I've returned from my trip to Houston. The flight was OK. It was direct from Grand Rapids to Houston on a little express jet. The plane holds fifty people and was quite full both there and back. The twenty or so aisles were configured with two seats on one side and a single seat on the other. A nice surprise was the yummy snacks they served. (The one with the crackers and salami was very tasty.) On the flight down, i got a great view of Chicago; from our height it looked just like a souvenir snow globe on the coast of lake Michigan prominently featuring a tiny Sears Tower.
The rental car was in my name so i did all the driving. Texans like their highways high up in the air. There were a few ramps i went on where i had to repeat to myself "don't look down" so i didn't freak out. After leaving the airport we headed straight to the house of a former Rapidparts employee who cooked us up some delicious chili dogs. When our hosts began to nod off, we headed to the hotel.
The next day, we arrived at MCFA (a bit later than scheduled thanks to my wrong turn) and spent much of the day in meetings. In our breaks, i snuck around to check out the new building. The lobby makes a good first impression. I also wondered around the cubicles looking for names I recognized and introducing myself. I discovered i'm not very good at accurately prediction what people will look like based upon the sound of their voice on the phone.
When we finally returned to GR, i didn't bring back as much i thought i would. We talked for quite a while but we really weren't coming up with new, great ideas as much as working out details of existing projects. No one really wanted to make changes to how the applications i designed worked; they just wanted them to look different. I will gladly leave those details to the designer and return to my other projects.
Posted by Matthew at May 20, 2004 05:59 PM