The Journey Home

Muir Woods National Monument Sign

Saturday, April 30, 2016

Zoho Bikes

Today was an early one as I woke up at 3:45am after going to sleep at 10:30pm.  I had everything packed up and keys turned in by 4:15am and was ready for my journey to the airport in Oakland, CA.  As I left the hotel, the hotel clerk gave me a bag of gold fish crackers with a reminder to complete a satisfaction survey.  The drive to the airport was not bad, but I was surprised that there were still a lot of cars still on the freeway at 4:30am. It reminded me of a Friday night in Jackson or Birmingham.  The rental car return and shuttle ride to the airport went great and quick but the line to check-in and drop off my bag took almost 20 minutes and standing in line at the security checkpoint faired no better with a 25 minutes wait.  Apparently, the airport was under construction and the lines were condensed.  I actually thought that I was going to miss my flight due to the long lines.  Well, airlines can take their time when they want so this was one of those days.  This was the first of three flights of the day anyway, but I just wanted to get back home.  I got to Los Angeles at about 7:45am and ate breakfast at a place called Osteria and had some steak, potatoes, and toasts.  Next, I boarded the plane from Los Angeles to Atlanta for a good 4 hours.  I watched only one movie this time and it was The Big Short starring Steve Carell, Christian Bale, Brad Pitt, Marisa Tomei, and Ryan Gosling.  The movie was about how a few groups of Wall Street brokers figured out that the housing business was crooked and their bubble was about to burst because people got too arrogant and greedy.  People started to bet against the housing market for the first time and financial institutions thought that they were crazy and sold them several bonds thinking that they could make easy money as a result of their naive approach.  This eventually led to the housing crash of 2007 and 2008, and the American people eventually bailed those crooks out.  An interesting note about watching movies on an airline is that if the airplane does not have a touch screen on the back of the seat, but has in flight wifi, then the passenger can log onto the wifi network and download the go go in flight app and watch the movies, tv shows, HBO, Showtime, Dish Network, listen to music, and play video games offered by the airline.  Aside from this, the only interesting thing that happened on the plane rides was that we hit some rough patches of air and that was not fun going to the bathroom during the shacking and bouncing of the plane.  You knew that I was going to work in a bathroom reference.  LOL

Zoho Fun Area

Deer at UC Berkeley

A Bay Side View

I ate at Carrabba's Italian Grill in Atlanta, and it was not that spectacular.  The Olive Garden is better in my opinion.  My last flight was delayed by 40 minutes because they had to do seat maintenance before take off and we were the last flight of the day as well.  I really wanted to know what the actual problem was with the seats.  It was about 8:30pm when I landed in Columbus, MS and met Keela and the kids in the van talking and playing with them until my bag came through on the conveyor belt.  We rode home and it was a little rough for Jack and Livy to get to sleep but finally did, so me and Keela watched television and I wrote my blog for Friday.  This is a bitter sweet because this wraps up my trip and as I reflect on my conference and California experience, I got to do the following:

Glorious Redwoods

• Attend a Silicon Valley Tech Conference
• Stand in front of the Full House home
• Drive on the Golden Gate Bridge and take beautiful pictures of the site
• Fall down a hill/mountain and almost die
• Drive around and see Apple, Inc.
• Site see UC Berkeley and Stanford University
• See an I-Max movie for the first time
• Run up on some deer at UC Berkeley 
• See and stand in amazement at the redwood trees 
• Share my testimonial in an interview at Zoho
• See the Pacific Ocean in person for the first time
• See the outside of the Oracle where the Golden State Warriors play
• See the Sun and Moon in a different setting
• Learn about the new and exciting functions that Zoho is doing and wanting to do
• Cross the Bay Bridge
• See an in person aerial view of Los Angeles
• See Alcatraz from the bay
• Have a shampoo, body wash, and conditioner dispenser in my hotel shower

Some Leaning Redwoods

A Redwood Walkway

This was a great experience and rose above all of expectations.  I would like to thank Housing and Residence Life and Dante Hill for supporting me in this endeavor and maybe one day in the future I will get to do this again.  It has been great sharing my experience with each and every one of you for    the past five days, but I am glad that I am back home.

Shower Dispensers 

Surfs Up, Dude!

The Fabolous Fourth Day in the Golden State!

