I was eight years old, and I was standing right up next to the TV. Normally the parents would have scolded me and told me to sit back down on the couch, but not this time. I had my finger pressed to the screen and listened as David Copperfield was going to let us pick which train car he made disappear. I moved my finger up, then left and left again, down and right, up and back down. By the end of it, my finger was on the caboose, as was everyone else’s in the world (assuming they followed directions.) I was enraptured. He had read my mind from across the television. And now, I watched as he made the train car disappear.

I knew it wasn’t Magic, but it was something that wowed me and something I couldn’t figure out.

Magic was one of those hobbies which came and went, I never had the focus to really devote myself to it beyond a few simplistic card tricks. But I would dutifully come back to it every few months and I always enjoyed a good Magician special on TV.

I’ve reached an amateur level where I understand most of the mechanics and tricks without being able to recreate them on my own.

So when the trip to LA was lining up I discovered the Magic Castle, an entity and organization which had escaped my view throughout my life.

I was excited about this from the start and I knew it would be a highlight of the trip. Brian and I both packed our suits, ties and shoes and when it was time to get ready to go, we looked good. We made Penn and Teller jokes all night as I’m about a foot taller than Brian.

As we’re taking the elevator down, we’re in it with three people in t-shirts and shorts obviously curious why we were dressed to the nines. My cell phone tweets as I get a text message, and as the door opens to the elevator I pull it out, frown and look at Brian straight-faced as I say “My stocks are down.” It was completely spontaneous, but it just was how I felt. Dressed in a well fitting suit, staying at a four star hotel, and about to go out on the town. In truth it was a text from K telling us to have fun at the Magic Castle.

We get the guy in the top hat and red tailed jacket to hail a taxi for us, and we head off to the Magic castle. We had dinner reservations at 9:30 but we had both eaten around 4 so we weren’t too hungry.

When you arrive at the Magic castle, you enter the ante room where you check-in. Then after checking in you have to speak the magic words to an owl on the book shelf for it to reveal the bar area. It’s silly and absurd but an amazing piece for the feel and aura of the place. I won’t tell you all what the magic phrase is, but it was cute.

So we end up chilling in the bar and discover that the close-up magician’s last show has only 1 seat open. Now the  There were two Asian guys in line in front of us who decided not to split up so it came to Brian and I, we sort of looked at each other and he was the first to say “You go.” I tried to, but honestly, I wanted to see Eugene Burger very badly. Thanks Brian!

The show was fun, short and entertaining. He did some awesome tricks which boggle the mind.

They work very hard to make the Magic Castle feel right. It’s a Victorian home, lots of wood, carvings, paintings etc. They also disallow any photography inside the place etc. I wanted to get a photo with Eugene but I followed the rules, settling for a handshake after the show.

I reconvened with Brian who was chatting with a girl at the bar, it ended up that she was the daughter of one of the head honchos at the Magic castle. It was a fun conversation, discussing various things before it was time for our dinner reservation. We got seated and relaxed, ordering just appetizers each. We tipped well since the waiters obviously didn’t want us to order so little. The food was great. From there we got our tickets to the 11 o’clock show with Jeff McBride.

JEFF McBRIDE. Do you know who he is? He’s awesome! Watch this Youtube video. He’s another Magician I had seen numerous times on TV and actually watched one of his teaching DVDs. He’s a judge on CelebraCadabra, a reality show on VH1 that makes C-list celebs into magicians. In short, he’s amazing. And his show did not disappoint. Brian and I discussed his show for the next few days trying to figure out his tricks but a number of them completely escape us.

In short, it was mesmerizing and fascinating to watch a master work. We were in the second row and it was an experience of a lifetime. I can’t wait to go back.

When we left we asked the front desk to call a cab for us and we stepped outside to wait. As we’re waiting we strike up a conversation with this other couple who had called a cab but had someone jump in before them. So when our taxi pulls up we go to get in and they pick that moment to ask to split the ride with us. I should have said no, but I’m too damn nice.

Their hotel is on Sunset, the girl says the name and when the driver doesn’t immediately confirm that he knows where it is she begins reeling off the address. It’s moment’s later I realize that both of them are drunk. Now, I don’t have great drunkdar, I really can’t tell unless they’re slobberingly drunk. We’re chit-chatting and we get to the address the girl had named off and it obviously wasn’t her hotel. So this sets the driver off (who had previously cursed at a guy in another car) and the woman begins trying to quash the fire while the drunk guy in the back begins muttering that he’s going to get out as soon as we stop, wherever it is.

