These slides are from a talk I gave at DrupalCon in Washington DC on March 6th, 2009. The basic gist is applying the technical principles of Open Source to business practices. It was really fun to give, and the audience was full of super smart, thoughtful people. The discussion after the talk was cool, and it was great to meet new OS biz buddies as well.
I know hotel.
But this hotel - the Chambers Luxury Art Hotel - this is something else.
As always, I am a sucker for clean lines, stark decor, and modern furniture. But the Chambers takes it to a whole new level. For an art lover, this hotel is a must-stay.
In walking down the hallway, I got caught up in the middle of some minor renovations, and got bumped in the arm with a Damien Hirst splatter painting. I haven't washed that arm since.
One of my particular fascinations with art has always been in the presentation - the lighting, the flooring, the sound, the distance, the framing. Staying for a week at the Chambers (for the Lullabot workshops) was a great chance to get to "live with" some museum quality art.
The hotel restaurant, the Chambers Kitchen, by much-lauded chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten was a hit or miss (mostly miss, due to the service). However, the rest of the service was impeccable, the showers were a total spectacle, and the experience, for an art lover, was totally rad.
Check it out sometime.
A picture I snapped while waiting on the runway at JFK.
It's about time the media started treating air travel as the travesty that it is. After spending countless hours waiting, being treated inhumanly while going through ineffective security lines, and bumped and ignored like we don't exist, people are paying attention.
-->My daughter, five at the time, was sent through explosive sniffers at the Las Vegas airport. She was separated from me with no explanation and sent through this hulking machine. They didn't tell her what was happening or what to expect. Naturally, it scared the crap out of her!
-->After spending $350 *extra* to get my flight from Austin, TX, home moved up a day, I was bumped. Then bumped again. Then was forced to stay overnight in a hotel. Then I had to get up at 5 am to get back to the airport. Then, when going through security for the THIRD time in two days, I was told I couldn't go through because my clear plastic baggie was not *quart* sized. I got kicked out of line, and had to go to the gift shop and spend $.25 to get the right sized baggie, then go through again. I never got the $350 back, even though I paid to get home early.
Visited for a long weekend in the middle of February. Got a really great personal tour of the new wing of the Nelson-Atkins Museum from this gent:
Got all dressed up and went to his birthday party as well...
I ended up getting snowed in for an extra day and had to miss taking Nika to see an American Girl play. Ick. But I had a really great quickie weekend!
Hit up LA during the first week of February for more of those Lullabot workshops.
The weather was nice, but I kind of wanted it to be nicer.
We rented a convertible and drove around with the top down like only tourists do in February.
We stayed at The Hotel Portofino. The place was absolutely gorgeous. The service was really great as well. The view was fantastic. I took this picture of some scuba divers from the balcony.
I also got taken on The. Best. First. Date. Ever.>
So I travel. A lot. And lately I've been trying to think about what it means. I started a list of everywhere I've been (that I can recall) in the past year or so. (Pretty sure this is not a complete list.)
New York City
(3 or 4 times)
Washington, DC
Chicago
Providence, RI
(4 or 5 times?)
Los Angeles
(3 times?)
Las Vegas
(2 times?)
Portland, Oregon
Austin, Texas
San Francisco
San Jose
Detroit
Never left the
airport, but it's been
about a dozen times,
so I'm adding it!
Barcelona, Spain
London, England
Paris, France
(I'm there as I'm writing this...)
Toronto, ON
(In a couple of weeks
from now....)
So in my rumination, I've been kinda trying to get to the implications of all that travel. I've gone from being very involved in my local community to being kind of a drop out. I've gone to becoming more involved in another type of community - a truly global one. Which requires a lot of travel.
I'm not sure what it means exactly to participate in a global community, but I know that it has come to me to mean that no one seems far away, and yet sometimes it feels like hardly anyone is close by. When I am everywhere, it starts to feel like nowhere. Indeed, where I am could be anywhere...
I must admit some of this comes from a culture shock of sorts - I just spent a week in Spain and we arrived in France last night. All I want to do is curl up inside and introspect. Luckily, the rainy weather and fact that most things in Paris are closed on Mondays agree.
Last week I went to Skywalker Ranch. It was awesome. But apparently, I brought a little treat home with me - I got bitten by a poisonous spider. It actually looks worse now, but I am being treated with both antibiotics and steroids, so I hope it gets better soon. After the infection started crawling up the vein in my leg, I thought I'd better go see a doctor. It hurt and was hot to the touch, so he seemed amused that it had taken me that long to go in. Actually, when I showed him, he recoiled in disgust. He actually said "eeewww!". Aren't doctors supposed to turn off their disgust reflexes?
Anyways, we can add this to the long list of weird injuries that I sustain!
I am going to say right now that I will come back later and write more about my trip to SF, but chances are that I won't; Nika and I leave in a few days for a 10-day-long girls' trip to Las Vegas, Salt Lake and Los Angeles. So, in the meanwhile, here are my favorite parts about visiting this city for the first time, in no order at all:
Liza worked in fashion for 10 years (boutique owner, stylist, fashion editor), and then in technology for five years (partner in a successful start-up). Now she's melding the two together to try to help the world make sense of 'Fashion 2.0'.