At the end of last week, a group of 8 of us headed up to attempt to climb the Grand Teton via the Upper Exum Ridge climbing route.

Over Labor Day, the weather in the Tetons was pretty nasty, and when we arrived a couple of days later, the climbing rangers informed us the conditions on that route were in pretty bad shape: verglas, snow, and ice. They said we’d be better off coming back in the winter and climbing the mountain with a proper snow cover (something that is EXTREMELY difficult and dangerous).

So we adjusted our plans and headed up to camp at the Meadows for 2 nights, and then up the South Fork of Garnet Canyon Friday to climb the Middle Teton instead. The Middle Teton is 12,804 feet high. We climbed up the SouthWest couloir route that is Class III with a couple of Class IV sections (although with all the snow in there, I’d say more of it was Class IV). It was a great trip.

I’ve heard said before that “no plan survives contact with the enemy.” We’d planned to climb the Upper Exum Ridge for about 5 months. We sent out information, we met as a group and went rock climbing in Rock Canyon in Provo, we coordinated, we planned, we prepared (physically and mentally). We had a lot of momentum towards climbing the Grand Teton. But we got there, and courtesy of the Weather Service messing up my order for good weather, we had to change our plans. Some people in the world of climbing/backpacking/hiking get summit fever and don’t adapt and let all the momentum dictate their actions. They don’t change their plans, they get in over their heads, they have problems, and sometimes in the world of outdoor pursuits, they even make stupid decisions and die.

Entrepreneurship isn’t a life and death endeavor, but a lot of entrepreneurs don’t adapt their plans, get ’summit fever’, let the momentum take over, and run into lots of problems. Being nimble, being flexible is the difference in success and failure a lot of times, and for us, it was the difference in either bailing on the trip altogether, pushing up a mountain that we’d have had no business being on because of the conditions, or adapting and climbing an awesome mountain right next door and feeling like we were on top of the world in the coolest mountain range in America.

(Grand Teton right behind me, I could almost reach out and touch it!)

(6/8 of us on the summit)

(View to the south. South Teton is closest, and then you can see probably almost 100 miles)

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So over the last couple of months, I’ve started to run a little bit. When I was in Japan, I ran around the city, when I was in D.C., I ran around the city. I wanted a way to track my runs, and I found out about the Nike+ system that includes a foot pod that works with your iPod Nano and iTunes to track your time and distance and upload them to Nike+.

After I uploaded my first run, I found out about the Nike Human Race 10k.

Basically, Nike was putting on the World’s largest running event. In 25 world cities, you could go down an run a 10k race on an official course. But with the Nike+ system, anyone anywhere could register and run their 10k and then upload their results.

I’ve never ran anything official (if you don’t count grade school track events), so I did it. A few weeks back, I ordered my official race jersey with my unique # on it and I got up the morning of the 31st, headed down to the Provo River trail in Orem, and took off. I finished in 56 minutes. My goal was to run the 10k under 60 minutes. I was pretty much alone, I passed the occasional person, but they probably had no idea what I was doing. It was sort of cool to know that I was running and around the world there were hundreds of thousands of others running too.

Self portrait after completing the run:

Screenshot of my congratulations after uploading my run:

Cities worldwide where the races where held:

As I was getting back from Japan on Friday (more on that trip hopefully later this week), my friend Chris emailed to tell me that Randy Pausch had passed away. Back in February, I posted a video about Randy Pausch and his last lecture at Carnegie Mellon University that he gave called Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams.

He gave that lecture after finding out he had been diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer. Subsequently he took the material in his last lecture plus some new thoughts and wrote a book called The Last Lecture.

His lecture and the book are both great and are definitely worth your time. Here’s a guy that I don’t know other than these two insights into his life: an hour of online video and 224 pages of a small book. But from that, I can tell you he’s someone that really did help people achieve their dreams.

I am back and finally getting to a post about my 2 weeks as an eCommerce Hippie.

Two solid weeks on the road is tough. It was GOOD to get home. But I had a great time while gone, both personally and also for Doba.

Internet Retailer

So we exhibited at Internet Retailer for the first time. Our booth was made out of cardboard boxes all piled on top of a guy laying in the middle, and it was received very well. People loved it. We had a great show while introducing Doba’s mid-market product (more on that in another post). If you’re involved in eCommerce or eTail, Internet Retailer is a must attend event in my opinion. Next year it is in Boston in June.

