On my way back home

It was a good week out in California. I spent my first couple of days in the L.A. area, where I met with some new candidates. Tuesday I woke up at 4am and ran from Venice Beach to Santa Monica and back. I then went to Beverly Hills for a meeting with William Morris Agency.These guys are sharp, I am looking forward to doing some work together in the future.

I made it to the L.A. airport just in time to find out that my flight was delayed. I wound up getting to my hotel at 3 am and fell asleep around 4am. I woke up 3 hours later to get ready for a speaking engagement at bloggers connect. I was on a panel with Paul Chaney and Rudolph Bachraty III, both very personable and experienced bloggers and marketers. I then met with the person who is now our new VP of Business Development and signed his employment papers (Yeeeeehaaaaaww)… you will have to wait a few weeks for the official announcement but he comes from one of the biggest players on the Internet.

Later that day Josh Stein and I caught up with each other in Palo Alto (after I battled through a 1.5hr drive). Josh had some great insights to share with me that have sparked a big wave of new ideas. Thanks Josh!

Yesterday I met with PPP advertiser Personiva (the guys behind the great Levi’s campaign). These guys have some great technology and I think there are some opportunities for us to work together on a variety of initiatives and campaigns. I also spent some time at the Six Apart office and learned a little bit about the future of the platform. These guys are great and have a kick ass office that makes me jealous.

I took a cab to pier 39 for dinner and almost died in the process. My cab driver was insane and we came really close to getting into what would have been a very bad accident. He ran over a curb and blew out the tire… we didn’t just scrape the curb, we were a couple of feet into the curb at 35mph. When I got out of the cab (after refusing to pay him) people rushed up to me asking if I was ok. One guy said he never saw somebodies neck do what mine did and he thought I had whiplash. I am fine today.

I ended the night with a great dinner at the San Francisco Fog Harbor Fish House (that’s the view from my seat above… you can see Alcatraz). The clam chowder in a bread bowl was amazing. Both of these pics were taken with my iPhone.