Friday, April 29, 2016

Zoho Conference Stage

Big Jenga Set

Fun Furniture

The day got off to a slow start because I was sore from the fall from the day before and I arrived later 10 minute than I originally wanted to arrived.  No worries, I was still able to eat my usual breakfast items of hash browns, chicken sausage, and bacon.  I even added a peanut butter sandwich this time because I did not eat anything the previous night.  The first session was a key note from one of the top Zoho software enigneers and the following sessions were about what is new to Zoho.  We got to see the new changes to Zoho like the new look to Zoho Creator and the cool functions such as the ability to format different sections of a form in as many column as you want to include.  The Zoho engineering team even showed there new program that allows users and developers to create their own apps and submit them to the Apple and Android app stores.  This could come in handy for several functions at Mississippi State University with our different and upcoming interactional model.  I even learned that Zoho has a program for surveys that could help Residence Life format, design, organize, and send information to the appropriate people in a more efficient manner.   The Zoho team ended the conference with a list of things that they are still working on such as adding more themes, miscellaneous sections, and a rating matrix option.   I was suppose to have a one on one with someone from the Zoho team but there were more conference attendees than team members so that did not happen.  Switching gears from the technical talk, I have to say that the Zoho environment was a great experience, and I loved to see that the tech world really tries to make things fun a lot like student affairs.  I even saw some cool couches and chairs everywhere.  There was even a giant bean bag serving as a coffee table not to mention several chess sets and a giant Jenga set.  Like I said earlier, the entire place was a fun atmosphere.  

Beautiful Redwood Trees

Tall Redwoods

Well, I had some day light left, so I drove an hour and a half to the Muir Woods National Park and yes the traffic was still congested with it being rush hour on a Friday.  The weather was breezy with redwood trees everywhere.  I cannot remember a time where I was in such a surreal, peaceful, calm, and scenic place.  There was a little creek flowing through the immense redwood forest, and I could hear the sounds of the ocean as well.  I walked about a hour deep into the forest and I felt like I was in a magical place.  This stroll through the forest provided  me with a spiritual experience and I now know why the mountainous wilderness is a great place to meditate and examine yourself.  I could benefit more as a person in places like this  These redwood trees are so big and tall, and it just amazes me to think that God makes such wonderful things.  I have been through several forests in my life and nothing compares to this experience.  It is simply amazing.  Well, the park was getting ready to close and day light was dimming, so I made my trip back to the hotel in Pleasanton.  I have to give my props to the Jetta that I drove because I put the miles on it and turned some crazy curves up and down the mountain.  Go Jetta Go!  The gas mileage on the Jetta is great because after four days of adventuring and site seeing.  I still had a fourth of a tank of gas left when I returned to the hotel.  To end my last adventure day in California, I ate a medium pizza a restaurant called Faz in the hotel and had some mixed fruit juices such as cranberry, orange, apple, and pineapple.  This was quite a fruity experience.  I have a big tomorrow as I am making my journey back home to Starkville, MS.  The estimated time for me to wake up is 3:45am to get to the airport in enough time to check in and pass through security before my flight departs at 6am.  This has been a fun and exciting trip so let me shower and hit the hay.

Scenic Muir Woods Trail

The Jetta Rental

Good Night!

The Adventurous Third Day in the Bay Area!

Thursday, April 28, 2016

Well, I got up and ready and drove back to the Zoho Conference from the hotel and ate my usual breakfast of hash browns, bacon, and chicken sausage.  I had about three or four soft drinks throughout the day such as a coca cola, orange crush, mug root beer, and wild cherry pepsi.  The sessions got more detailed and bit more complicated as the speakers covered writing code, scripting, and application interface programming (API).  Yeah I know it is like a different language all together.  Thanks Techies for your complex world.  As the sessions progressed, the hands on activities stalled because the internet went down.  Go figure the internet goes down at a Tech company event.  They have Comcast, so that is not a good endorsement right now.  At lunch, I talked with a lady from North Carolina and we had a quick laugh about how our two states are going through some stuff about those crazy religious laws.  We exchanged information about how we use Zoho and North Carolina sports and stars.  Michael Jordan and Steph Curry were talked about a quire a bit.  Dante would have loved to have been in this conversation.  The rest of the afternoon was about the same concerning the content of presentations, so for the rest of my day now begins.  Since the group picture was taken yesterday, they decided to take the picture after lunch because everyone was still there.

