Blog #238 I talked about Zappos acquires 6PM and Nike goes live.  In this blog I want to talk about the Zappos marathon a new puppy and a 60^th birthday party.

Zappos decides to sponsor a marathon to be held in Vegas. The runners would run part of it down the strip and the back part of the strip as well. The performance team would have a space nearby to sell merchandise as well. It was cool to see the hype and how excited everyone was. I am not a runner but decided to sign up for the half marathon which would be 13 miles.

I decided to look up how to prepare and there was plenty of content online for this. I started my training in September and December came along quick. Was not sure if I could run the whole 13 miles straight so I decided to do a run a mile walk a mile and see how it would go. I basically just wanted to finish. There were other people with the same mindset, so I ended up running with people who were in my level of running fitness and ended up with a decent time of 3;30 for my first one. I was satisfied with the result. Chris who was in the performance team did the whole marathon in about the same time which was incredible.

My son James had been living with me for a little while now and I took him on one trip to China, but I was going there so frequently he had to stay home sometimes by himself. With that, we decided to get a puppy to keep him company. I have had dogs my whole life. Had a poodle/terrier growing up, a few different collies and a lab too. Getting a Collie for Vegas with the long hair didn’t seem like a good idea and I didn’t want to deal with the shedding. I got a German Shepard for a brief time, but the back yard was to small so he basically tore it all up. I found a nice person to take him, and he had a big backyard too.

We decided on a Pug. Little did I know how much Pug’s shed their coat as they have three layers. Having a short coat, I didn’t think that was the case. Should have done my research. James and I went to a Puppy place and found the one he wanted. He was pretty funny, and we thought he’d be a great edition to our small family. I asked James what he wanted to name him, and he said he wanted to see his personality first. I was heading to China soon, so I was going to leave that to him.

Richard and I headed out soon afterwards. This trip was to find new factories as was always the case and strengthen our relationships with our current ones. Richard wanted to go to the Sun Yat-Sen Museum as we had some extra time after we landed. People in China refer to him as the “Father” of the nation similar to George Washington being our first president. It was very interesting as we toured the museum which was basically where he lived. When we got there a young Chinese girl wanted to take a photo with me as I was taller than most and from the USA.

The next day we toured some new factories, but none were what we needed at the time. We saw Chainson and Titan and Markon all of whom we had great relationships with. Our go to guy named Johnson usually would take us around to the different factories. I had arranged something with him earlier to surprise Richard with a Birthday dinner.

We arrive at the restaurant, and I pull out a gift the team bought Richard for his birthday. He was turning 60 so I felt it warranted some attention. They all signed the card and I presented it to him. The owners of the factory made sure we had an amazing dinner with multiple courses a few beers too. At the end the wheel out a pretty good size cake that looked delicious and it was. He was really surprised, and it made me feel good we could make him feel special on this special day. He had been a great travel partner for me, so I wanted to make sure he knew we appreciated him.