HOW Design Conference – Day 1

I’m writing this from my room at the Manchester Grand Hyatt for the HOW Design Conference in San Diego, CA. Pretty nice. It could be way worse, that’s for sure. Now I’ll tell you about my day. If it seems like I’m not grateful to be here you’re getting the wrong message. I just like to complain. Having Charlie Brown luck is worth a giggle or two. It’s going to be a long one so grab a coffee or something.

It all started at 4:30 am with Carol, Moosh and myself piling into the truck with my bags to get to YVR with plenty of time to get through US Customs and airport security before my 7:45 am flight. The first bump in the road came when I was told my flight from Phoenix to San Diego was oversold and I didn’t have a seat, but that’s okay it will be taken care of. Ominous words and more on this later. The second glitch came when I didn’t have my customs form filled out. Whoops. I guess paperwork is important. Anyway, that got done and I made it through Customs without having to be photographed or fingerprinted (the guy ahead of me was).

After Customs came the bag drop-off. The conveyor belts weren’t working so I obsessed about my bags all the way through the security check, but relaxed when I saw them tossing bags like maniacs onto one belt now working. I made my way to gate 91. On my way through the terminal I took note of the wee little commuter jet at the gate I was leaving from. I took a picture (at left), but it doesn’t really do the teeny-tinker toy justice. It was a Canadair Regional Jet (CRJ – 900) capacity 80 seats (6 First/74 coach) with a cruising speed of 500 mph (if the squirrels can run fast enough). We were shoe-horned on to the cramped little plane (I hit my head three times and I am NOT tall), my window seat turned out to be a bulkhead with a window blocked my seat and the seat ahead of me. ARGH! The guy next to me was an arm rest hog, the inflight meal was a tiny bag of mini-pretzels (evil carbs, but I was damned hungry). The first leg wasn’t a complete bust, I had a good nap and did get to see the Grand Canyon as when I leaned my seat back I could peer out the window. I even took a few pictures.

Once I got to Phoenix I called Carol to give her the obligatory “I’m alive and it’s 88 degrees in Phoenix” phone call while walking the 800 miles through the terminal to catch my connecting flight. I walked up to the gate I was to leave from and found that I didn’t have a seat, the America West computer was down at that gate so they couldn’t issue me one right away. EEK! After listening to dbacle after debacle around the terminal, people screaming for friends as they were missing flights and being extremely nasty to the airline staff because “they should have held the plane” for someone who was busy in the bar. It was just like an episode of Airline on A&E. At least I was entertained. I told Candace, the matronly and infinitely patient America West rep at my gate, that she deserved a medal for taking all the abuse she did. She smiled and said, ‘not everyone feels that way.’ Anyway, at the last minute, the computer came back up and I got myself a seat albeit beside a mom and here two (yes 2) toddlers.

This plane was, surprisingly, even smaller CRJ – 200 which we had to board out on the tarmac. Just like in the old days. Man was it hot out there. We took off and it was only an hour to San Diego. But as it was a small plane you could really feel every little bit of turbulence and change in altitude. The lady behind me spent the whole flight barfing. Yuck!

I got into San Diego and had the worst taxi driver ever. He couldn’t understand where I was telling him I needed to go. How many ways can you say ‘Manchester Grand Hyatt’ and ‘The Conference Center’. The driver ended up being yelled at by mounted policeman as he was stopped on the crosswalk at a red light so the train could go by. Then when we pulled into the Hyatt he got hollered at by the girl directing traffic in the round about as he didn’t want to go where she said. He was so pissed off when I got out he said ‘Thanks a lot for making me come down here. I hate this job.” LOL! I gave him an excellent tip. That probably confused him good.

The hotel is awesome. The views are ( and ) great from my tenth floor suite. San Diego is beautiful. I did some sightseeing. I saw the USS Midway and a few other Air Craft Carriers in the harbour.

Finally, it was time for the first speaker at 6:30 this evening. She was great. Her name is Robyn Waters who was VP Trend, Design, & Product Development for Target for 10 years and now acts as an independant trends consultant. Her talk, A Trendmaster’s Guide From A-Z, was a good start to the conference and inspiring to say the least. I’m looking forward to the rest. I’m going to figure out my schedule for tomorrow and hit the fart sack. Wee! This is fun. Have I mentioned I love my job? Oh yeah. I love my job.