Full House Home

Jack at the Full House front steps

I downed some cream puffs and lemon cake and began my journey through the bay area.  When I got into the Jetta, I plugged my iPhone into the USB port so that I would not run down my battery from the directions of the places that I was going to visit.  As I drive down the freeways, I noticed that the music selections were great and said to myself that this radio station is on point and then I realized that it was playing my iTunes music.  No wonder it was playing awesome songs because it was the songs that I bought and love.  I have to say once again that the traffic in the bay area is not any better than Atlanta or Nashville.  That is all that I can compare it to from a driving standpoint around big cities.  I crossed the Bay Bridge and arrived in downtown San Francisco and got closer to the outskirts of the city to find that Full House home a 1709 Broderick Street.  I luckily found a parking spot on Broderick Street and found the house that has changed quite a bit since the 1980's.  The house is a different color, different trees in front of the house, and a gate has been added in the front.  I am surprised the new Netflix show Fuller House does not show the modern look of the
house.  

The Golden Gate Bridge

Top View of Golden Gate Bridge

Jack in Front of the Golden Gate Bridge

As I continued driving toward the Golden Gate Bridge, the roads had some really big dips and I literally could not see the bottom of the road before going down it.  I am talking about some steep downhill roads, my friends.  When I got near the Golden Gate Bridge, it was simply amazing.  I actually thought that I was going to shed a tear when I was driving across the bridge.  After all of the years of watching movies and television, I was actually looking at and crossing the Golden Gate Bridge.  I also saw Alcatraz sitting on the rock out in the water.  Well, I found a place that had a great scenic view of the Golden Gate Bridge.  There was a peer on the side of the road with a little metal wire fence at the edge of the hill or mountain depending on who you are.  I think it was a mountain.  My ambitious self stepped over the fence and began down the hill or mountain and got some really good pictures.  Since I was getting great pictures, I kept walking further down, but I encountered a problem.  The problem was that I wanted and tried to stop walking but my legs and momentum keep going.  I tried sitting down, but that made it worse.  My glasses flew off and I thought that I broke them and did not know where I was in relation to my distance down the hill.  With this problem, I grabbed some weeds as a last attempt and this allowed to get my footing and stop for a second.  After 15 seconds of catching my breathe, I looked around and noticed that I had about 15 feet left until the road below.  I climbed down and walked up and down the road and took more beautiful pictures.  At this time, I was running on adrenaline and was so happy that I was alive.  However, I was covered in red dirt and my glasses had a few shades of red dirt as well.  I left the dirt on the glasses because the dirt provided me with some shade from the sun and I could still see out of them.  Luckily, I received a few scrapes and stretches with nothing broken.  This experience pumped me up, so I was game now.  I began my journey to the University of California at Berkeley.  My iTunes shuffle played Alive by Pearl Jam when I turned the car on and that was only fitting to what just happened to me concerning the hill or mountain.

Sather Tower

Sprout Hall hosting Bam Fest

The trip to UC Berkeley was about an hour and traffic was horrible because it was rush hour.  I finally got to campus and there are so many restaurants and stores up and down the town an campus.  So I found myself at the top of the hill at a restricted location and was told to make an u-turn by the guy at the gate.  Went a little bit down the hill and parked in an area that I probably should not have, but I did it anyway and began to walk down the hill through a construction zone.  As I get half way down the hill, I walk up on two deer.  This can be a scary moment because they can get spooked and charge you and I have seen what they can to cars, so I quietly walked back up the hill for a few minutes and waited them to leave.  The deer eventually did leave.  I walked around campus and saw the tall Sather Tower, which I think that is what it is called.  The time changed and the bell began to ring.  I saw a few more sites like a Bam Fest drum presentation and the Football stadium.

California Memorial Stadium

The Golden Bear Campus Mascot

The Thinker by Auguste Rodin

Varsity Theatre in Palo Alto

I was still pumped up from the fall and the deer scare, so I decided to make my way to Stanford University, which it had gotten dark outside and was a 45 minute drive from UC Berkeley.  On the bright side, traffic had gotten better and I saw the Oracle, which is where the Golden State Warriors play.  They love there Warriors and Steph Curry around here.  There were banners, billboards, and signs with his face and the Warriors logo everywhere that you go.  I finally arrived at Stanford's campus, and they are going through a major construction process with several roads.  With this dilemma, I could not get into several parts of campus that I wanted to go or see.  However, I found the Cantor Center for Visual Arts and took some pictures of the outside of the building and through the doors.  The buildings were all locked because it was 10pm.  I have been driving for about two to three hours and have not used the bathroom since I left the Zoho conference.  I found a dark area before some tress beside the Cantor building and had an epic urination release.  This felt very awkward because I was thinking what if I get caught and get arrested for this.  I mean I people talking from somewhere in the area, but I knew that they could not see me.  Of all places, I never thought that I would piss on Stanford University.  My apologies, but I had to go.

