travelling at the speed of...jets

i took a day trip to pasadena today with my boss to visit a client of ours. we flew from oakland via southwest to lax. 'twas a very short trip. it never ceases to amaze me how much aviation has changed our lives. the 6 hour drive to l.a.has been reduced to 1 hour flying time. and flying via southwest always feel like you're just taking the bus somewhere. no assigned seating, you just stand in line to board your plane and then it's first-dibs at window seats after that. i also noticed how high their seats were...i sat and my feet were dangling about two inches off the floor. either that or im just too short. =)

when we landed at lax, there was no sunshine to welcome us. it was grey and smoggy in l.a. traffic was bad even at 12 noon. i don't think i want to live in l.a. traffic's bad, there's the smog...makes me appreciate san francisco even more. weather's always mild. we get really hot days throughout the year and although san francisco's known for being foggy, we have more good days than bad. if we really want sunshine, a 30 min drive to the north, south, or the east and we get the sunshine we want.

we ate at a mexican restaurant, really simple..nothing fancy. we could have eaten at a fancier place but since jevon and i were unfamiliar with the area, we ate at the first restaurant we saw. after i saw all the other restaurants around our client's office, i started to wish i hadn't seen the mexican restaurant. we could have eaten at houston's or mccormick and schmick's. oh well! too late! we were already full from the mexican buffett.

the client meeting was quick - only about an hour and then we were off to lax. we caught the 430 flight back to oakland instead of the 630 flight. again there was traffic on our way back to the airport. it's weird how the los angeles area has bad traffic and yet they have high speed car chases every month. makes me wonder if those drivers time their lunacy in order to try to avoid the rush-hour traffic on 'the 405'.

i was home by 645. short trip. no biggie. i wish i had more to share whenever we go on client visits. but they talked more about 'the business' and all i can really talk about was operations and there's not a lot of issues there. i like going on client visits because it makes working with them more personal and gives me a chance to grow and interact with other people in the business. makes me feel 'all grown up' somehow.