Author: Benjamin Trotter

This week I spent all in Denver for a Customer Facing Meeting for my company. I prepared all the graphics for the event, and helped arrange things. Pretty much the multimedia man, which was a lot of fun. I took the pictures, did the audio, etc.

The weather was ok, and Joi and I swam and sat in the hot tub the first night–it was excellent! The week went by quickly, and before I knew it, it was Thursday, and I was rushing to the airport to try to catch an earlier flight. I did, and I flew on a 747-400 to San Francisco with Cecilia, and her husband came and drove us both back to the city.

So my friend Steve sent me an update your contacts email. It was by a site called Plaxo. It’s absolutely an ingenious idea. You sign up, it integrates with Outlook, sends out emails to everyone to get their new contact info. If any of those people become users as well, everytime they update their contact info, yours address book is updated as well. It’s great! So, I sent out asking for updates, and I’m getting responses back. It’s about time my contacts are updated. After leaving college, people move and change cell phones/email etc so often, that it’s great to have a way to get updated. If you haven’t been in touch, make sure you e-mail me!

So, I’ve taken the final steps into becoming a California Resident. I just finished filing my permanent resident CA Taxes, applied for Voter Registration, and I’ll get my Driver’s License (as my TN one runs out in March) the first week of March. Guess I’ll be here for quite a while!

I will never in my life purchase another SONY product. After working on my computer this weekend, during a normal email routine, the screen went dim and fizzled out. I restarted the computer, checked the cables, checked the power, and it just blips. Long story short, the customer service I received was atrocious, and I now will be receiving a refurbished model, that has probably been turned in for the same issue, with no extended warranty. Have companies not yet realized that outsourcing things such as customer service costs more in the long run??

Welcome to globetrotter.us v5.0! Along with new colors and design, I’ve also used CSS to make a much cleaner user interface from things that I’ve been reading/learning. Hopefully this will be a long-standing page. All comments/suggestions are welcomed!

Today, Andrew, Steve and I went down to South Bay for some electronics shopping. At first, I thought we were only going to Fry’s (which I didn’t know where one actually was in SF) so when we got into the car and I asked where the Fry’s was, we were surprised to find out it was down in South Bay. But, what the heck, it was a beautiful clear day, and nothing else to do on a Sunday. Plus, I wanted to look at tv’s, and help Steve with his electronic purchases.

So we headed down to South Bay, found Fry’s, which was a building that looked like an old Mayan Ruin. It was so cool–the inside was done up like Indian Jones type facades, and a huge selection of all sorts of electronics. It was so fun!

After looking at the TV’s, I found a Philips one that I liked–27″, CRT screen, and $299. I figured this would suffice, but it turns out, they didn’t have one. I also wondered if the 27″ would be too big. So, we bought some stuff, and I left without the TV.

We then went to BestBuy, and I saw a beautiful 24″ Toshiba, Flat screen for $329. I figured I’d pay the extra money for something that I was excited about–and once we got to the register, it turns out my TV was $296–on sale! What a great day!

Did anyone watch this show last night? Absolutely hilarious. I loved how genuinely the girl laughed practically the whole time. Not familiar with it? Here’s the low down:

A girl has been chosen to participate on a reality TV show. She’s been sequestered for 3-weeks, no contact with her family friends. During this 3-week time away, she is to make her friends and family believe that she has met the man of her dreams, and they are getting married in 14 days. If she can get her family to attend the wedding, without revealing that it’s a con, she will win $250k and her parents will win $250k. The catch?

It’s a huge, sloppy, nasty, crude man, who’s being paid to act to the point of her losing the money.

Has reality TV gone too far? I think not, I totally dig this stuff!

This weekend, my friends from work and I trekked up to Tahoe for the weekend at our Corporate cabin. When I received the address of the cabin, it said Truckee, CA, which is an area near Tahoe city. The interesting thing about that however, is that an old friend dating back to elementary school, Anya Miller, had just sent me her new contact information saying that she moved to Truckee, CA. So, I got in contact, and we were able to meet for the first time in almost 6 years, in Tahoe. So, when Kate and I got to ‘Soul & Sushi’ for dinner, we waited for Anya. In walked Anya, and it was like we hadn’t lost contact at all. We had an amazing night catching up, chatting, and getting to one another better. She’s dating Charlie, who is from Washington, as is Kate. It turns out that Kate’s best friend from college went to high school prom with Charlie. Aren’t these connections just amazing?

Anyhow, we went to Northstar for snowboarding. The slopes were pretty good, I have been on better ones to my liking. It was a rowdy weekend, and we actually only snowboarded one day due to extreme tiredness after the entire day previous. Next time though, I really want to do Squaw Valley–it looked great!

So, I found out yesterday that the most perfect job for me posted by Apple has already been filled, most likely by an internal employee. This is such a disappointment, mainly for the fact of having a personal Apple reference, online submittal, hard copy FedEx’ed to them, and an e-mail to Steve Jobs. What DOES it take to get an opportunity to land a job tailored to my skill set?? Now for my next target: GAP.

Steve, his friend, and I all went out to dinner at Sinbad’s to celebrate Steve’s new job. This is a kitche place on the Embarcadero, with a spectacular view, and good seafood. I had escargot, calimari, and lamb sirloin for my meal. It was good. I then followed it up with a nice creme caramel! Talk about fancy dining! This is yet another reason why I LOVE San Francisco!