A Cool Cube Structure

Cantor Center for Visual Arts

The Apple, Inc. One Infinite Loop Sign

Apple, Inc. Front Entrance

The Main Apple, Inc. Campus Sign

I noticed that I was not that far from Cupertino where Apple, Inc. is located.  So I drove about abutter 40 minutes and drove around their campus.  Everything was closed, but it was cool just to see everything where the ideas to our cool technology gadgets are developed.  After I saw everything that I could, I drove about another 30 minutes to my hotel.  I realized when I got back to the hotel that I have not eaten dinner because of the excitement that I had.  Everything was closed and I was still not even hungry.  Man adrenaline can really get you going once it is activated.  As I do almost every night, I shaved, showered, and went to sleep, which was very fast for a change.  Hopefully, I can see some redwoods tomorrow or stop by Google.  Who Knows?

Talk to you tomorrow!

The Real First Day

Wednesday, April 27, 2016

Zoho Cooperation Headquarters

Main Zoho Sign

Today, I got to the Zoho Cooperation headquarters and checked in and received snazzy name tag, pen, agenda, and a custom made notebook.  Breakfast was setup in main common area with a vast array of food options such as bagels, bread, hash browns, chicken and tofu sausages, and bacon.  There was even an area for someone to make omelets and waffles. I gobbled down some hash browns, bacon, and chicken sausage.  The open area had a cafe' expresso machine that instantly made your coffee beverage selection, and there were some milk and juice sections as well as a convenient store style refrigerator that had water, pepsi, coca cola, Mug rooter, orange crush, gingerly, and other fruit drinks.  Anyone can grab as many as they want throughout the day.  I sure did have a lot of them.  

Jack's Zoho Name Tag

Zoho Registeration Table

We meet in one of the open glass door conference rooms from a Zoho Evangelist named Taylor.  Yeah, that was his title.   He basically spoke of the major things that Zoho does and is currently working on and stressed that he wanted to talk with everyone to hear those feel good stories about how Zoho works for us.  The conference has two tracks with the first track being for new Zoho users and the second track dedicated to more experience users that are classified as developers.  I fell into the track two category.  The sessions always went over and we got behind schedule, so techies are as bad as student affairs practitioners with staying on time.  I have to say that the reason that we got off of topic was due to the allowance of questions during the presentations that may not have applied to the general group.  The conference staff later realized this and tried to do better, but I could not tell a difference.  Lunch was quite satisifing with salad options, chicken, fish, and mushrooms covered in lentils.  The deserts were even more amazing as I devoured several small cannolis, chocolate pie, and some tiramisu. 

Conference Room One

Testimoial Interview Set

Cool Zoho Backdrop

As I began to eat my lunch, I was approached by a marketing and advertising Zoho team member and told him about how long that I have used Zoho and how I use the software program Creator.  This lead to a filmed testimonial  interview of my Zoho experience on the second floor of the building.  There was a little section with two chairs, black backdrops, professional lighting, video camera and a boom microphone.  Even though, I was having a conversation with the marketing and advertising team member, the conversation had some difficult encounters as I was stopped a few times because I said the word "it" and they wanted "it" to be defined which was Zoho Creator.  They really want to get things correct, in order, to sell their product.  The interview eventually ended and I gave the team member by business card and he said that he may contact me about being a case study.  As I waited for a group picture to be taken, I walked around the building and posted a white name flag on the state of Mississippi on the Zoholics map in the main entrance.  I got tired of waiting for the picture so I left and went back to the hotel.  Please note that I cannot get use to holding down the brake as I crank up the car as this Jetta requires me to do.  These cars are getting unnecessarily complicated.  

Zoholics Map

Jack's Flag Marker

When I got back to the hotel, I called Keela and face timed her and Livy.  She gave me some mad faces, but she went to sleep about 15 minutes in and I guess that all she needed to hear was my voice to go to sleep.  Jack was already asleep.  He tries to exert as much energy as possible so he on a good day can fall asleep fast and early, but that is not always the case.  As the phone call came to a sad end, I wrote yesterday's blog for the day before and went to eat at Fuddruckers and got an Elk Burger with a basket of potato wedges.  I wanted to get the Ostrich Burger, but it was not in season.  For some reason, I could not eat very much of the food so I disappointed myself in that regard.  Of course, there was some A-1 sauce on the Elk Burger.  The meat was not as good as beef or bison, but it will do for meat lovers, I guess.

