Alex Bain's Blog

TripIt.com: Use it

My friend, 'Dre, recently left a stable job at a huge company to live the dream at a sweet start-up: TripIt. The site is awesome, and she deserves to get rich as a result.

The concept is so simple: organize all of your travel itinerary details in one place, and make it dead simple.

Example: You book a flight through JetBlue.com, and they send you a confirmation email with the details. Forward the confirmation to Plans@TripIt.com, and you're set. But wait, you also make a reservation to eat on this trip through OpenTable.com. Forward their confirmation email to Plans@TripIt.com. You book a hotel, a car rental, a train ride? Forward on the info. What if you don't get a confirmation email? Their site is so easy to use, it doesn't matter. They do a better job of explaining their product than I do. Check out their explanation and demo.

It's well worth using if your traveling on your own, but the site really shines when you're coordinating travel across a group of people. Now everyone has one common place to share all their itinerary info.

2 other benefits that I can no longer live without:

1. They create a calendar based on all your info, which automatically pops up in my computer's calendar program, iCal, but works in Google Calendar, or whatever else you use.
2. If you have to drive anywhere while you're on your trip, and can pre-load directions from Google Maps, and they'll be built into your itinerary.

They have all sorts of fun little touches too, like being able to assign a custom picture to your trips so you can see which trip is which out of a list. This is the ideal kind of web2.0 site: well thought out and constantly improved.

Go sign up for an account, and the next time you book a flight, send them your info. You'll be hooked.

Eric Gagné on 'roids

I have no written proof, sadly, but the Mitchell Report supports what I have been saying out loud, to anyone that will listen, for months: Eric Gagné was a juicer. All season long, whenever he'd blow a save, I'd tell people that I was positive it was because he was off of "Vitamin S". The lesson learned is to write down my sports theories, so that I can take credit when they're proven accurate. I also knew that Veritek was not on 'roids, but suspected Trot Nixon might be.

It's not that I think this makes him a bad person. I don't think steroids are such a big problem for the sport, or that they taint all the records. But I do think we were fools to sign a guy whose achievements were the result of drugs, when he would have to pitch clean for us.

Here's a great quote from Chad Finn's blog on the topic:

Gagné was atop anyone's list of suspects - he went from a doughy fifth starter type to a pumped-and-jacked terror of a closer overnight, then suffered the requisite ligament, tendon, and back injuries often associated with PEDs - and it's funny how the Sox scout basically associates all of his success to steroid use. Forget knowing what we know now about Gagné. Knowing what they knew then, why did they ever trade for him? And how much buyer's remorse is Doug Melvin having at the moment?

Holiday parties

I love holiday party season. The cookies, the music, the fact that everyone is about to go home and see their family ... It all just puts me in such a good mood.

I caught a great moment from a holiday party last night. We were at my friend Paul's house, and a festive little beer game was taking place, and I happened to be filming during the climactic conclusion:

Johnny27: This is fantastic!

A friend of mine recently invested in a new startup called Johnny27, and it's a great product.

Here's the idea: you send a text message with any question you can think of to 272727, and you get a response in ~5 minutes or less with the answer. Questions can be broad, or really specific. The answers are thoughtful, typed by a human, and better than I could usually do with a laptop and a bunch of time to explore Google.

Examples form my Q&A with Johnny:

• Q: How much has Patriots player Rodney Harison [sic] been fined in his NFL career?
• A: Rodny Harrison has been fined $350,000 during his career. His last fine was $5000 during the Ravens game for tuanting [sic] the Ravens Coach.
• Q: Where is the best place in Cambridge to get a massage in Cambridge, MA, 7 where is the best pedicure? [Lisa was curious to see what they'd say]
• A: For a massage try Healthworks Fitness, they have a great spa 617-970-4454. They are also rated highly for their fabulous pedicures. Enjoy the spa!
• Q: What is a good recipe for eggnog?
• A: 1 qt. Whipping Cream. 1 qt. Bourbon Whiskey. 1 pt. Whole Milk. 1 pt. Brandy. Punch cup Rum, 12 eggs. Separte [sic] Yolks and Whites, mix separate & Combine
• Q: What's a good substitute for vermouth if I'm cooking and I'm out of vermouth?
• A: White win is a good substitute for vermouth in cooking. Try sauvignon blanc, if possible.

