After months of communicating with Tegu eastern command in every way technology allows (skype, email, vmail, gmail, AIM, video conf, conf calling, VOIP), we’ve finally found a small break in which to shoehorn a trip for me to go visit.

I’ll be keeping a running log of my trip for all you fans out there, which will manifest itself in a daily blog update, and this is the last one. Enjoy!

West meets East day 7- The Final Countdown

 8:01- Again with the alarm clock? Do I really have to wake up EVERY day? I suppose that’s the way it goes. My host couple the Doeschers have been up for hours already and are back from the gym. It’s official, they are more active before I wake up than I will be all day. For those who were curious, no, last night’s dream did not pick up where it left off. Oh well, time to go use up all the hot water in the house.

I think they're playing battleship.

9:12- Craig and I arrive at Tegu eastern command to commence our workday and find Danny and Will hard at work in the atrium room. They’re tossing up ideas for our quick video introductions to our blocks which I will be shooting in a few minutes. I make some creative suggestions, but nobody bites at my brilliant idea of the blocks being introduced by the Tegu bikini team. Shucks, and I had mine all ironed and ready!

9:46- Take 2 of shooting video. I’m hoping to improve upon yesterday’s debacle, and I’m sure Danny is too. Yesterday we did a video introduction of me, and today we’re introducing our product(s). We’ll see how it goes, I hope the batteries are all charged up and there’s plenty of film (okay, nobody uses film anymore…) 

I call this composition: "Frustration and shame"

10:55- The product intro videos went well. I was definitely a little more comfortable on camera this morning, probably because it was the second time around. Plus, it was helpful to not have the boys upstairs holding a hopscotch contest (or pogo stick exhibition, or gymnastic tumbling runs…) like they seemed to be doing yesterday. At one point it sounded like they were racing their desk chairs down the hall.

 11:34- Parting is such sweet sorrow. Goodbyes all around as Will leaves to take Danny to the airport. It was a quick turnaround for him, but in the past 20 hours, we’ve filmed three spots, eaten a few meals, had a drink, and enjoyed a good bit of lightheartedness all around. I don’t think you can start a toy company without having an inherently playful nature, and it’s easy to see that everyone we work with shares that spirit.

I think Craig was trying to build a working phone...

1:47- I’ve got about an hour to try and figure out how to re-pack our package. We had configured a very specific way to pack out our boxes for the Original 52 piece set, but I think we’re going to try and alter it a little bit to shave some valuable time off the production line. The task falls on my shoulders, and I’m sitting down with 20 cubes, 16 long planks, 10 short planks, and 6 candy bars to try and get them in the box correctly. 

It might seem a simple task to get these pieces in the box, but it’s actually quite the puzzle with a few interesting parameters.

-The box is oversized to aid in rapid cleanup (throw ‘em in, close it up), so we need to fill the whole box, which means very strategic placement.

-There is a finger hole used to open the box, so blocks cannot block access to that.

-The polarity of the magnets in our blocks means they cannot be stacked haphazardly, they need to be stackable in a repetitive manner with polarity in mind.

-And of course lastly the whole process needs to be optimized for efficiency while maintaining an aesthetic advantage.

My approach to the whole puzzle is to try and make things as modular as possible. Individual blocks are put together to form larger blocks, and each of the larger blocks fits into the box as a whole piece. This way it can be broken down into separate easily repeatable steps by workers who can hopefully optimize the process for speed. It looks like all those years playing Tetris are finally going to pay off. 

This is what you'll see when you open up your own Original 52 piece set!

2:30- This will be one of my last posts from eastern command for this trip, as my ride to the airport arrives shortly. Will and I are engaging in a passionate debate over the contents of that press deck I was mentioning earlier. Things have gotten a little heated and Craig has to come down and separate us with the garden hose. I don’t want to air out any dirty company laundry, but our fans should be aware of what’s going on in these walls. What it comes down to is: I’m vehemently for wire binding, and Will won’t settle for anything less than spiral. These are the tough calls we have to make in this business.

On an unrelated note, I’m pretty upset that there is a 1-game playoff for the AL Central playoff spot, and it will take place smack in the middle of my flight. My team is done for the season (Go Giants!… Next Year!), but I’m a fan of the game in general, so I’d love to see what develops in the most important game of the season for either team. Plus, Craig is a Tigers fan, so I’ll loan him my fanship for the day. Baseball games are usually pretty long, so in order to sandwich one completely within a flight, you’ve got to be pretty lucky. Unlucky, that is.

3:05- After some emotional goodbyes, I’m finally leaving for the airport. I’m not sure which emotions were involved, but considering I’ll land in California, I wouldn’t doubt if one of the emotions ended in “ealousy.” My flight is at 4:45, so I hope we don’t hit too much traffic, and that the security line isn’t too bad. Either way I should have a smoother time of it than Brian did with that box of fuses on Sunday.

One last pic of Rowayton as I head to the airport.

Space ships, I seen 'em. They was two of 'em up in the sky.

3:59- We’re passing LaGuardia on the way to JFK. Is it a bad sign when you’re at one airport and your flight boards at another one within the next 15-20 minutes? Airports are like IKEAs, right? They don’t build them right next to each other, do they? I don’t think this traffic is helping my rapidly deflating chances at making my flight. 

Manhattan, as seen from the mrmrhrrmrhrmur bridge.

