I drove 23.5 hours from Las Vegas, NV to Austin, TX. I discovered a few things in the process.
1)Pay attention to time zones when calculating a journey!  The 2 hours I thought I’d have to nap along the drive did not exist… as Vegas is 2 time-zones behind Austin. I made it right on time to go tubing, but had absolutely 0 sleep.
2)Caffeine Pills (from Walgreens) work better than coffee!  You don’t know how strong your coffee (at gas stations) will be, you don’t need to worry about burning yourself or making your car sticky with spilled caffeine pills, and… best of all… they seem to last longer without making you crash.  Why is that?  Because gas station cappuccinos are nothing more than a lot of sugar, and a splash of caffeine.  I love them, and there’s a new flavor even!! Bannana Foster…. mmmm… but… again, all sugar, so.. there’s a crash later.

So… what did I do in Vegas?I assure you that there will be a whole separate blog post with lots of video about my journey to Zappos.com!  I had the honor of couchsurfing with Tony Hsieh… the CEO of Zappos.com.  I had asked Tony to couchsurf with him in January, and he said yes!  That gave me a lot of motivation and momentum for the year.  Tony is someone that you can learn a lot from, and I wish you would.  His company sold over a billion dollars last year, 2 years ahead of expectation… how?  By providing superb customer service, and making sure that customers and employees are thrilled.  Having gotten the tour, I can honestly say that I’ve never experienced such company culture!  This is the 1st corporation that I would consider being employed with.  Everyone is so happy!  They encourage innovation. If you have an idea, run with it!

A more unique experience was not just the tour of the company, but also the specific day that I arrived (6/1/09), was their “all-hands meeting” or… 2nd annual meeting.  This felt more like a rock-concert than a company meeting.  They actually closed the company down for this… and they don’t close the company down during holidays even!  Hundreds of Zappos.com employees at a large outdoor pavilion shooting “finger rockets” (sponge rockets powered by rubber bands) at each other, while beach balls are flying through the air.  The CFO gave his financial presentation, and offered Zollars (Zappos.com Dollars– employees can use them for various gift items) to people who hit him in the back… so, as his financial presentation went on, hundreds of rockets flew onto the stage.  I videotaped this stuff!

My favorite person was Roz, at the main building front desk. She was my tour guide, and I miss her. Ever watch Office Space (one of my favorite movies)?  Well.. Roz has a high-pitched voice, kind of like the receptionist in that movie… but is so warm and loving.  People who walk in get hugs, and you can bet that Roz will greet them loudly.  You’ll often hear “Hey you guys!” and see Roz waving happily.  It’s NOT an act!  She genuinely loves people, and you can NOT maintain a frown when you are in the same building as Roz.  She drove the shuttle to the all-hands meeting, and there was the frequent “Hey you guys!” as she recruited people to ride her shuttle.  Her shuttle, while being more than twice as large in capacity as the SUV-based shuttles, filled up way more quickly than the others.  I still text Roz, and she still texts me.  One of the rules to live by at Zappos is to do more with less.  They have flags that you’re supposed to carry when you go on the tour.  The flags were out for the meeting, so… what did Roz do?  She made her own flag!  She taped together 8 pieces of paper to a wooden stick, and wrote “Zappos Tour”. In my video this almost seems scripted as Roz declares that we can’t go without a flag, and she’s going to make one… but I was filming in real time!  No script, and no asking anyone to do anything.  Many of the employees complimented her on the fabulous flag.  I’ll talk about the tour more in the Zappos blog post.

Tony’s house was amazing.  Probably the nicest house I’ve stayed in so far in my 3 years of couch surfing.  It is a 5 or 6 bedroom house, with a nice pool.  Each room is themed after a different Las Vegas hotel.  I stayed at The Hard Rock suite- with guitars on the wall, & rock posters in the bathroom. Tony has a massive TV, a pantry with motion-sensor activated lights, and all the booze you can drink.

