Monthly Archives: February 2008
Game Developers Conference – San Francisco – 2008
| February 26, 2008 | Posted by Angela under Business & Technology, My Travel Adventures |
I attended the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco last week. It is always a fun and energetic show. We run the “Latency Kills” campaign because every gamer knows that latency kills. Our “Latency Kills” t-shirts are always a big hit. Exhibitors included PlayStation, Nintendo, GameSpy, AMD, Intel. We are the only IT Infrastructure provider. We do the show because we know the gaming community needs a good solid network either to play games, to develop games, or to sell games. The gaming industry is thriving and we are thrilled to be a part of it by providing a network gamers can count on.
Yusuf visits from Dubai
| February 15, 2008 | Posted by Angela under Family Stuff, My Travel Adventures |
It has been so busy lately and I haven’t had a chance to blog about a very important event that occurred 2 weeks ago. My good friend, Yusuf, flew all the way in from Dubai to visit San Antonio for a few days.
I met Yusuf 5 years ago when I studied abroad in Seville, Spain. I lived with his family for 6 months. We became very good friends and have kept in touch since then. Once I graduated from college in 2005, I took my mom and my sister to Spain for 2 weeks. I was able to visit with him then and my sister and mom met him and his family. It was so wonderful! It was like I had never left.
There is something very special about Yusuf. He is incredibly intelligent and is gifted in languages. His native language is Spanish, but he speaks fluent English, Italian, French and German. He understands the history of languages. He translates the meaning of words, not just the words and he can do that on the fly. It is really incredible!
I knew this young man was going to go far! In his last year at the university, he applied to work at the United Emirates. Out of 3,000 applicants, less than 25% are accepted and he was one of those individuals. He moved to Dubai and has been working for the Emirates for 2 years now. He has seen the world and has such amazing stories to tell and beautiful pictures to show. I am going to start a picture gallery for him so I can share his photos.
He has calls me every chance he gets and we keep in contact through email. When I found out I was getting married, I knew he had to be there. He will be standing in my wedding!
So over the holidays, I get this ecstatic email from Yusuf saying that he was flying to Houston. The Emirates had just started a new route that went directly from Dubai to Houston. Since it was new flight, they weren’t flying daily yet so the attendants had a 3 day layover. Yusuf was going to be on that flight which means he would be in Houston for 3 days! I couldn’t believe it! I immediately bought him a Southwest airline ticket to San Antonio. My family and Jason were all so excited to meet hi
m!
When Jason and I went to go greet him at the airport, it was like I had never been away from him. It had been 3 years since I’d seen him and it felt like yesterday. It was such a wonderful feeling. The first place we go is to Rosario’s to eat Mexican food and drink margaritas. My brother Wayne and his girlfriend Layla and my sister Sarah all tagged along. It was funny because my brother doesn’t know Spanish and gets nervous so I told Yusuf to talk to him in Spanish so all he said was “como estas” and my brother said “Wayne.” Haha, it was so funny!
My mom planned a lovely dinner party at her house for my friends. We drank wine, ate salmon and shared Yusuf’s photos. It was a good time. I knew Yusuf was tired though. He had a 17 hour flight and was very jet lag.
The next day we took him to the Guenter House for breakfast, to the San Fernando Cathedral (built by Spaniards), the Alamo and to La Cantera. Oh and we went to get him fitted for his tux for the wedding. Him and my sis crashed in the car, it was jam packed weekend. We then took him to Los Barrios for his last dinner before he left. He couldn’t believe how much we ate. He also couldn’t believe everyone spoke Spanish. He said he felt right at home.
So he left but he will be back for the wedding and he will bring his friend Abraham. It will be such a fun adventure!
“PEER 1 Social” – Los Angeles
| February 11, 2008 | Posted by Angela under Business & Technology |
As Manager of Client Loyalty at ServerBeach/PEER 1, one of my initiatives is to put together customer appreciation events on a quarterly basis in various cities across North America. I held my first event in Los Angeles last Thursday evening. I have to say that I was a bit nervous as it was my first event and I was planning remotely from San Antonio. My 2 main concerns: a good turnout and a good venue.
PEER 1 does have a data center in Los Angeles that hosts ServerBeach servers and collocation clients. Overall, the PEER 1 business has a high percentage of clients in the LA area. So with reps and clients in the area, Los Angeles seemed like a good place to have a social. Further, our Executive team was holding a meeting in LA so it was an opportunity to get our executive team involved.
This is not the typical client event. It is a social and we like to call it the “PEER 1 Social.” The idea is to create a “no frill,” casual environment where clients and reps can socialize over a few drinks. It is not a time to discuss PEER 1 products and services (unless asked) but an opportunity to say “thanks for your business” and “tell me more about you and what you do.” There is no catch, it’s really simple.
The venue was an upscale lounge in downtown LA, Elevate. I found this lounge merely by Google searching. The lounge takes over the penthouse of an office building. It is a fairly new lounge, opened August 2007. The view is amazing, the decor is ultra chic and the staff was so friendly. Melissa Summers, the event coordinator, was an amazing help. With planning remotely from SA, it was going to be that personal touch that someone can relay over the phone or email that was going to help me make my decision on the venue. She did a great job.
We had 123 RSVP’s and had about 60 clients attend. Even though it wasn’t the turnout I was expecting, according to others at the event, it was a good turnout. Reps were busy mingling with clients and clients were busy mingling with other clients. There was good networking and that is all that really mattered. 
It is uncommon in the hosting industry for clients and reps to meet face to face. I can’t tell you how many hosting clients walked in the door a bit skeptical about what exactly this event was all about. After finding an open bar, some food and reps that just wanted to listen to them talk about their business, they realized that it was really just a social.
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