Yesterday was tough. We did a lot of talking. We didn’t leave the building until we were done. The three of us, Lark, and Jim went for dinner at some steak house. Despite having been out with the client before, I felt oddly nervous. I don’t know why. Maybe because this was nothing to do with marketing, it’s all about technology. It’s weird. And exhAusting.
I ate along this morning, as Allard and Mark took their time to get downstairs. We took another car to Mercedes’ New Jersey office and prepared for another day of talking. Most of today would be my thing, namely my current baby, the CSR (Client-Side Rewrite). It’s a massive overhaul to strip out the legacy crap and put in something more solid to keep things moving.
I noted as I was eating that the hotel’s much sketchier than I’d thought. There’s blue tarp over a couple of the walls and other unknown stuff. Once upon a time, I’m sure this hotel had a decent restaurant/cafe. Currently, it’s … uh … scary.
Driving in Costa Rica is hair-raising. Driving to New Jersey with a guy who has no idea where the hell he’s doing is more than slightly terrifying. Especially when he cuts across four lanes of traffic in about 10 yards. I was quite happy to be in Mercedes’ office after that.
Thankfully, the presentations today were more about answering questions than they were about education. Mind you, the CSR is a little esoteric and requires a little more sales than it does education. But I think the point got across, and with luck we’ll be able to move forward on it soon.
Newark airport is a lot closer to Mercedes than it is to Times Square. But the insanity of the New Jersey highway system pretty much prevented us finding a direct route to where we were supposed to be going. Fortunately, our second driver knew every single loophole to get us there.
Dinner was a snack at a deli to take on the plane. The flight was long, and typically boring. Thankfully, going west, we didn’t get in too late. Enough that I could get home before being too tired.