Sadly, it's not free. I'm in the middle of a beta period, where I get to try it for free, and then it becomes $1.99 per question. The price shoes up in my phone bill at the end of the month. I won't be using it for such trivial information, but I can definitely imagine using this to find a good restaurant when traveling, to settle bets over obscure sports statistics when out late with guys, or to get recommendations for all sorts of things I don't know much about (hotels, gift ideas, etc.). I'm pretty facile with Google on my iPhone, but there are situations where either I'm out of range from the EDGE network and can't surf the web or I am in the middle of something else and can't be bothered to tune everything out and stare at my phone. This is perfect for times like that.

It costs nothing to sign up. What do you have to lose? Check it out.

How to kill time and drive yourself crazy

When I worked in consulting, there were occasionally stretches of time at the office where I had to wait, either for someone else to finish work that I needed to do my own, or for a critical phone call to be returned.

This was common, and we would kill this time by challenging each other to silly games we found on the internet. We played a bunch of Oregon Trail, but the most popular game was always QB Challenge.

Nobody was better at this game than my buddy, Randall. The all-time highest score was 50K points, and Randall came within 50 points of the record over Thanksgiving in 2002.

I recently rediscovered this game, inadvertently, and noticed a new wrinkle that's been added. You don't play forever anymore, which is great news for Randall, who used to be able to play individual games that last over an hour. Now you get just 60 seconds to pile up points.

My record is 960. See if you can beat me.

Here's the link.

TriviaFix.com

One of the best things about having a blog is when people you don't know tell you that they enjoy your writing. In the last few months, I've received a handful of unsolicited invitations to try a product or check out a site based on someone reading AlexBain.com. Even if they just did search of people with Red Sox text on their pages, I'm excited to know that it's that easy to find me.

I got an email the other day from Dani Waxman at TriviaFix.com, and he mentioned that I might like his site based on what I've written about sports in the past.

I took a gander at his site, and it's excellent. I wish I'd thought of this. If you like sports trivia, give it a whirl.

The only foul ball I ever caught

Every word of what you're about to read is true, no matter how ridiculous it sounds:

In the summer of 2002, the Red Sox played the Braves [complete boxscore], and I flew back from San Francisco to catch the game. I brought 3 friends from Bain & Co, and it was their first time at the ball park.

In the top of the 7th inning, Julio Franco came up to bat with no outs after Rafael Furcal's leadoff double. The Sox then replaced starter, Frank Castillo with relief pitcher, Rich Garces. This at-bat would be interesting enough, because Franco would go on to become the oldest player in baseball history, and Garces might well have been the most obese.

It was at this moment that Franco fouled a ball into the stands, and one of my friends thought to ask me if I'd ever caught one. I was ashamed to say (and this is as close to verbatim as I can be 5.5 years later):

"No, I've never caught a ball. I've been to more than 200 games in these exact seats, and dozens more in other seats, and I've never been closer than 5 feet to a ball. I'm getting to an age where, if I do catch one, I'll have to give it to a nearby kid, which will kill me. My life will be truly incomplete if never catch one of those things."

Now, if there weren't witnesses, you wouldn't believe what I'm about to say, but there are people that can vouch for this: THE NEXT PITCH WAS HIT FOUL RIGHT NEAR ME!

It gets better. The ball is a screamer flying right at the girl in the seat next to me. She wisely ducks out of the way, the ball hits the back of her seat, and starts to sail back over the rail and away from us. I reach over the rail and pick it out of the air.

