Monday, March 17

New game

It's time for a new game I like to call...

Small World or Big Company

That's right, folks! It's the fun family game that everyone can play, Small World or Big Company. I hope you all join in the fun from home! It's really very simple...given a coincidental scenario, you simply need to choose whether the coincidence was caused by the fact that we live in a Small World or that I just work for a Big Company. Sounds easy, right? Let's get started!

Scenario: I was flying to Phoenix for a quick business trip. I was happily listening to my Zune, and noticed that the guy next to me also had a Zune (nothing too out of the ordinary - when you have a fun new toy, you tend to notice others who have one also!). Toward the end of the flight, he asked me how I like my Zune. I chatted a bit about how happy I was with it, and then he seemed overly enthusiastic about the Zune's capabilities. So I took a chance and asked, "Do you work for My Big Company?" He replied, "Yes I do." To which I said, "So do I." We swapped titles, and as soon as he heard mine, he said, "Oh! We've met! A couple of weeks ago at that Big Company conference, at a specific class, because a specific person introduced us." I realized he was right, and we then chatted freely as co-workers would.

Okay, so after I realized that this apparent total stranger and I had actually met (in a totally different city, neither our departure or arrival city for this flight) and indeed we effectively work together, my first thought was, "Small World!"

But is it really that small...? Or is this how my life will be, now that I work for a company that employs ~80,000 people?

Small World or Big Company?

Sunday, March 9

That thing I'm thinking about

This week, I spontaneously asked Jesse if he wanted to go to Hawaii with me in May. He dutifully asked his management if he could take the time. Once he said he could, I asked my management, and they were equally accommodating. Thus began my very excited excitement and subsequent obsessive obsession with our impending Hawaiian vacation.

Initially, the plan was to vacation for a week in Waikiki. Jesse's response was, "Hey, maybe we should take that interisland ferry to another island while we're there." Well, you can't just go to another island for a day (IMHO), and we were stuck with a 7-day period in Waikiki (timeshare), so I suggested that we stay for another week and do a second island. He was in, so I looked into the interisland ferry. From Oahu, the ferry only goes to Maui once a day. Done. Maui it is.

So I proceeded to talk to people about Maui, read up on Maui online, look into hotels, dream about it (ahem, this was all in one short afternoon)...and then I bought a guidebook on the way home.

Now, we've been to Hawaii (Oahu, Big Island) before, and we heard many a whispering about the inter-island ferry that was going to begin service any month (then), which would provide a convenient and economical way to get between islands. So when I looked into it, I found it very curious that there was only one ferry operating per day to and from Oahu-Maui. That hardly seemed to fill the transportation needs of island locals. I decided to read more about it, and it turns out that there are some very vocal environmental activists who are concerned that the ferry system is going to hurt ocean flora and fauna, so the company who operates it occasionally has to stop operations and wait for court proceedings, etc. On top of that, the ferry can't operate in bad weather (and these are tropical islands, so you never know when weather will get bad)... so we agreed to fly to Maui instead. It's more practical anyway, because you can't pick up a rental car at the ferry berth. What we've lost with the $10x2 more expensive flight, we'll gain in flexibility and taxi fee avoidance. And even though we're not taking the Ferry, we're still going to Maui, since we've never been and we hear good things.

So, as of today, we've booked flights and hotels, and we're ready to go. I'm SUPER excited. We'll be swimming with honus, riding horseback, hiking to waterfalls, eating macadamia nut pancakes and kalua pig, lounging around on gorgeous Maui beaches and checking out the Lost beach on Oahu in no time.

Has anyone else been to Maui? We would appreciate your advice. Truthfully, though, there's no guarantee we'll do anything more than the drive to Hana and beach walks. We really do want to rest and relax more than anything else. (eeeee I'M SO EXCITED!)