We end up making it to the hotel, the driver had known the address. They get out and the guy has to go get change. He flashed the driver a Franklin before half stumbling inside to get change. Brian had tried to stop him as he could make change but we end up waiting a few minutes for the guy to come back out. The fare had been $17 and they gave the driver a twenty.

Brian and I are apologizing the entire way to our hotel, we didn’t know how drunk they were. He’s a nice enough guy, just tired and since he’s a foreigner he has to deal with people not understanding his accent and such. We tip him well and call it a night.

Man, that night was awesome.

I just twittered this idea but I want to push it further:

Monitor twitter for tweets about being sick. Cross that info with the user’s geo info. Collect all this information. Then build a sick map of the world about where people are feeling sick. Show hot spots, trends, etc. I’ll add it to the list.

Maybe I’ll have insomnia one night and hammer it out.

I just got back from Los Angeles last night. The weekend went very well with lots of networking and interviews getting done, I also did a lot of networking and it was funny, as soon as I asked someone their email address and they began saying “firstname.lastname” I knew it was at gmail.com.

On the flight I was pondering just why it is that everyone has the mature email address at gmail. I mean, 99% of the time that’s the way it is. Then I realized why: It came about when Generation Y was entering the work force.

Hotmail and Yahoo may be as old as the Internet, but that means we all have emails like “masterblaster1968@hotmail.com” (my apologies to whoever has that email address.) They were the geek names, the identities we used online when the idea was anonymity. The Internet has grown and matured and now it is used to build your real name for school and employers.

Yahoo, a few years ago allowed their users to change their name, which is when I got a mature yahoo email address as well, but I never use it. Why? I was already established in Gmail.

Gmail simply hit the nail on the head when many of us didn’t realize the board was loose. The right interface, great storage, and the better features were all factors in a major coup for a market many considered to be a solved system.

Now sadly the Gmail interface is falling behind. We rely on tools like Gina Trapani’s Better Gmail firefox plugin, and other such apps to increase it’s usefulness. Rumor is that Google is working on an upgrade but we haven’t seen it yet. Now we’re hearing things of a company called zenbe.com (I’m working on a review of it actually) and Xobni for Outlook.

So, is Gmail the king? No, it will be dethroned. But it was a major stepping stone for the realm of email, moving us past limited space into lifetimes of email, from folders and into tagging, and more!

I’m about to leave for the airport, make my way to Atlanta and then go to Hollywood! To keep track of my escapades and adventure, follow me on twitter: http://www.twitter.com/trickjarrett

photo credit: donielle

Also, if there were any doubt how sweet and awesome my grandmother is, she’s convinced this trip is going to be my big break and that I’ll never come back from the west coast. I’ve done my best to calm her down, but just between you and me - if I do make it big without trying, I ain’t going to give it up. I’ll have to bring K and grand mom out to LA!

Alright, I’m leaving now.

I could write about the chaos yesterday and having all the sites down for over a day but that was enough stress that I will just let it wash away. Suffice it to say that things went horribly wrong and those put in charge of fixing it were inept.

So I choose to instead turn to a highlight of my week. My contacts! I’m on day three of wearing them, the goal being that tomorrow will be a full day of them (including an airplane trip!) Today should be around 8 hours of wearing them, maybe more if I can keep going. It’s quite exciting for me.

I had always been extremely sensitive to eye drops and so I figured that it meant I couldn’t wear contacts because my eyes were too sensitive. But my glasses have always been an annoyance, I’m tired of wearing them, I want to look cooler and be cooler and since I host a video podcast I want to look cooler for it too. Having to wear glasses will also seriously hamper my Hollywood career, which my grandmother is convinced will be kicked off by my trip out there next week.

Who knows, maybe I’ll go make my name in Bollywood!

For a long time, I didn’t think I could wear contacts. Ever. My eyes are super sensitive to eye drops and so I just thought I would never get to wear contacts and I had come to peace with always wearing glasses.

