Akron, Ohio

I'm nearing the end of my first week here in Akron, OH so I thought I'd blog about it. I'm actually staying in Cuyahoga Falls (pronounced kaiyah-hog-uh... I thought it was kuya-hoe-ga) which is just outside of Akron, I believe. Unless you're dedicated to travel or just happen to be a lucky winner of a trip to here, I don't envision many of you traveling to this part of the United States. So to save you a trip, here's the lowdown...

Akron is about 40 miles south of Cleveland. You might think of it as San Jose to San Francisco, since Cleveland is on the water of Lake Erie. But don't think of it that way. I'd just like to say that I'm lucky to be living in the Bay Area. Not that it isn't nice here. It's just different.

On Sunday I flew into Cleveland and drove directly to my hotel. The drive wasn't too bad. Not many cars. I actually drove on the 80 at one point. That's right, the same one we take to Lake Tahoe on the weekends - the one that goes from Sacramento to Ocean City, Maryland (tangent: what if I commuted to here from home. Haha. That would be a long ass drive). It was night time during the drive so I couldn't see much and just left it at that.

The weather has been a little weird. On Monday it ranged from high 60s to low 30s. That's a pretty big difference in my opinion. But it was nice during the day and I didn't do too much at night. In fact, I haven't done too many evening activities so I can't really say much with regards to the night life. So sorry if that's what you're looking for.

On Tuesday I had dinner with a couple of members from my team: our team lead from Scotland, a Romanian woman I originally thought was a light-skinned Indian, and an Indian woman who has a 36 letter last name (there's a hyphen in there somewhere, probably to break it up to catch your breath. Imagine 36 letters: 123456789012345678-01234567890123456). Another member of the team is from the UK as well and a white guy and myself make up the Americans. And we as a team make up the diversity in one of the five-story buildings.

Building off of the diversity topic: Friday was my first real exploration of the surrounding areas. An exit away from our hotel is a small mall (think Vallco or even that one off of Saratoga). Outside was this sprawling parking lot that, were we in the Bay Area, I would expect to be bussling with cars. This one was not. I went inside and found them - all the minorities who were hiding. But when I say minorities, I mean those of African descent. And then the white dude who thinks he's of African descent and believe me - there's a retarded amount of those. Anyhow, I haven't really been to a mall on a Friday evening in a while so maybe this is how they look in the Bay Area nowadays but just imagine this small ass mall with youngens of African descent all hovering around the various jewelry kiosks peppered throughout the mall. They were shopping for "bling" (as I'm told it is now called). And I found that immensely interesting for some reason. After spending 50+ hours in 90% white bread buildings, here's the forgotten wheat bread (across the highway from my hotel is a "Schwebels' Bread and Buns" Factory).

Anyhow, I left it at that and spent the rest of my evening at my hotel. Exciting Friday night, huh. So the week's assessment thus far: weather was weird but colder than I'm used to. It snowed a couple of inches overnight on Wednesday, enough so I had to clean off my car, but had melted by the time I left work so you wouldn't have even known it snowed. Akron seems kind of like a city thats down on it's luck, but I've really only seen the surrounding areas of our client's (popular tire company) buildings. And even some of their buildings look abandoned with walls made of brick and glass shattered here and there. It's strange coming from companies in the Silicon Valley where cafeterias are catered by professional chefs with wide varieties of food and the break rooms are filled with free coffee and tea. Coffee here is $0.15 ($0.50 for the good stuff) and variety equals Make-Your-Own-Omelet-Thursdays (it's not really called that but that was the special for that day).

I'm gonna end this blog at that. More to come on Canton and the Pro Football Hall of Fame and Cleveland, which I plan to visit tomorrow.

Cleveland Rocks?

I guess I'll be finding out over the next two months. This Sunday I'll be flying out to Cleveland, Ohio and working in Akron (looks like a little less than an hours drive away). Doesn't sound like the most exciting city to travel to for work but it's what pays the bills, right?

g.o.a.t.

I thought this was a pretty cool article and ad. Although I'm not a big follower of the NBA and haven't watched too many games, the movements and images are instantly recognizable.

Random Thought

Where do ice cream trucks go in the winter?

I was just wondering because we live right by a park and during the summer, without fail, you'll hear the songs of an ice cream truck every day. I haven't heard them in awhile. Do they migrate south for the winter like birds? Are ice cream truck drivers nomads?

I wonder how lucrative such a business is. I remember in grade school we'd sell ice cream on Fridays, similar to ones you'd find on an ice cream truck. I was privy to the accounting information and knew that it cost like ten cents per ice cream but we sold it for fifty cents. Haha. I remember some days there would be a batch of melted ones and we usually just threw those out. Being the shrewd business man I am, I suggested we sell them for 25 cents each. We'd still make a profit. Ahhh. The cutthroat world of an ice cream salesman.