So even though I got back to Phoenix on Tuesday, this is the first opportunity I’ve really had to sit down and write. The rest of the time I’ve spent catching up on email, projects, LSG, and…. waffles.
The project in New York was great, and we learned some more things. At first glance we, when we arrived in Glenns Falls, we where uncertain how mentally unstable someone would have to be to start a LAN center of any appreciable size in a town of only 10,000 people. However after working on-site for 2 days and witnessing the amount of casual interest by passers-by, not to mention the attention from local media, I have high hopes.
The guys who run Jiggawatts are very enthusiastic and passionate, which goes a long way. They also shared that when the origonally approached the city council with their idea, they where prepared to defend it, but instead, the council embraced it, and one of their first questions was “will you be serving beer?”. Which is the totally opposite attitude we’ve come to expect from any city or town governmental body in relation to the LAN Center concept. Most seem overly concerned that it will be a place for kids to cause trouble, and they don’t understand that “computer stuff”. They’ve got a really cool design, which sadly wasn’t done yet, I hope they put up pictures of the finished deal. I’d post their website (which I built btw), but it’s not hosted yet.
View from 8000ft
After 2 days in NY enjoying lovely trees and good food, I flew to Boise and joined Phil, Marie, and Roger, and took off for camping in northern Idaho. Which was fantastic. 3 days or so of being cut off from the world, no phone, no internet, no email, no customers, just some trees, a beautiful lake, and some good friends.
Eric With Big Wood
We hiked around, which was tiring as hell for my sorry desk-chair conditioned ass, not to mention being at 7000+ elevation. Was a great time though, and exercise is always better when you have friends. Plus the view was awesome. I miss hanging out with Phil. As I suspect a lot of siblings realize later in life, the annoying younger/older brother is actually pretty cool once you’re both out of your teenage years.
So now I’m back in Phoenix, and got to spend some time with Lisa, finally. She’s been very understanding and patient as I gallivant around the country. I really appreciate her and how she’s become a part of my life recently. She is a beautiful person. And of course it doesn’t hurt that she loves all the geeky things I say.
UCLA is scheduled to have their soft opening on the 31st, and me and Jeff plan to head back out there for the day to make sure everything runs absolutely perfectly smooth. Things are really gearing up. After dealing with both the UCLA and NY installs, I have a much clearer understanding of where DGCS is as a company. Our basic setup is established, now it’s time to polish the bejezzits out of it. Both installs could have gone much smoother, but a lot of what we encountered we where not expecting, or was made overly complex because of bad communication. Now that we know what we need to improve, we can make huge improvements. But that’s the easy part. The hard part was developing a solution. Now we have the solution, and it works, and nobody else in the world can do what we do. Now we just need to make it easier for potential clients to understand why they need us!
So the 31st I go oversee UCLA’s soft open. Then that next weekend I get to fly out to PAX in Washington. That’s mostly just a fun trip though. Might meet some potential clients, but I’m not really going for that. I intend to just nerd out for 3 days.
