's traveling for J Term,
And visiting tech startups.
He's writing in his blog,
and telling you how his day goes,
tell me where in the world is Devin Sandiego?

No, my last name isn't Sandiego, it just seemed like a travel day was the perfect time to parody the Carmen Sandiego theme song. I also already gave away the answer as to where I am. More or less, anyway. It's been a busy couple of days! So busy I wasn't able to make a post last night because of travel prep for today (whoops). So here's a conglomerate post to make up for it!

Day 7: Relax and pack

Yes, yes it was

Sunday started late for me, after I slept in and missed out on going to see the area around Space Needle Park with a group, but that was OK, I saw it the day before and needed the sleep. Luckily, I wasn't asleep when we left to go catch the Seattle underground tour! After a brief mishap with public transportation (Jacob swears the bus we were first on would have eventually gotten us there), we made it to the tour venue just in time to make the hourly showing.

I only managed to snag one picture while we were down in the underground, I was that engrossed

I have to say that the underground tour is one of the more interesting things I've done in Seattle. It was a fun and funny look into the history of Seattle, and the many bad decision that have led to such an interesting city. Also the incredible donations of the Seattle "seamstresses." Look it up. All-in-all it was a pretty hilarious tour, and absolutely worth the transportation confusion.

After our tour, we stopped by the Gum Wall at Pike Place Market again, because it was on the way back, and hey, why not?

That's about my thoughts

Yes, members of our group did put that on there

Look at us, surrounded by so much spit

(L to R back: Tyler, Kari, Erik, me, Jacob; front: Claire, Katie, Anna)

After our excursion, we came back for a group dinner at La Vita è Bella, an Italian restaurant right next to the condos we were staying at. Massive portions of delicious Italian food, what more is there to say? I had the rigatoni di pesce, which was rigatoni with calamari, salmon, and shrimp in a garlic sauce. It was so garlicky and delicious. After dinner, all that was left was to tear down and pack up, making sure nothing got left behind as we traveled the next day out to Menlo Park!

Day 8: Travel

"Once more unto the breach dear friends..." (Henry V 3.1.1)

Our stint in Seattle done with, we left early this morning to get to the airport for our flight down to San Francisco. I've heard that in past iterations of this trip they took a 26 hour train ride from Seattle to San Fran. As fun as that sounds (and it does sound fun), I do appreciate being able to sleep in a real bed tonight. 

The airport shuffle

That sounds more ominous or potentially hectic than I mean it. Really, any time you have to go through security is rather hectic, and rules tend to be slightly different at each airport. Seattle is actually pretty nice, I didn't have to take off my shoes and everything got to stay in my bag rather than going into separate trays. Still,there are those tense five minutes from the time you get your boarding pass stamped to the time you walk away, hoping that your pants won't fall down due to lack of a belt. Thankfully, we all made it through and onto the plane, bound for San Francisco!

I tried five times and couldn't take a clear picture

Despite some turbulence on the way, the flight landed slightly ahead of schedule. After finding our way down to baggage claim (some of us were asked to check bags due to the number of people on the flight), we made it out to our rented cars.

This post is mostly pictures of me... I promise I'm not that egotistical

I am not Siri

We split into two groups, the large group took the luggage and piled into the 12-person van while the smaller group took the sedan. I ended up in the van, sitting shotgun and acting as navigator. This is when I learned the disappointing fact that I am not Siri. Still, we only missed one turn, and it was to take the route Brad knew better, so I'm going to chalk that one up to operator error. 

After a brief trip, we arrived at our current lodgings, an inn in Menlo Park. By the time we got there, we were all pretty hungry, having not eaten since breakfast a long time ago. So before we regrouped to hear Tyler's book presentation, we went in search of sustenance ("our stint in Seattle" and "in search of sustenance" are my favourite book title possibilities from this post). Our entire group sans the leaders ended up settling on Jason's Cafe, mostly because it was the closest place to our hotel. We pretty obviously surprised the waitress, but she did admirably to take care of our large group while being short-staffed. We even got a free sandwich because of a kitchen mistake, which is always a win! I had a spicy sausage omelette, with sausage, onion, mushroom, and a cheese blend. It was good food, despite the wait.

A brief history of HP

Tyler presented on his book, The HP Way, once we regrouped. It tells the story of the founding of HP through the edited memoirs of William Hewlett and David Packard. There were several interesting tidbits in there, one of my favourites being that when HP first started, they had no business plan or product. Hewlett and Packard just went around to ask people what they wanted, and made that. All-in-all, it's a pretty bold strategy, but it works. It makes investors happy to see that a company knows there's demand for a product, and customers are happy because a thing they want gets made. The topic that the discussion really centred on was about the culture of HP. They really focus on their employees, often going long distances (both literally and metaphorically) in order to care for them. This contrasts strongly with the culture we saw at Amazon, which was very much looking to give all the benefits to the consumer, even at the expense of the worker. I can't say which way is right and which is wrong. Much of it depends on the industry and the company. If a company doesn't have a strong enough industry, spending extra on frills for your workers can be difficult. The same is true for companies that have fallen on rough times. Still, it seems to be becoming the norm to be looking out for more than just corporate interests. More and more companies are looking to distance themselves from the nine-to-five-to-death pipeline. Whether it's REI closing stores on Black Friday or tech companies increasing opulence (especially at sites like Google and Facebook), companies look to be breaking the perception of corporateness (at least superficially). Who knows where it will end up going in the future.

A visit to the trader

Our eating schedule being more than a little screwy today, none of us were hungry after Tyler finished his talk. Instead, some of us decided to head out to Trader Joe's, in order to walk around and pick up groceries.

I'm still not quite sure why I took this picture

Believe it or not, I had never been to a Trader Joe's before tonight. It was worth it for the walk, even if I didn't get anything. I'm slightly (read: very) disappointed by the lack of a kitchen here, but oh well, I'll live. Besides, there will be plenty of opportunity to cook once we get into San Francisco proper.

Off to (ad)venture

It's a pun, because we're visiting a venture capital place tomorrow to learn about entrepreneurship from the funding side of things. Also I'm giving my book talk, so that should be exciting.