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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Next week is a whirlwind.

I head to California Monday morning with Blaine for some Doba meetings Monday and Tuesday. I get back to SLC at 11:15 p.m. Tuesday night and drive directly to Logan. Wednesday morning at 8:30 a.m. I’m presenting on Adventures in Entrepreneurship for Partners in Business as part of the business school there. It’s the 24th Annual Information Technology Seminar part of the Partners in Business series. (BTW, since I converted to an Apple Fan Boy a little over 3 years ago, I’ve never been more proud of my accomplishments. My time slot at the seminar is officially the “Apple Computer Company Distinguished Lecture.” Whoo-hoo!! )

I get done at 9:30 a.m. and jump in the Mini to try to get back to Orem as soon as possible without receiving any moving violations–I’m assuming my Valentine 1 will help in that regards. I’ll stop by the house, change my clothes and load up my gear, kiss Amy and the kids, and head out at noon with a group of 7 other guys for my 6th JerCore trip to the Grand Canyon. We’re doing the Royal Arch loop off the South Rim, a roughly 40 mile loop that gets us to Elves Chasm, the highlight of the trip.

I get back Monday night March 3rd, and then attempt to dig out from what is the inevitable result of any whirlwind: a mess.

Don’t worry about me finding a Dark Spot on the Map to clear my head. And IMHO, the mess when you get back is always worth it.

I’ve been pretty busy the last few weeks. Had some travel and lots to do.

One of my flights was on SouthWest, and in their Spirit Magazine they had an article about Randy Pausch. Randy, 47, is a Carnegie Mellon professor that was diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer last fall. He responded to this diagnosis with an inspirational “last lecture” to students and faculty. The video has become one of YouTube’s most viewed clips. It’s just over an hour long. Watch it. Even as busy as I have been, it was well worth my time. Let’s all use Randy as inspiration and find ways to achieve our childhood dreams and enable those of others.

PS - When you’re done with the video, read the Wikipedia article on Randy. He got to do one of his unachieved childhood dreams he talks about late last year, which I thought was pretty cool. You can see more about his lecture by visiting the Randy Pausch page at the Carnegie Mellon site. And you can preorder a book that talks about Randy’s ideas called The Last Lecture.

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I’m back from my backpacking trip to the Wind River Mountain range in Western Wyoming. You can read a full trip report and see lots of pictures at www.jercore.com

The highlight of the trip for me was clinging to the summit of Fremont Peak:

At 13,745 feet, Fremont Peak is the 3rd highest peak in Wyoming. It’s only 59 feet lower than the highest peak, Gannett Peak, also in the Wind Rivers. I don’t use the term ‘clinging’ lightly either. The wind was gusting over 40 MPH, and there was a sheer cliff just below me. But I wanted to make sure I touched the highest point on that mountain.

This was a big personal accomplishment for me. It’s the highest I’ve ever been (by 1,996 feet). It’s only the second Class 3 — (Class III – climbing, often on steep rock or snow. Handholds and footholds must be utilized to make upward progress. Injury inducing falls of up to five or six feet are possible. You must use your hands to make upward progress.) — scramble I’ve ever done. Our basecamp was over 12 miles into the backcountry and then it was an additional 4.5 miles of hiking and 3,300 feet of elevation gain from that basecamp to the summit. In short: it wasn’t easy to get to where that picture was taken.

When I got back, I got thinking about how the process of reaching a summit can apply to business. So over the next few weeks, intermixed with other posts I’m sure, I’ll be posting my thoughts and ideas that draw from what I learned on my most recent adventure to the mountains.

It’s good to be back. But it was sure good to be gone too.

I’ve found a system that works well to keep me going 110 miles an hour. (should that be 110%? - either way I guess it means going and going all out)

I take at least one, sometimes two, 4-6 day long trips a year. I’ve negotiated with my wife and family so that I can make these trips work. I look forward to these trips as a way to recharge and regroup very much. I purposefully plan trips that long so that I can disconnect from the world, from Doba, from everything really.

One way I make sure that I can really disconnect is that I head out into the middle of nowhere. Places where cell phones don’t work. Dark Spots on the Map.

Over the years, I have gone on some amazing trips with a really good group of guys. I decided to chronicle our travels (or travails as they may be) on a website. So I jumped onto Wordpress.com, setup a blog, picked a template, used Picnik (one of the greatest services I’ve ever used) to edit some pics, and about 5-6 hours later, www.jercore.com was up and running:

For this trip that we leave on tomorrow, I rented a satellite phone and we’re going to try and do daily dispatches from the backcountry in the Wind River mountains. So if you want to follow along, subscribe to the RSS feed from www.jercore.com.

I’ll be back and posting again here the end of next week. Don’t worry about me though. I’m not afraid of the dark.