Now, I'm not only just happy about catching the ball, but I'm flabbergasted by the timing, and so is everyone that just heard what I had said. We all start jumping up and down, and screaming things like, "Are you kidding me?!?!?!"

Here's the funny part: Because the Sox were playing the Braves, whose games are always on TBS, it was televised across the nation. I start to get phone calls and text messages from people in California, Montana, and Florida.

I get home to San Francisco, and my friend, Jeremy, has saved the broadcast of the game on his TiVo. I watch it, and I see that the announcer, who obviously hadn't heard what I'd just said before catching the ball, watches me freaking out, and says, under his breath, "It's just a foul ball kid."

Now, the next season, the local cable station that televises Sox games decides to make a commercial about how our team has the best fans. They run a montage in this commercial of enthusiastic fans, and cap off the clips with the one of me reacting to the foul ball. This commercial played all year, once a game. It got to the point where even I got sick of seeing me jumping around like a buffoon.

[I have to track down a picture that was taken of me shortly after I caught this ball. I'll post it as soon as I find it.]

When the learning happens

I find that 95% of the lessons I'll remember from HBS were learned at one of two times:

1. The last 15 minutes of any class where the protagonist is in the room. We get a visit in about 1 out of 3 classes, and about 1 out of 4 of those visits I'll remember forever. Sometimes the entrepreneur has really practical advice, sometimes they're just inspiring, & sometimes their tale is cautionary.
2. The last day of any class. Professors usually gives a summer lecture at this point, and it helps me figure out why we sat through all the other cases. Personally, I rarely see the big picture after discussing something for 80 minutes, but I am entertained enough that those are enjoyable. After sitting through 20-30 of those per topic, if you tell me what I learned at the end of all that, it clicks all of a sudden. If I just sit through that lecture on the first day without the cases? I'm sure I fall asleep, miss everything, and claim it's irrelevant. The system works.

After 3 semesters, I'm finally seeing the pattern.

From 0 to Irish in 72 hours

Crazy weekend. My buddy, Paullie Walnuts, went to Notre Dame alum, & he wanted to expose a group of his friends to his alma mater.

Well, whatever you think about the Fighting Irish's football squad (they're in the middle of their worst season ever), I can tell you that seeing one of their games in person is an experience every sports fan should have once.

As a serious, longtime Red Sox fan, I know a lot about sports loyalty. I had never been to a big time college football game, but now I understand the vast gap between zeal for professional vs. college athletics. It's not even close. Sox fans are nuts, and I'm one of the nuttiest, but even tame Notre Dame fans would be considered over-the-top in Boston.

I wanted a truly authentic South Bend experience from this weekend, & that's exactly what we got. We walked around the campus a ton. We tailgated like crazy. We saw every second of the game. We listened to a CD of the bands common songs so we could sing along throughout the game. We even threw one of our friends in the air 21 times after the 3rd touchdown, b/c that's what tradition dictates.

2 key takeaways from my time in Indiana:

1. It's a lot of fun to be a part of a group with traditions & passion. I'm going to seek out these groups whenever I'm given options.
2. It's unhealthy and unproductive to spend 48-72 hours obsessing about a sporting event, from the time required to the food and drink associated with fandom. I saw this during the Sox playoff run, & now it's been reinforced. I only have room for so many of these experiences in my life.

These are somewhat contradictory. Perhaps I need to sped more time at tailgates and Sox playoff games to solidify my learnings :-)

The moments when I love Fenway

I love watching the Red Sox, but it's not just the team that makes a Sox game so special. It's also the stadium. Fenway has been a home away from home for me since I was a kid. I've been to as many as 33 games in a season (1995), and this year I've been to 26 (of which we won 21). I'm fortunate to get to spend a lot of time at such a beautiful, historic park, and I appreciate every minute I spend there.

I tried to catch a few of the moments that make the stadium special in the last few post-season games. Maybe they don't seem special to you, but they give me goosebumps...