California Dreamin'
I can see why many of the people I've known who grew up in southern California can, on occasion, ditz out. Cold weather builds character, and there just isn't any in that place.
On Wednesday of last week, I departed on my first business trip with my employer to Costa Mesa for a meeting with a partner company. I'd never been to California before. When I left Michigan, it was about 22 degrees with snow and 15 mph winds from the northwest. When I landed at Ronald Reagan Airport at 9 pm local time, it was 65 degrees with a light breeze coming in off the Pacific. Dave, my boss and friend, rented a car and we drove to the hotel with the windows down; life was good. We were up until 11 (2 am by our body clocks) in the hotel bar, talking, peoplewatching, having a few gin and tonics, and trying to accept the unreality of the place.
There's something different about California. Nothing seems to carry quite as much weight; it's hard to take yourself (or much of anything else) seriously when everything is so consistently beautiful. It takes some getting used to.
Thursday night, at the suggestion of my future father-in-law, Dave and I went trolling for a meal on Newport Beach. The houses in that place are unbelievable. Driving around, windows still open, we went peeking in peoples' living rooms. We saw canoes hanging above fireplaces in living rooms, libraries that would have been at home in a Sherlock Holms novel, and luxurious decks overlooking the bay. I've never seen anything like it.
After much searching and little success, we found a nondescript door in a nondescript brick wall under a nondescript sign bearing a nondescript name. Dave, who has a sense about these things, decided to give it a try, and within 30 seconds we knew we'd found our place. It was dimly lit with brick walls and wodden trim; the bartender was young enough to be attractive but old enough to look cynical, though she seemed very sweet. The waitress was an adorable brunette who moved to California from the midwest not four months ago. She was very sweet, extremely flirty, and a fantastic waitress. We ate gigantic steaks and drank some more gin and tonic and left a respectable tip when we finally left several hours later, with our compliments to the manager. I wish I remembered the name of the place; I'll post it if I find it.
The trip was pretty fabulous. All my flights were on time at both ends, the weather was fantastic, and we got some good business done on Thursday. We spent Thursday in a windowless meeting room, showing some demos, discussing corporate and technological strategy, planning out cooperative strategies, and listening to Dave pontificate on XML and content management systems and all sorts of posibilities for how they can work together.
It was a pretty fabulous trip from a business perspective; we got a lot accomplished and everybody seemed impressed by everybody else. I can't help thinking, though, that for just that one day I'd rather have been the pool boy.
10:51:17 PM 
|
|