A few weeks ago I decided that I wanted to try anyways, so I setup an eye appointment. I had to find out where my eye insurance was taken, and it turns out that it’s accepted at… Wal-Mart. Yeah, I had to go to the Wal-Mart Vision Center. To be fair though, it is a real eye doctor and he’s attached to the mega mart. Unfortunately though, his employees are… on par with other Wal-Mart employees. Sit back and listen as I tell you the tale.

The appointment went well, they had to order my contacts so I left and waited for them to call me when the contacts arrived. I had been told it would take a week at most for them to get in. Well, after two weeks I called the eye doctor and had to be put through the ringer as they tried to figure out what had happened.

Eventually the girl came back and asked, “Did you want to get frames?”

*facesmack*

“No, I wanted contacts. You guys were ordering them for me.”

“Oh, okay, well let me go look into it.”

A few minutes later she come back and said “Well we had ordered your contacts, but I’m not taking any chances so I’ve ordered another pair for you.” What I heard was “We messed up and we’re scrambling now.” So another week passed before finally getting called and heading down to pick up the contacts.

Now, you’re supposed to be given a walk through on how to put in and wear your contacts but when I arrived the guy there gave me my contacts and sent me on my way. I was already confused but we tried to put the contacts in and had issues. Namely that I couldn’t get them in and when I tried for the second time I dropped it and, like contacts do, it disappeared.

So the next day, after three weeks of delays, I call the eye doctor and request a replacement for my lost contact.

That was two weeks ago. Today I called them and inquired about my contacts. Lo-and-behold my contacts had arrived but no one had called.

After work I head down there and get there around 6:45pm and they’re all sitting around in the display area. I explain what’s going on and the Doc is visibly upset that I was sent out last time without a walk through about the contacts. They lead me into the back room and sit me down to watch a DVD about putting on my contacts.

As I’m watching this DVD though one of the women comes back and says “Well we’re supposed to leave at 7 and do you mind coming back for an appointment?”

In my mind I’m saying: HELL NO. NO NO NO. F*CK NO.

I actually said, “Well, I work 9-6 this week and I leave for the weekend on Friday so…”

She turns and heads off saying that she’ll work it out. I settle back down to watch the amazing Oscar winning DVD about wearing contacts.

After the DVD finishes another woman comes back to work me through with the contacts, first she puts the contacts in my eyes, then I get the opportunity to do it. I put them in and take them out, then pack up ready to leave. Well no, as it turns out, they want me to wear them for three hours tonight. So I’m wearing them now and here is a pic of just how I look without my glasses.

Well I’ve given them the necessary time to process the fax and such, so this morning at 8 am I called Citibank to begin trying to push them to return my money. However this morning quickly devolved into moronic corporate buffoonery.

I think this is the core of my issues with banks. They charge so many fees to cover their expansive staffing, yet every employee seems like a retard. This very morning while trying to get an answer I spoke with a girl who identified herself as Maria in her Hindi accent. We spoke for twenty minutes and at the end of it she still didn’t understand what was going on, how do I know? After I explained my issues were with the IRS she transfers me to the IRA department. I even hear her say IRA and I clarify “No, not the IRA, my issues are with the IRS.” She assures me this is the proper number, lo and behold - I’m talking with Dennis about my retirement options.

At this point I just about throw my phone out the window and had K not been sleeping I would have let out a cry of anguish and frustration sure to shake the neighbors.

I call Citibank back at their number and blessedly I get a guy with his shit together, I explain my frustrations and he immediately moves to escalate my issue, unfortunately it’s ten more minutes before he is able to connect me with a manager.

I now explain the story for the fifteenth time to Ricardo, explaining how the IRS did what it did and why, he understands and confirms that my fax did indeed go to the right number but it wasn’t in the system so something happened somewhere. Unfortunately, he can’t talk to the department because… they’re not open. He has to wait until 10am EST before he can speak to them. He takes my number and will call me after speaking with them.

Before we hung up I explained my utter frustration. The issue is that banks (and other very large organizations) deal with so much information and it’s so sharded between offices and call centers and their system for handling it is so piss poor that I had one of their people direct me to the IRA department for my IRS issues. My problem isn’t with it being outsourced, I’m all for outsourcing to raise the economic levels elsewhere - but this woman worked for a banking group and yet she didn’t know the difference between an IRA and the IRS?! That’s retarded, stupid and simply inexcusable.

He agreed and apologized profusely but I will withhold and kind returns until this issue is resolved and my bank account has money again.