» Executive Travel Experience

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I had the pleasure of spending a couple of days in New York last week attending a conference on mystery shopping and secret shopping.  The Mystery Shopping Providers Association got together to share ideas and work on their professional development. I had not spent much time in Manhattan recently and it took me about an hour or two to get my New York rhythm back in my walk.

It is clear from the new buildings and the ever growing pedestrian traffic that New York continues to be on e of the capitols of the world. The transition form industrial to residential continues at a brisk pace in many of the older neighborhoods. The capital continues to flow in. The immigrants continue to flow in. The tourists won’t stop. I guess the early European sailors like Hudson and Verrazano knew what they were talking about when they reported finding one heck of a spot to build a trading port.

The dichotomy between rich and poor also continues as the rich get richer and the poor get nowhere. I was reminded of a famous evangelist named Reverend Ike who used to work the New York Market. He was one of the early “prosperity preachers” who talked about how getting rich was righteous. He once said something like, “the best thing you can do for poor folks is to keep from becoming one”. Amen, reverend.

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I had another opportunity to attend a trade show in Las Vegas. Those of us who get there several times a year have a bit of a warped perspective of the city. Each time I fly in, I see that the city has spread further. Each time I take a cab to the Strip, I see new hotels in the works and new condos on the rise. I read in the local Vegas paper that the group that owns the Venetian and Steve Wynn are now developing casino properties in Macao, China. SO it is quite likely that our most valuable import to China will be gaming.  We may depend on gaming to restore some trade balance with China. As American consumers pump money into China from purchasing everything made in China, the new monied class in China will send their profits right back to Las Vegas by way of the felt tables and spinning roulette wheels.

This would prove my gut feeling that Las Vegas has all the money. I mean all the money. If you traced the path of money movement, I would bet that 63% of the world’s money passes through Las Vegas or through a Las Vegas based company.

I tell people I know who have never been there, that you can smell the money as soon as you step off the airplane. The place is dripping in money, the way the Louisiana Bayou drips with dew in the late Spring. Because of this, the city continues to grow in leaps and bounds. Jobs of all kinds are crated every day. Service industries of every nature spring up around theses jobs. Hustlers of every stripe, legitimate and otherwise, flock there to try to get one little droplet of the money that you can feel dripping everywhere.

A boom market like this has its own biology and chemistry. If you do not know the market and do not have insiders guiding you through it, you could easily end up like the gold miners who headed to California in 1849 and be stranded with no more than a shovel in your hand. On the other hand a boom market like this is just what is needed for entrepreneurs to make their mojo happen and create prosperity for their companies.

I imagine the next time I go out there in a few months, there will be even more money out there and more hustlers trying to get their mojos working.

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I recently took a trip to Newport Beach California for a day long business conference. The Orange County Coast is a great place to visit for business or pleasure. Flying in from St. Louis to John Wayne airport in Santa Ana (Airport code SNA) is very convenient. The flight schedules at American allow you to leave St. Louis at a reasonable time in the middle of the day and still get into Santa Ana in the mid afternoon. Flying home, you can get out of bed at a normal time and be home in Columbia for dinner. This time I chose MO X to get to St. Louis and back. Their schedule matched my flight schedule nicely and parking at Parkade to boarding the van is pretty easy.

The only thing I don’t like about John Wayne airport is the landing. The airport is tightly surrounded by the office and commercial areas of Irvine and Santa Ana. You pretty much have to drop out of the sky to make the landing and sometimes you can get a pretty good bump on landing. Once you get through that, you find the John Wayne airport is very easy to get around in. It has all the amenities you need, but the traffic and size make it very comfortable. I choose it over LAX every time I can, when coming to the Los Angeles area.

