blog.maestro.fm

After a blistering 2 weeks of gameplay, we have our first league champion.  Of course, while there will be many more to come, but I say, the first is the best.  Mostly I say this because:

Aaron – 46 wins – Current Leader!
Greg – 43 wins
Clarkson – 33 wins
Daniel – 12 wins (evidently racquetball doesn’t translate well to ping-pong)

Excuses have run rampant through the player ranks.  For instance, Clarkson missed several days in the office due to a NYC trip.  But if baseball players have to play through injuries and rain, no business trip shall stand as an excuse in the MOPPL. Nonetheless, schedule modifications were made in an attempt to rebalance the total matches played by the competitors.  Daniel…well, what to say about Daniel.  Considering his history of sensational racket sports, we expected more from him.  It seems he just wasn’t prepared for the smaller table size.  Good natured ribbing and jokes likely worsened the scenario.

Several sensational matches played out between Greg and Aaron in the MOPPL Arena, as the proverbial cream rose to the top.  Emotions ran high during the half dozen matches that went deep into overtime periods.  Thank heavens no children were around to hear some of the foul, raucous language spit forth from demoralized losers of many a hard-fought match. No serious injuries were suffered; however, one cell phone screen was unfortunately lost due to a run-in with a table edge, and 1 ping pong ball was lost to a hungry and rather sizeable Bull Mastiff.

Given our endless need for new outlets to release the Maestro team’s overflowing energy into, along with the instinctive and, well, mostly good-natured competitive spirit that burns in the Maestro team members, a new addition has been made to the home office: Ping Pong.  Let the games begin!

Now, with our current operational budget leaning just a tad towards the conservative side, our “ping pong arena” is…well, what most of you would refer to as a conference room.  It consists of a small metal clamp and green net found at a dollar store attached to the middle of the table in our main conference area.  Of course, sides were measured down to the last inch to ensure fair play for all regardless of side choice (although some people…Daniel…still insist on only playing from their particular “favorite” side).  A couple of paddles and ping pong balls later, and we’ve got ourselves a game!

Standings will be kept based on overall win totals, partly because winning is what matters most, partly because we’re too lazy to track total matches played, and partly because our measly scoreboard just can’t fit that much data.  Expert league analysis has predictions of Clarkson, who grew up with a ping pong table, as the early favorite.  Eyes will also be on Daniel, who spent his earlier years as a sponsored pro racquetball player. However, all will be handicapped by the…lackluster size…of the ping pong table.  Power will often need to be sacrificed for finesse in the matches to come.  It’s an open field…who shall reign victorious!?

On a more personal note…we have also just now learned that the heat emanating from two semi-competitive ping pong players during a 3 game match of 11 point, win by 2, games is enough to heat up a small conference room several degrees!  Much to our chagrin, we have little way to combat the atmospheric changes, as our air conditioning system appears to care little for our new hobby.  Evening matches will likely take precedence over day games when the sun shines brightly through our windowed court.

After Day 1, the standings are:
Aaron – 4 wins
Clarkson – 5 wins
Daniel – 2 wins
Greg – 4 wins

And so begins the Maestro Official Ping Pong League (MOPPL).

Aaron accepts defeat.

“I’m going to crush you” - Greg

For those of you concerned at home, we have been fighting the good fight, and continue to hold our ground against the torrid squirrel attacks that besiege our fine corporate headquarters. They’ve got the numbers, but we’ve got the height…and a used paintball gun. Troy may have fallen, but Maestro will not (although ironically, a tooth-baring attempt was made on Greg’s achilles by a vicious squirrel warrior during a recent skirmish)! Their tactics are ruthless, and we have called for aid from our internet providers.

Weeks into the standoff, and we have just received word that our internet provider has been hard at work amassing a legion of cable layers, and other necessary workers for finalization of the big fix. Spirits are high upon receipt of the news, several early 90’s sports arena pump-up songs have been blasted from office speakers, and we expect to break our merciless adversaries soon.

Addition: It’s official! Viiccctoryyy!! New cables have been laid, and our internet is running better then ever. Tonight we celebrate, and toast our fallen comrades lost to the Great Squirrel War of 2008. A warning for those of you out there, who don’t believe this fate could happen to you….well, it could! Be wary.

Final Score: Maestro 1, Squirrels 0.

Here’s an issue that should have some pretty divided answers: caffeine – evil or life-saving? Personally, I’m not a big fan, it seems to get along rather poorly with my stomach. There are, however, a few others in the Maestro office that would beg to differ. Leading their cause is Blair, a man who never saw a caffeinated beverage he didn’t like, or quickly chug down before someone else could get their quivering hands away from the next fix.