4:23- After almost an hour and fifteen minutes, we finally arrive at the airport. Odds of making my flight now are pretty slim, and the curbside checker (who I will forever lovingly remember as “Captain Obvious”) confirms this when he relays: “Los Angeles? You’d better hurry…”

4:46- Someone wise once told me: “If you’ve never missed a flight, you’re spending too much time in airports.” Apparently up until today, I had been spending too much time in airports. The irony of course is that when you miss your flight, your penance is: Spending more time in an airport. So here I am. I didn’t make my flight, we got to the airport too late. Oh well, there’s a first time for everything. I suppose the good news is that now I can find a place to watch some of the Tigers/Twins game. I’m on standby for a flight out at 7:20, so I should be able to catch the first half of the game.

5:23- I’m currently holed up at the “New York Sports Bar” at JFK. I haven’t spent too much time in NY this trip, but if this bar is an accurate representation of the state (it does have “New York” in its name after all), I think I can safely generalize that all New Yorkers like making people wait even when there are more people behind the bar than in front of it (4 to 3), and that as a whole, they are unable to locate TBS on the cable lineup even when what can only be described as a committee has been organized to do so at the urging of a customer. (Hey, you’re a “sports bar,” you think maybe you should broadcast the most important game of the season?) I don’t want to slander their business though, so I won’t tell you how many minutes it took to find TBS and to get a drink, except that it ends in “teen,” and starts with nine.

I think it took the whole first inning for them to find TBS.

5:42- You know it’s been a long trip when you have to look back at your running log to remember if you ate lunch today. The verdict? No. No I did not.

That's it, I'm going vegetarian 'til Thanksgiving.

6:03- My first thought upon seeing my reluctant bartender at the NYSB was: “That girl looks kind of like Marisa Tomei.” And then I thought to myself, what if it IS Marisa Tomei? I have no idea what she’s up to these days.

6:20- Okay, my next flight leaves in 60 minutes, I should probably make sure I’m on it. Better get my check from NYSB… which for all I know could take 15 minutes. Who wants to put money on my gate being more than a quarter mile away?

6:42- A quarter mile at least. I’m on standby and when asked about my chances of getting on this flight, the lady behind the counter replies with a very shaky “Hmm… possibly… possibly.” It’s the exact reply you’d give to: “Hey man, can you help me move on Saturday?”  and we all know what it means. If I don’t make this flight, expect the next few log entries to have lots of @’s, !’s, #’s, and *’s.

6:45- First class and business class are full, no upgrades. I am not feeling very confident about this whole thing. I wonder if anyone on my original flight was hoping I wouldn’t make it the same way I’m hoping someone else doesn’t make it on this flight? Well, Groups 1,2, and 3 have been called, it’s now or never.

6:47- Woo Hoo!! Passenger Lau. That’s ME! Lucky me, I get to sit in a middle seat, but at least I get to sit in a seat now instead of later. We’ve got free WiFi during the trip (Hey LAX, GET WITH IT!), so maybe I’ll get online and try and find some of you to chat with. That is, until my battery runs out. I’m still without a cigarette lighter adapter, and unless American has been busy updating its planes in the past few days, I’m sure my battery will get me all of 20 minutes of WiFi. If there is to be a silver lining to a center seat, I guess it’s that I’m front and center for the TV screen. Night at the Museum II anyone?

8:21- On the plane, somewhere over the east coast headed to Los Angeles. They’ve started the movie, but I can’t see anything, as I happen to be the lucky passenger to sit behind the 0.01% percentile tall guy who is blocking the TV. He’s one of those people who needs to extend the headrest upward. If I want to see the movie, it looks like I’ll have to put my head on the shoulder of the person next to me. When I sneak a peek really quickly, I see Eddie Murphy. Hm… on second thought, maybe I’ll take a nap.

Yeah, there's a TV right behind that guy's head. His head is sticking out above the headrest, which is sticking out above the seat.

8:48- The internet on the plane is awesome, I’m following the Twins/Tigers game on espn.com. Unfortunately, I’m about to run out of power, and the game is tied going into extra innings!!! Sigh. Guess I’ll find out the result on sportscenter at home.

9:57- It’s always amazing to me how some people are unaware that the back of the seat in front of them is actually being used by another person. I watched the lady next to me hoist herself up out of her seat countless times by pulling on the seat in front of her. Each time, the girl using the seat would turn around and glare.  (Glaring never has quite the effect we wish it would, right?)  Amazing. Free lesson people- PUSH yourself up from the armrests instead.

10:15 ***PST***- Welcome to Los Angeles.

Welcome to LA, here's a photo of Hollywood.

11:28- It’s good to be home. Nay, it’s great to be home. It was a very productive and enjoyable trip but there’s just something about being able to walk around in your boxers and not get all the disapproving looks. (Or the furtive glances… Will….) The rest of the plane ride home was relatively uneventful, although I did sketch out a little bit of the factory layout that I’ll be sharing with you loyal fans in the near future. The passenger sitting in front of me didn’t shrink over the course of the flight, so when they started showing episodes of 30 Rock, I had to contort my body to the right in order to get a glimpse of the screen. Curse my laptop’s pathetic battery life (off to Applecare for you) and curse American Airlines’ lack of usable power outlets. I missed a really good game. Sorry about the Tigers Craig… (and any other fans.) I did what I could.

So ends the seven days of my trip, and subsequently also my running blog. As much as I’d love to wrap everything up by waxing romantic over the lessons learned and relationships nurtured (blah, blah, blah) I’d also love to go to sleep sometime soon. So. Here we are. I hope you’ve all enjoyed following along, it’s been fun giving updates and glimpses into what the team is doing. Thanks again for your readership and support, keep your eyes here in the future too, I think Craig wants to post something about economics…

G’night all, ’til next time!

-SoS