Flying into the Los Angeles/Orange county are is always amazing. You fly over so many hundreds of miles of unpopulated, uninhabitable desert. Then you cross one last mountain range and presto, you see development as far as the eye can see, and the ocean, which is usually covered in some coastal cloud cover. This time we got to see the massive Yucca Valley wild fire from the plane. It was only up to about 25,000 acres at this time, but the smoke plume was still hundreds of miles long. We could see the fire line from the plane, too, and it was a bone chilling sight.

Once you are through security at Santa Ana, you take a short walk across the road to the parking garage and you are right at the rental car pick up. On the way you pass a big bronze statue of John Wayne in cowboy character. The statue captures his “swagger” very well.

On this trip Avis was promoting their new “Cool Cars” that they have available and they upgraded me for free to a brand new Mustang convertible. Nice. They hadn’t even taken the plastic wrap off of the steering wheel yet. If you are going to drive a convertible, Southern California is the pace to do it. So I saw the place like a native might…with the top down.

When flying to Santa Ana, the first thing you must do is drive southwest on Mac Arthur Boulevard. Once you pass the entrance to Fashion island ( a great spot for food and shopping by the way) you will come to the crest of the hill and all of a sudden you are looking over the ocean. What a lovely sight and a lovely site. Keep going down Mac Arthur and take a left on the Pacific Coast highway. Drive a while. You will see beautiful homes and gorgeous gardens. The weather is ideal for all sorts of flowering everything.
Then you will drive by Crystal Cove State Park where you can see how the California Coast line looked to the first settlers. You can understand how people have been and still are mesmerized by the place.  A little further on you will come to Laguna Beach, which is a great art and shopping community. It gives you an idea of what Columbia’s downtown could grow into as we add more interesting shops and wonderful galleries and delicious restaurants.

Now you will have to make a decision. Where will you take your dip in the ocean? Do it now in Laguna Beach, or on the way back to Newport Beach? Will you swim, boogie board, surf or just jump around in the surf? This will effect your decision. Most of this you can do anywhere along this stretch of coast. If you want calmer water, try Laguna Beach or head back up the coast to Corona Del Mar State Park and try Big Corona Beach just south of the channel jetty.  In any case, spend some time at Crystal Cove Park. You will love to see the different flora and fauna. It is nothing like you see here in the Midwest.

If you are not going to swim at Corona Del Mar, you need to at least walk the bluff top side walk above the beach close to sunset. Wow. What a view. And the homes up there are very sweet. No one has much yard and they don’t have many square feet of space, but what they have is a view of Catalina Island and sunsets like nobody’s business.

Okay, time to get something to eat. There are umteenth choices all along the Pacific Coast Highway and in the Fashion Island Circle. You can do like I do and just stop wherever the fancy strikes you, or you can hunt down something you favor.

There are lots of options for a great place to stay. If you want to save a few dollars and have a quick trip to the airport for your journey home, there are some good choices up by the airport. The meeting I attended was at the Balboa Bay Club, which is an older and elegant property right on the Newport channel opposite Lido Island. It would be a neat experience if you want an older California feel. I stayed at the Hampton by the airport. You get some extra room at very reasonable rates and a five minute trip to the airport. But if you are coming for vacation, try one of the hotel/spas on the beach in Newport Beach. I hear they are very comfortable.

If you love boats, you will love Newport Beach. The open portico where we had our meeting at the Balboa Bay Club looked out over the slips. There were some magnificent yachts and some beautiful sailboats that you could almost reach out and touch. Watching the boasts large and small going through the channel helps you understand why people put up with living in such a densely populated and expensive part of the world. The living is good.

If you come to play, try taking a sailing course or a surfing class while you are there. That is the real California life. A friend of mine who I see at these California meetings says his favorite surfing spot is at 56th street right there in Newport Beach.

Well I have to get to my meeting now. It is time to get to work. If you get a chance to come to Newport Beach for fun or for a function, make sure to take a few minutes to explore the area. You can have a mini vacation even if you have just an hour or two to spare.

Brought to you by Tron Jordheim — Director of Operation at PhoneSmart Your off sites sales solution.

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