The past week has pretty much rocked. Four awesome things happened this month but one I’m just gonna keep to myself cause it’s pretty personal. I did want to share details of my first vacation. As you know, I started a new job yesterday and moved into a new apartment on Sunday so what’s up with this vacation?
For years, I’ve traveled quite a bit to tech conferences, meetups, events, parties and even for job interviews. Yeah, my United miles are really racking up. The thing is, I’ve never taken a true vacation. Sure I went to a wedding or two overnight and I did take two roadtrips last year (both sponsored and paid for by Ford Motor Company) but they weren’t vacations in the simplest means of the word.
After living in San Francisco for two years this June, it’s time to take a week off.
Each year, starting in 2004 I drove down to Miami for Ultra Music Festival. Living in Jacksonville, it was a 5 hour drive and, then it was only a one day festival. Last year, being in SF I couldn’t afford the flight but vowed I wouldn’t miss UMF 2010. In October, as soon as tickets went on sale at the kick ass pre-sale price of $99, I bought them. Near the event, tickets are $299 so it was a great price. I bought myself tickets for both days (Friday & Saturday).
What’s UMF? Well, it’s a 2-day music festival that follows WMC (Winter Music Conference) in Miami. UMF is a 10+ year festival that features the best musical acts in the world (about 95% of it is electronica / techno) and there are 12 stages and it goes from noon to midnight (12 hours). On Saturday, when the festival ends at midnight, there’s an after-party from midnight to 5AM in the basketball stadium across the street where the Miami Heat plays also known as the American Airlines Arena. The Winter Music Conference is a SXSW style conference with panels from DJs, producers, record labels and more but it’s mostly an industry event that I don’t care to attend.
My original plan was to spend the two days at UMF but I had this Virgin America credit for $150 and it had some restrictions so I had to fly in on Tuesday night for a festival that starts on Friday. What to do? Well, I rolled with it and in January, bought the ticket at a great price and will be staying in a hostel on south beach from Tuesday – Sunday. All of the years that I went to UMF in Miami and that one year I attended Photoshop World, I never once saw Miami Beach, laid out in the sun or spent a few hours at the clubs. This time is different.
Wednesday the 25th, I’ll be grabbing my swim shorts and lying out on the beach and partying that night, the next day I’ll be doing the same. Then, on Friday and Saturday I’ll be dancing my butt off for straight 12 hours or until I literally pass out which I actually did pass out in 2006 and was revived with a Red Bull and Bottle of Water around 8PM. An hour later, I was back in the Trance tent dancing again!
On Sunday, my friend Victor is driving back to Jacksonville and taking me with him, I’ll spend 3 days at home with family and flying out of Jacksonville on the 31st back to SFO.
This will be my first ever vacation where I’m going somewhere that requires extended travel and a hotel room that has nothing to do with work, business or technology. I’ve never been so freaking excited in my life. Techno, South Beach, Family, Friends and Dancing. This comes at the end of the month after I’m settled in to my new job and new apartment. I can’t fully describe the feeling I have writing this / saying this out loud and all of my friends in real life are tired of hearing about it I’m sure.
I know a few of my followers will be at UMF, of course they will. Nearly 100 thousand people invade Miami for one week as the best DJs in the world ascend on this lively beach town for the largest electronic gathering in the world. I’m gonna have a blast but as it’s my first real vacation, I couldn’t be more excited.