I had always known Palo Alto, Melo Park, Mountain View and “The Valley” were the closest thing to Mecca for techies and start-up enthusiasts but always figured it was more hype than truth, little did I know I was in store for a life changing experience. I flew down to meet with fellow local Seattlites Wesley Zhao and Ajay Mehta who were renting a house closely outside Stanford campus. The very talented team was working on new project (@Roster) that is aimed at changing the way people view their athlete identity online.  Peter K Chen from Seattle who was also visiting was assisting on the project as well. A real hacker house, complete with Ikea furniture, airbeds, 24-hours energy, redbull and off the wall sleeping patterns. If there wasn’t chatter of keyboards you were sure to hear the sounds of OFGKTA, M.I.A, 90′s hip-hop or dub-step playing in the background.

I spent time in the area focusing on designing for a few extra special clients, meeting new people, and assisting the team at Roster with any of their design needs. One of my focuses was moving the team forward at Pursuit.me further our market validation and development, as well as planning a new UI and UX.  Needless to say, we’ve all been busy. Enjoying all of the new opportunities in the area I decided to make a quick flight back up to Seattle to see friends and family and handle some errands and meetings, only to be flying right back down in a couple of days. I’m planning on spending a majority of February in Palo Alto area soaking in the startup-scene working with as many passionate and talented individuals as possible.

I’ve photo documented my quick stay in Palo Alto to put up before photographing a second visit to the area. All an attempt at updating my blog and photos with my travels.

The days prior to leaving I was swamped with work and preparations for leaving my business and team behind, It’s always a lot harder preparing for a trip to the other side of the world than expect, funny how that works, typing that seems pretty stupid. It wasn’t until the middle of our 11 hour plane-ride did things really begin to sink in, between catching up with Kathryn, In-Flight movies, and work on my laptop time began to come to a slowing halt-Sometimes doing nothing can be the most difficult thing to do. Though the young woman next to us managed to sleep every single hour of the flight, my bet was drugs (cheater).

Arriving to the Abu Dhabi Airport was an experience in its self, previously I had landed in Dubai and was greeted with an amazing airport filled with 3D advertisments, grand columns, and beautiful architecture. Not here, off the plane  at 2AM (Mind you felt like 2PM PST) we walked into a large, less than inspiring circular room.  The feeling standing out began to return to me, you’d think in an international airport you’d get less stares and looks, after all I’m only a white kid. We fumbled around attempting to read arabic signs piecing together where to go next , we quickly discovered the large mob waiting at what seemed to be the next step…

Customs is always an experience, as lines do not exist in the middle east and is a quick reminder, were far from home.

I took around 1400 photos as it was the first long trip I had taken with my new camera. I spent so much time soaking things in I always seemed to forget my camera or miss taking photos all together. Won’t take too much more practice, capturing and enjoying can be one in the same.

“Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.”