Elk Burger & Wedges

Since Fuddruckers was across the street from the movie theater, I walked over to Regal Cinemas to see the Jungle Book in I-Max.  It was amazing and I thought that I was actually in the Jungle with the characters.  The screen was so tall and close to the viewers and I even sat in the very back and felt no different than sitting in the front.  I have to say that the movie was well done and can see it be a Oscar caliber nomination for visual effects, makeup, and screenplay.  We shall see.  Christopher Walken was a great King Louie and loved his version of I Want to be Like You.  After the movie, I tried to stop at a store and get some contact solution.  Well, it was 11:30pm and Wal-Mart closed at 8pm, Walgreens closed at 10pm, and the gas stations did not have any as well.  I gave up and drove back to the hotel and threw away my contacts and will wear my glasses from this point forward.  The weather is cold at night and reminds me of London, England.  Even during a sunny day with weather from 70 to 80 degrees still feels cool to me, I guess that deep south humidity adds a lot of warmth.  Despite my midnight run around time, I still got a shower and to sleep 10 minutes before 1am.  Today my goal is to see the Coastal Redwoods, Golden Gate Bridge, Full House home, Cal-Berkley, Stanford, and Apple, Inc.  Hopefully, I will get to do at least two of those things.  I will talk to everyone tomorrow.

Stay Adventurous, my friends!

First Day of the Zoho Developers Conference

Tuesday, April 26, 2016

Well, I woke up at 4:45am this morning got dressed and helped Keela get the babies ready for an airport adventure.  I was one of those randomly selected hand wipe down flyers that gets screened by FSA.  That was the third or fourth time in my life that I went through that at the airport and wish that I the same success with the lottery and McDonald's Money Monopoly.  My morning and afternoon consisted of three plane rides and an 45 minutes drive from the rental car place to my hotel.  For some reason, the airport in Oakland does not have their rental car services at the airport, you have to get on a airport shuttle bus and take a 10 minute shuttle ride to the rental car center.  After a four airport tour today, I was not in driving mode.  My airport trip started at Columbus, MS to Atlanta, GA to Los Angeles, CA to Oakland, CA.  I enjoyed the Atlanta, GA to Los Angeles, CA Delta plane ride because I got to watch some fairly recent movies like Creed and The Martian.  The Los Angeles and Oakland airports are much smaller than I originally thought, but still much bigger than GTR in Columbus, MS.  As I was flying over Los Angeles, I saw the Big Bear mountain scenery and the drainage canals that were filmed in Terminator 2: Judgement day and the Amazon Original Series Bosch.  So back to the rental car experience, I got a 2016 black Volkswagen Jetta.  The car is a bit small for me and I had some much trouble trying to adjust the seat and mirrors.  Thank you Jesus that I did not have an accident and am knocking on some wood as I type so that it remains that way!   The traffic from Oakland to my hotel was tight and longer than it needed to be from my standpoint.  

I finally got to my hotel in Pleasanton, CA, which is the Four Points by Sheraton, and it has only two stories and no elevator.  With that being the option, I requested a first floor room, which has an outdoor patio to a little fountain pond and swimming pool.  I dined across the street at the Black Bear Diner, and it had a woodsy feel to it with wooden chairs that log cabins resemble.  The menu was a newspaper with all of the important news of 1969 on the front and back, and the actual menu options were in the middle sections.  I had some good ole Pepsi and Chicken Parmesan to eat.  After dinner, I drove around and found the Zoho Cooperation headquarters so that I knew where to go in the morning.  As I kept driving, I saw several company headquarters such as Hewlett Packard, Xerox, Veeva, Boeing, Oracle, and many others.  I found a huge Regal I-Max theater and went and watch Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice.  It was not playing the I-Max version, so I will try to see the Jungle Book before I leave because it is the only movie playing in I-MAX 3D.  I have never seen a movie in I-MAX.  Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice was not a very good movie to see.  The story was rushed and Superman died.  Spoiler Alert! After the movie, I went back to the hotel shaved, showered, and went to sleep.