It’s always entertaining to see what type of art hotels choose to display, especially in their lobby. The rooster painting reminded me of the blue chickens that the girl and I painted a year or so ago at Painting with a Twist here in Austin. The other gallery this hotel had in the lobby was pretty cool, but I felt that they might have been trying a bit too hard to be a little too trendy…
I’ve been traveling some for work recently and was in Denver last week and if you can believe it, there was snow in May! I have to admit that it was pretty fun to see snow since I am from Texas and all and don’t typically get to see snow that often. It was a little weird to see it in May though in such force.
I got introduced to Restoration Hardware for the first time this past week by a co-worker of mine on a walk back from lunch and I was impressed. The best thing that they had there was this huge Scrabble board. Note the equally impressive sand timer as well. Sign me up for one of these because the girl and I love to play Scrabble.
The nerd inside of me always gets a little excited for major holidays because I get to see what creative (and not so creative) email marketing tactics brands use to try and get me to buy something from them. Below are a few of the many that hit my inbox yesterday morning for Easter. I have to say, HauteLook’s made me chuckle a little bit with their “clever” use of capitalization. Jo-Ann’s was un-inspiring but they did have an animated bunny in the body of their email so that made up for it in its own way.
It has been a fun challenge to find the perfect wedding tie. I searched high and low until I found the perfect tie from a site that the girl found called Pierrepont Hicks. It looked to be a burnt orange color that was pretty close to matching some of our wedding colors, but we weren’t sure because we were looking at it on a computer screen so I ordered it in hopes that it would match! I got it the other day and it was not as burnt orange as we thought it would be which was a good thing because it ended up matching perfectly and helped me check another item off my to-do list, find the perfect wedding tie.
This morning I was greeted by the smell of freshly baked cinnamon rolls to kick off our first Easter morning in the same place! They were quite delicious. The girl and I both had a corner piece. On top of that we had some great Easter flowers that were recommended to me by the local florist person at our HEB since they were out of tulips.
There has been some buzz around this couple who takes pictures of the dude following his girlfriend hand in hand around the world as they travel. I took my own version while out on a walk and thought it would be funny to do the same thing but with my dog. The girl was quick to point out that they would most likely all look the same because Marley doesn’t get to travel much. Mainly because she doesn’t have a passport.
This company might be on to something! Overit Media was featured recently in a Fast Company article about their recent implementation of hourly exercise breaks, which initially started off as a joke but have turned into an official program that employees can opt-in to. I think it’s a great idea and could be the next trend in the work place now that standing desks have already taken over. I think I would be a fan of the noon “Walk it out” session.
Have you ever been out with friends for a meal and you all order something different and when your friends get their food, you immediately want what they have? The girl and I call it “Food Envy” and it’s a very real thing. Aside from “Food Envy”, I find that I can often get the case of what I call “Mobile Tech Envy”.
I was using a Samsung GSIII and I loved it. The screen-size and operating system (with its superb Google integration) were a huge plus for me, although I had some trouble with the battery life at times but I suppose that’s a sacrifice you have to consider making when you get such a large screen.
I now face a dilemma because I switched back to my old iPhone 4 simply because I knew the girl was looking at upgrading to an iPhone 5 and I knew I would get a huge case of mobile tech envy so I made a pre-emptive move (and I liked the iMessage feature that you get between iPhones). BUT now that the new GS4 is due any day now after Samsung’s launch announcement, I now really want to get a GS4 when it comes time in a couple of months to renew my mobile plan. I am particularly intrigued by the Air Gesture and Dual Camera features as described in this Mashable review. I’ve caught the mobile tech envy bug yet again!
SXSW Interactive finished up this past week in Austin and I thought that it was a really great year. There was a ton of great panelists speaking on a range of topics from how to implement a social media customer service program to what it’s like to swap creative folks in an agency swap program between the U.S. and the UK. Even Al Gore made an appearance for a jam-packed session that I am fairly certain they had to simulcast from almost every exhibit hall for those who could not get into the live session just to make sure there wasn’t an uproar.
It was during the Al Gore session that I tried to sneak a peak of the latest celebrity to hit town, and not it was not a person. It was the real grumpy cat at the Mashable House! Unfortunately, I could not bring myself to stand in the ridiculously long line but I was able to grab a shot of a poster on the back of the tent.
guy and his girl 