The MoPR Blog

Between John G and Melissa, our posts may end up a little out of sequence. But there is so much to write, we have to get stuff up on the MoPR blog!This picture was taken in Vancouver moments before we headed back South to America. Okay, not really. A couple quick differences between the three of us and the Dukes of Hazard County. First of all, no one wears belt buckles like these in Vancouver (although… we did see a nice “Prada” buckle about the same size as Jon Schneider’s in the lobby of the Hojo the day we checked in); second, typically I button my shirts (after all, isn’t that why manufacturers put holes opposite the buttons?); and third, our Daisy Duke’s legs continue down beneath her knees (what the hell is going on in this picture??).

Perhaps the biggest difference is that the General Lee could make the trip from Vancouver to Seattle faster than the average time of 2-1/2 hours. We set a new record for our trip to Seattle. We officially hit the road for our trip out of town at 1:00 pm and made it to our hotel in Seattle by 9:45 pm.

Granted, from 1:00 pm to 3:00 pm we did important tourist things. First we went to Gastown to visit world-famous Angel, the boutique that sells hand-painted clothing. The clothing there is worn by Steven Tyler, Uma Thurman and John G’s girlfriend Gretchen. In addition to the clothing, we were treated to the history of Canada – particularly they post-war westward migration of Eastern Canadians into BC’s Frasier Valley – by Jackie’s (aka Angel) mother.

No tour of Vancouver would be complete without seeing one of the city’s best known – and best loved – landmarks: Mr. Lube. Mr. Lube is famous for just one thing: Doing it right. Before your eyes. It took us three passes by Mr. Lube, the last one requiring us to park, in order to get this photograph, which we intend to submit to Conde Nast.

The final stop in Vancouver before our trip to Seattle was for lunch. Vancouverites are only recently learning what Eastern Canadians have known for a long time – where to get the best lunch. The secret is now finally out and the answer is, of course… Home Depot. For you see, it is only at Home Depot where people in Vancouver (and Victoria as well) can find Harvey’s!

There are some key difference between the Harvey’s in Vancouver and, say, Toronto. You can’t get the Big Harve (although they have a big ass Angus Burger). But you can still choose poutine! So I treated my partners (two of them anyway; the third one is still a bit miffed that she hasn’t yet been to Harvey’s) to the culinary delight that is Harvey’s.

From Harvey’s it was just a few more wrong turns before we ended up eastbound on the Trans-Canadian Highway and our exit to the United States. Our route took us to Aldergrove, past the Vancouver Zoo and the last supermarket before America.

We had to stop at the market because what road trip from Canada would be complete without boxes of Smarties, Aero bars and bags of ketchup chips? Best moment: John S asks John G “Where did Melissa go?” immediately followed by the sound POP-CRASH… “Oh. There she is.” Clean up in aisle 3.

The Howard Johnson’s on Granville in Vancouver is really quite a nice hotel in a very sketchy neighborhood. The neighborhood really isn’t that bad, if you don’t mind the concentration of adult bookstores, peep show parlours, headshops and vagrants.We arrived Monday night with just enough time to watch the ‘Canes defeat the Oilers in the final game of the Stanley Cup (bummer if you’re Canadian). After carting a TON of stuff up to our rooms, it was off to a nice dinner on Robson Street, the shopping capitol of Western Canada. We ate seafood and and toasted to our future success with a nice BC Chardonnay (Burrowing Owl, hoo knew?) at Joe Forte’s. I’m not putting the picture of that toast up… but I’m sure John G or Melissa will.

The next day and night it was all prepping for Thursday’s prospect pitch meeting in Seattle. Spending hours together in the “Home Office Suite” at Hojos was awesome. I could tell that as a team we were really clicking. It also confirmed what I already knew, that this venture of ours is going to be wildly successful because the three of us are REALLY good at what we do. We make an awesome team.

We took a break from planning to go to the WINBC barbeque at the really cool campus of Nokia in Burnaby (more on that later, I’m sure from John G or Melissa, or both), then it was back to it in the Home Office Suite, now littered with empty Starbucks cups, food wrappers and random notes. We worked until our brains couldn’t work any further, but were back at it bright and early the next morning.

With the launch of MoPR official, the team heads on our first-ever team biz trip: offsite planning / industry-event / client-meeting / pitching tour of Vancouver BC and Seattle WA.

John S filled up the Family Truckster and headed to PDX to pick up John G who landed at 12:30. From there it was a straight shot to SeaTac to pick Melissa. Traffic through Tacoma SUCKED and we were an hour late getting to the Seattle airport. But in a sign of things to come, Melissa’s plane was also late making our arrival at the airport just minutes after Melissa got through baggage claim. She killed time hanging with a professional soccer team in the terminal.

Melissa got her brand new cell phone and took this self portrait. And thus is born the MoPR blog!