Since Tony is so busy, I tried to leave him alone most of the time.. I didn’t want to be an annoyance. I can still remember how excited I was in January when he said I can crash at his place… and I was afraid that if I try to buddy buddy to much, I’d distract him from his work, and he’d be annoyed… so.. we’d hang in the evenings.  Tony always has friends coming over!  Everyone loves that guy, and many of his friends work either for or with his company.  Many simply walk in unannounced, help themselves to food and vodka.  These are smart people!  I don’t mean that they’re smart because they can walk in and help themselves… I mean that Tony surrounds himself by people who are briliant. Speaking of brilliance… Tony’s intelligence doesn’t only show in his business savvy, but also when he plays logic-based drinking games!  He kicked all of our asses in Liar’s Dice.  There was one round when I was down to 1 die, Tony had 4, Richard & Sean were out, and I beat Tony!  Everyone high-fived me, and I was ready to do cart-wheels of joy.  That dude is smart, and such a feat was definitely celebration worthy (most rounds, Tony would take a shot… not ’cause he’d been beat, but just as a pitty shot since the rest of us were beat).

Hmmmm… Considering I said that this is NOT the Zappos.com post, there sure is a lot of mention of them, eh?  Ok… moving on then!

While at Tony’s, I got to do an interview with Ingrid Vanderveldt…. my dream girly! It was by far my most fun interview yet!  This was for her show On The Road With IV. Not only did I have a blast hanging out with her, but I was totally honored to be interviewed the same day as Peter Shankman, another guy I totally look up to (his book “Can We Do That?!”  is literally 2 inches from me as I type this).  IV interviews many awesome people, and the humor was that she was interviewing Shankman – whom I was supposed to couchsurf with in March, but I ended up getting a free ticket to Stompernet Live instead, so made a U-turn before he got back in town – before me, but then was interviewing me from Tony Hsieh’s house — whom she was supposed to be interviewing, but he had to postpone due to yet another of his business trip (I did mention that he is one busy dude).  She had also interviewed Gary Vaynerchuk who is another possible couch (although he recently had an amazing baby girl -  make sure to tweet him congrats @garyvee – so I’m not sure that the couch is open at this time)… so we decided we may need to swap some couches/guests.

Why would I say that Ingrid’s kind of my new dream girly (don’t worry IV, I’m not a stalker, and I know you’re seeing some lucky dude!)?  ’cause she’s gorgeous, an entreprenur, races motorcycles, skydives, and has her own show.  As one of my friends said “Wow!  A girl Ori!” I get to meet IV in person while in Austin (she’s from Florida, but happens to be traveling here while I’m here), which can only be lots of fun.  However… IV is sponsored by Ducati, and said she can introduce me to them (I can couch surf by motorcycle for a month or 3), and she said she can get me in touch with my ultimate dream couch…. *drumroll* Sir Richard Branson.  I don’t often get star struck.. but when someone says that they can get me in touch with Branson, and that they know for sure that he’d totally love me, and we’d get along wonderfully.. I get pretty friggin excited!  I mean… this dude puts my adventures to shame!  He’s had to be rescued by Helicopter more than 11 times!  He holds the record for the fastest crossing of the Atlantic Ocean by boat (EVER), he’s the 1st human to cross the Atlantic Ocean by baloon, as well as the 1st to cross the Pacific Ocean by baloon.  He’s the man with the ability to help me be the 1st Couch Surfer in space!  He’s funny, and balsy, and a brilliant entrepreneur. As far as I’m concerned, he’s the only hero that I have.

Of course, when I called my folks to say what’s up, and told them about IV, and potentially hanging with Sir Richard Branson … and my dream of being the 1st couch surfer in space… Mom said “Sounds great, but you can’t do that.. I mean, that costs millions of dollars to do!”  My response, “Wow… glad I don’t listen to anything you say!” “I’m still your mother!”  “I know… and I still love you… but if I listened to negative crap like that, I’d never have any outrageos goals, wouldn’t be where I’m at, would have a 9-5 job, wouldn’t travel, etc…”  *sigh* just a reminder that so many dreams and goals are crushed by well-meaning friends and family.

