The Single Founder

I was going to write another post about my day yesterday when I got back from the office, but my day simply got worse when I booted up my laptop.

It turns out that there is a strike going on here in Athens. A lot of the city services are shutting down, garbage is piling up on the street corners, etc. It’s really not pretty. I’m certain that it’s not any different than in the US when public services go on strike.

Yesterday morning, I had to wait for more than half an hour to get a taxi to get to the office. I left the office around 5:30pm and it took me 3 hours to get home. I waited outside the office for more than 45 minutes trying to get a taxi before I decided to start walking. And of course I got lost because I couldn’t read any of the signs.

Yes, that photo is technically from the airport. Not a good photo, but the best my camera phone could do. The streets of Athens are worse because most of the side streets have signs and the ones that do are well… in Greek.

So after my 3 hour, unanticipated walking tour of downtown Athens, I made it back to my hotel and attempted to do some work for the client. When I boot up my laptop, my profile was somehow corrupted. I think it was some leftover problems due to an older profile I was using on my computer, but I’m not quite certain. So after my 9 hour work day, and my 3 hour commute home, I spent another 3 hours fixing my laptop, and another 3 hours on top of that doing work trying to keep up with things going on with Moon River back in the US.

It’s been a rough trip so far, but I really can’t complain. It’s better to have too much business than not enough and travel is part of being a consultant in my line of work. Things are on the verge of changing though. I have several more weeks of travel lined up and after that, we’ll have to see what happens. I’ll certainly keep you posted.

I’ve been here for literally 10 minutes and I already hate the place. It’s cramped, it smells funny, there’s nothing to do here, the food sucks, and I had to pay $125 to get an adapter so I could plug my laptop into the power outlet. Only 9 more hours before I get out of this damned airplane.

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Well, that flight sucked. Now that I’m finally in Greece, it’s not too bad here. Of course, there’s an impending strike taking place on Wednesday that will likely impede my ability to take a taxi back and forth to my client, but it really only took most of Sunday for me to adjust. I didn’t sleep real well last night, but I would attribute that to the first night in a new hotel and being paranoid about whether the wake-up call is really going to work in the morning.

I haven’t had any time to get out yet, but hopefully that will change over the next few days. I’ll see if I can get some good photos of the acropolis while I’m here. I have a decent view of it from the hotel, but I don’t think my camera is going to cut it at this distance.

And a traveling tip to the wise… don’t try to cross the street between lights here in Athens unless the pedestrian light is on. Look both ways, even on the one way streets. I saw a woman try that today and she got halfway across one of the four lanes of traffic when she realized she wasn’t going to make it. All of the cabbies gunned their motors like they were at the starting line of a go-kart race. Fortunately, the cabbie coming down the road in her lane hit the brakes just in time to avoid giving her a ride on his hood. I wonder if he would have charged her for that ride.

So, I’m back. Technically I never went anywhere. Unless you count Indianapolis, Puerto Rico, Raleigh, Durham, Pinehurst, and Indianapolis again. I also have an upcoming trip to Athens. Yep. As in Athens, Greece. I leave on Saturday. Two weeks after I get back, I leave for Las Vegas where we’re sponsoring a conference. Yes, life is rough. Let me tell you, that trip to San Juan, Puerto Rico back in February was just awful. Coming from New England, I just can’t understand how they deal with that weather all the time. I mean, it was warm, sunny and people were walking around in shorts. Shorts! In January! The insanity of it all.

Of course, doing all that traveling for clients is pretty nice sometimes too. After all, I didn’t have to pay for any of those trips and only one of them was terribly painful. If you’re guessing, it wasn’t the trip to Puerto Rico.

A lot has happened since I last posted to this blog. We filled the position we had open with a new technical member of the staff. Finally. It took forever and we had a ton of people in for interviews, but the process is finally over. He’s smart, funny, and brings a unique perspective to the office. Unfortunately, now that he’s in the door, we’re already considering starting the hiring process again. It just never seems to end.

We also moved into a new office space at the end of the year. That’s been something of an ongoing nightmare due to the heating issues, but the move has been good overall. We went from a 450 sq. ft office to a 2,200 sq. ft office. Believe me when I say that we needed the space. We had the space built out for us back in December and moved in just before New Years. I’ll tell you the war stories in a follow up article, but everyone has their own office, and none of the servers are in anyone’s office.

Let’s see, what else. I was reminded today that my stolen GPS with all of the European maps would have come in extremely handy while I’m in Athens this coming week. Alas, it was not to be. I could buy another set of maps, but when am I going to go to Europe again? Oh yea. Most likely in the next 3 months, as we’re courting a few potential customers in Europe right now. Seems Moon River Consulting has gone international pretty quickly.

Last week was intended to be my return from hiatus, however I read in the paper the morning I was going to add a new entry that Gary Gygax had passed away. I don’t think he was still involved with Dungeons & Dragons or Wizards of the Coast anymore, but still. Once a geek, always a geek I suppose. I felt like I had somehow lost something, but wasn’t quite sure what. Maybe I need one of those Remembralls.

I think the only major thing left to mention is that my Masters thesis is finally underway again. Previously, I had spent a huge amount of time procrastinating. To the tune of nearly 5 years. Now, with the deadline fast approaching, I’m spending my spare time on the road working on my thesis rather than touring the sights. It’s not terribly unusual for me to sit in my hotel room on my laptop, but it’s a little disconcerting that my trip to Greece will likely be spent the same way. After all, how many times do I get to go to Greece?

Stay tuned for some follow ups.