Bonnaroo

After Internet Retailer was over, I headed back to Midway airport to meet up with Amy so that we could fly down to Nashville and then head to Bonnaroo. Bonnaroo was bad ass. I know some of you may not be comfortable with a swearword to describe it, but anything else wouldn’t do it justice. It was one of the most fun things I’ve done with Amy. The music was just great, and I think it has broadened my appreciation and tastes in music, and my appetite for it as well. I think Amy and I are both in love with music festivals now. You can see so many bands in such a short period of time, and if you only listen to someone for 30 minutes and head to another performance, you don’t even feel bad. We saw almost 30 different bands over the 4 days. Metallica, Pearl Jam, Jack Johnson, Willie Nelson, BB King, Bluegrass Allstars, and Drive-by Truckers were my favorites of the festival. The people there were so nice. Maybe we all ought to spend more time with hippies most of who are partaking of performance enhancing drugs more often, because it was genuinely a very chill, relaxing, and fun time. The prototype definition of a vacation. Good times at Bonnaroo. I will be back to that festival someday. Guaran-damn-teed. Here’s a few more pics (if you click the slideshow, it will open so you can see all the pics):

Tennessee

After Bonnaroo, we spent 3 days in and around Nashville. We didn’t really have a list of must do things, just saw some great stuff. I think our favorite spot was Franklin which is just south of Nashville. We also saw some plantation and civil war sites. And of course to keep with our live music theme, we attended the Grand Old Opry. I actually enjoyed all of the performances even though it’s country music. Especially since Charlie Daniels closed out the night. And we ate at the Waffle House at least 4 times. That place rocks. All in all, Tennessee was really fun. Hopefully I’ll be able to make it back someday.

eBay Live

We then headed back to Chicago for eBay Live. We had basically planned the same booth as Internet Retailer, but a 10X20 instead of 10X10. It was a huge departure from our previous year’s booths. Again, we had TONS of compliments, photos, and generally all-around feedback that this was the best booth that most people had ever seen. Just need to work on the overall message it conveys, and we’ll be set. Although if I had to pick, I’d go with impactful and memorable all day long if I had to pick that over a specific message. Hopefully next time around we nail the message and the impression.

One of the best parts of our booth this year is that it was a disposable booth. Anyone that’s done tradeshows, and had the privilege of engaging with the Trade Show Mafia and paying outrageous fees for things like drayage fees and unionized labor to assemble giant 20 foot tall booths will appreciate how nice it was for us to be able to at both Internet Retailer and eBay Live literally walk away from the booth. (the shipping and drayage to eBay Live in Boston last year cost us more than our entire show this year). We gave the $30 Ikea chairs to some folks and left. Best moment of my life.

All in all it was a great 2 weeks. The shows for Doba went very well, and Amy and I had a great time on our vacation this year without the kids.

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After this week, I’ll be gone for the next 2 weeks. Being an eCommerce Hippie.

Maybe I should explain. Back in February, I was looking at the schedule of conferences for the next several months, and noticed that Internet Retailer was in Chicago at McCormick Place June 9-11. I attended this conference last year in San Jose and we were in the midst of making plans for Doba to exhibit for the first time since it’s the worlds largest e-retailing show. I then noticed that eBay Live was just over a week later June 19-21, again at McCormick Place in Chicago, and again, we were making plans for Doba to exhibit–for the 5th time at eBay Live.

That very day, I saw a blog post in my RSS reader where the blogger was talking about how he was looking forward to the fact that tickets for the Bonnaroo Music & Art Festival were going on sale in a couple of weeks. Bonnaroo is a four-day, multi-stage camping festival held on a 700-acre farm in Manchester, Tennessee. It’s one of the largest music festivals in the country. I knew about Bonnaroo because of a live recording of Warren Haynes from a previous year. My wife and I were both big fans. The dates for 2008 Bonnaroo were June 12-15. Exactly between the two eCommerce conferences. Nashville, TN is just over an hour flight from Chicago.

2+2=5 in this scenario. It was a perfect opportunity for mine and Amy’s trip without kids this year. Plus, she’ll be able to attend the first day of eBay Live and see me do my presentation on Product Sourcing.

Today, I ship 2 packages together weighing about 75 lbs to Tennessee. It’s all our camping gear for Bonnaroo. You see, Bonnaroo is a camping festival. One could say it’s my chance to be a hippie for 4 days.

Two eCommerce conferences over 6 days. One Hippie musical festival over 4 days. I’m out for the next 2 weeks being an eCommerce Hippie. I’ll be posting more when I get back.

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