There was also the TweetUp.  What’s a tweetup?  It’s when a bunch of people from Twitter meet up somewhere in the real world.  This was the #MonsterVegasTweetup organized and hosted by Scott Stratten (@unmarketing), a funny viral-video guru from Canada.  Scott happens to use one of my photographs as his all around marketing photo. I got to meet a bunch of interesting people, but I spent much of the time with Allison Nazarian & Caleb Jennings.  They are my former couches, so… of course I spend time with them.  It was also going to be Allie’s b-day after midnight… which of course, I made sure to sing as soon as it turned midnight.  The large group of us went to the Bilagio to club Caramel, then “The Bank”….. The Bank was a bit crowded for my taste, though filled with stunning women dressed up in their finest.  The music also didn’t strike my affections.  I don’t think that it is cheerworthy when a DJ inserts any Journey or GNR into a mix!  Swapping between modern hip-hop, and 80′s rock is awkward… and I don’t think entire songs were played.  Either way.. it was fun.

The next day, Caleb and I went to join Allison and her friend Amy Pave for a Sunday brunch to celebrate Allie’s b-day.  I was in a mischievious mood…. the all you can drink Mimosas didn’t hurt any either.  We were laughing for hours.  There is not much that is more fun than hanging around great people.  We laughed, we ate, we watched Allie & Amy get in the cab to the airport, and kept the fun going by texting.  Then it was nap time (the same thing happened yesterday!  Apparently, when I eat a lot, and drink mimosas, I get sleepy).   That evening we went to Cirque Du Soleil’s Zumanity.  Ciruqe’s sexy show!

Not only was the show pretty fascinating, with contortionists, gymnists, characters, good lighting, superb live music, and acrobatics… but since Caleb knew the producer, the pre-show entertainment came to us. There were these 2 massive (300 pounds?) girls in lingerie… the one that came to our area was holding a tray of strawberries.  She sat on Caleb’s lap, and bent over right in front of him, as she tried to serve strawberries to the group 2 rows ahead of Caleb. She then tried to serve strawberries to the people behind me, absolutely burrying me in her massive tits.  Seriously…. I wish I had a picture!  She then got off me, checked if I was ok… if I could breathe.  I said that I was just fine, so she said “Great!  Let’s do it again!”  and (trying to think of what sound effect would be appropriate here… not *poof* or *boom* hmmmm… well.. the laughter of the audience was certainly loud) into an ocean of human flesh I was plunged again.  I did get a strawberry afterwards, and it was huge and delicious!

Anyways… we got to hang out with the producer after the show, and hear the details about production, mistakes, accidents, success, the evolution of the show, and much more… this was fascinating, and then it was time to go.

So…. I barely slept…. ’cause Tony was coming back into town.  While he let me stay at his house while he wasn’t there, I like people… so had gone to Caleb’s for a few days.  I knew I had a long drive to Austin, but did not want to leave until I got an interview with Tony.  So… I interviewed him at his house, and then took off.  My friend and couch, Dave Gonzalez had organized a rafting trip with a bunch of Texas business people.  I made it just in time… got sunburnt, and skipped out on the night time’s meeting.

I’d have to say that Bull Poker is my most recent massive adrenaline rush.  I know you’re waiting to hear about some crazy new adventure… but the last few days in Austin have been filled with business meetings.  I am quite thrilled at the way they are going.  I’ll tell you more about that at a later time… I gotta get going to my friend Jimmy Walter IV (the 4th… not Ingrid Vanderveldt)’s movie premiere!  He helped make it, and even stars in it!  I’ll let you know how it goes!

Just wanted to update you.

Ori