Now, I suppose my stance here is half-hearted. Since I tend to stay away from the stuff, I don’t feel all that strongly about it one way or the other. To each their own, I say! But Blair….how can I put this….Blair may be bordering on obsession. Is there a place you can bring someone for caffeine-rehab? Because, well, just take a look at his desk in the office, and I think you’ll understand:

Never say we don’t work late hours here at Maestro HQ!

So, what have you accomplished today? Oh, not much, since apparently a pack of ravenous squirrels has chewed away at our nearby cable internet lines, and knocked us back into the days before internet. How did people do this!? How did they accomplish anything? Surely, there were things more important to do today than type up a blog entry, offline mind you, to be placed on the web at a later date, for a bit of reader enjoyment at our expense?  But alas, here we stand.

You know, they say startup life can be difficult, but they never mention the potential damage control required to combat nearby wildlife. Our CTO, who happens to be a major proponent of Murphy’s Law existing here at Maestro HQ, is visibly shaken, and one has to wonder if a band of wild chipmunks could take down our operation entirely.

And if that wasn’t enough, we’ve got underground springs pouring water into the center of our office. Trust us, we couldn’t make this up if we tried. This freshwater miracle managed to pop up literally underneath a giant power strip that has about 20 cords coming out of it. Dangerous? Um, perhaps…perhaps. At least the squirrels will have something to drink when they’re done.

If YOU happen to have the internet, hope you’re enjoying it. Seriously, it must be nice, so go ahead and enjoy. Hope you’re using Maestro while you’re surfing away on there, good thing our servers are hosted elsewhere. We’re off to buy some oversized mouse traps…wish us luck.

• Professional movers… $0 (c’mon, we’re on a startup budget)
• Insurance… $0 (insurance is overrated…you break it, you bought it)
• Duct Tape… $92 (everyone loves duct tape)
• Uhaul… $34
• Getting Out of Corporate Office Complex Hell… PRICELESS

Perhaps a quick bit of background is needed here, as to just why Maestro has chosen to change our office location. There’s two reasons, and you can choose for yourself just which was the more driving force:

1. Having a group of “individualists,” or entrepreneurs as we call them in the business world, run around working at all hours of the day in night, in all manners of clothing, smack dab in the middle of a very haughty suburban corporate office complex was not exactly leading to friendly neighborhood banter on Floor 3 of Building A, and
2. Our lease termination snuck up us and they already leased the office to someone else. (don’t think they wanted us for another year anyway)

In retrospect, the incidental humor of having 5 startup guys, with little to no moving experience, put in charge of moving our entire Maestro HQ office across the city in only 1 day should probably have been expected. But at the time, our only thought was “oh crap, our lease ends tomorrow, it’s time to go…NOW.” It’s not as much that the day snuck up on us…more so that we just kept putting off dealing with it until day of – I mean we’re running a startup here you know? We are busy writing code and stuff.

Back to the move. Since we didn’t have any movers, any necessary moving equipment, we chose to use our office chairs as moving dolleys, and upside-down tables as makeshift box organizers. Thank goodness for duct tape, or who knows what would have happened to all those programming books our CTO collects.

Additionally, we found out that morning that you are supposed to apply for a permit to move out of the office. It was a bit too late for that, so clandestine move it had to be. As our scouts took walks past the management office waiting for them to leave at the end of the day, the rest of the team staged the escape and mapped out routes to the service elevators. Last thing to do was convince the night cleaning staff and security that a bunch of t-shirt wearing guys (some in flip-flops) were supposed to be doing this. It took every made up story and dead on sprint we had in us to avoid being stopped mid-move, and by the time the truck was packed up, there was no stopping us. We just said it was Halloween and things aren’t supposed to make sense on that day.

11:35pm, and we’ve done it. We have “packed” our entire office, and everything we hold dear, into 1 tiny little Uhaul truck, with not a single broken item (editors 2nd note: half our furniture is already banged up or broken, so honestly, that’s not saying a whole lot). With Greg at the wheel, Blair in charge of navigation, and the rest of us making up a rag-tag convoy behind the truck, Maestro Inc. makes its way down Highway 400 to our new office…15 minutes away on a good day, but light years away by Atlanta standards. I mean where does this traffic come from at midnight on a Wednesday?

The team went out to a local bar for drinks after to celebrate our emancipation from the complex and it’s constant string of sideways glances in our direction, but no one can seem to remember what happened after we got there…

Our new office!
(yes, that is a garage door)