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So it is the first day back from vacation and the first day at HubSpot's new office in the Davenport building.  Check out the new office below before people move in and make it their own.

Tomorrow I head back to the Upstate (SC) for a short visit with the family before heading back up to Boston and a hopefully "The Hangover" style Vegas vacation with some old college buddies.  It has been a great relaxing week.  I've been able to do some blogging, think big picture strategy and of course lots of sun.  It feels like I have gotten a years worth of Vitamin D this last week if you know what I mean.

This week has also been an opportunity to see some old friends.  Enjoy the video and pictures below.

Yesterday we took a trip to New Hampshire Motor Speedway.  It was a good time with Brian Whalley, Jason Allgire and Heather.  I had these grand dreams of taking lots of pictures this year to make all the people who didn't go jealous.  At the end of the day I only took a few, below.  Great weather and great racing and another Kyle (Busch) won the race for the second year in row.

The first week of February, Heather and I took a much needed vacation.  If we have to live in the COLD weather that is Boston, at least we can get away in the middle of winter for a trip to warmer weather. 

So we took a trip on the Carnival Liberty cruise ship to the Western Caribbean.   We stopped in Cozumel, Grand Cayman and Jamaica. We took plenty of pictures, so here they are...

Last week I was in Chicago for the eduWEB conference.  It was an awesome conference.  Not only did my presentation on SEO for Higher Education go extremely well and get fantastic feedback, but .eduGuru WON the eduStyle People's Choice award for Best Higher Education Blog.  Of course all that aside it was just a fantastic chance to hang out with all the wonderful people in Higher Education Web that I just haven't had the time to since taking my new job. 

I'm won't get into everything about the conference in this post, but I do want to share some of my pictures exploring Chicago.  One of my favorite times during the trip was while hanging out with my buddy tsand on Wednesday when we went out to meet the PlaidNation crew.  What an interesting way to take a vacation while also building brand awareness and documenting the whole adventure!  So I'll shut up now and share some pictures.

Navy Pier

Around Chicago with tsand

So yesterday, May 2nd 2009, my girlfriend graduated college.  I know that it was a huge day for her and the weather couldn't have been much more enjoyable.  A little overcast so that it wasn't unbearably hot and just a gorgeous May day!  Of course me being the person I am when Heather asked me to bring one of my favorite toys, my Nikon D90, and take pictures I was most happy to oblige.  Congratulations baby!

On Friday Twitter Co-Founder Biz Stone came to HubSpot in marking our 3rd Twitter approach to getting celebrities to visit our little office in Cambridge.  So before The story and controversy of the even it well documented on twitter using the #bizinboston hashtag.  I won't get into all that, but I will share some pictures that I took of the event.  Enjoy!

Last night was my friendLara Simpson's 24th birthday. Lara and I go WAY back. Way back meaning when Lara was just a little freshman in college and needed someone to fix her computer, I just happened to be the guy working the IT Help Desk that night. I won't get into the whole story, but a few years later Lara was the first student I hired as Webmaster at Wofford and I like to think that the little letter of recommendation that I wrote for her helped to get her into Emerson for grad school (hey Lara even if we know you're just a Bad Ass and it didn't really help let's just pretend like it did!). So anyway Lara led the way to Boston and when I was contemplating the move up here she was one of the first people that I contacted to explore the idea.

So Happy Birthday Lara! Great time last night hanging out and meeting all your friends and I wish you nothing but the best as you shoot for the stars! Although I don't get to claim to be your boss anymore you have been and always will be a great friend.

It's not the Bar it's the Relationships

Something else that I was thinking about last night on the walk home was from a conversation I had with someone last night. We are always wanting to check out new places and looking for the perfect bar to hang out. Boston has its famous Cheers thanks to a certain television show back in the 1980s. Although we are always looking for a great new place to hang out that has the best drinks in town at the end of the night it always comes back to the friends and the relationships that you build with those people. A bar is a bar, but the people who you spend time with is what you remember the next day or a decade later.

So next time you plan to go out don't stress it trying to find the perfect place, spend the time to make sure that you have all the people whose company you want to enjoy on the same page to spend the time together.

So today was my birthday. I'll be the first to admit that I'm not much of a birthday person. In fact I usually try to sneak by another birthday without anyone noticing. So although I flew back to South Carolina for a long weekend it was more to see friends and fill out some loose ends in the move to Boston instead of a social calling. It was great to see the family and some friends in South Carolina, but to prove my point today, my birthday, was suppose to be filled with travel as I make the 1,000 mile trip back to Boston. Still this being my lifestream I have to document the adventures of the day somewhere.

White Birthday In March... In South Carolina

So we had a gigantic snow storm come through last night and today which really did a number on much of the travel. Although they didn't get a foot of snow in Boston, we probably got a good six inches in South Carolina. That is the kind of huge snow storm that we only get every few years down here. It was actually kind of interesting how immune I have gotten to snow after only two months in Boston as it seemed like just a little blizzard instead of A BIG DEAL.

So needless to say my flights were canceled and I've enjoyed an extra day in South Carolina. I've been telling people all day that as far as I can tell I've never experienced a White Christmas and here I get a White Birthday!

The Surprise Party Event

So somehow the cat got out of the bag this year and people found out that today is my Birthday. The rest of the .eduGuru team got together and put together a little blog post announcement and it was off to the races in Twitter and Facebook birthday wishes. Rachel and Nikki suggested that people start following the @eduGuru account on twitter and people ran with it. There was even a little hashtag created, #happybdayKyle, that I'm still trying to keep up with.  It also helped that our quite social friend Chris Brogan helped us spread the word and the Twitter account started to skyrocket!  We call this "The Brogan Effect".

Secret Marketing Tip: Turn an event like a birthday into a marketing campaign to get new readers and get the support of your full network to help promote the event.

Finally our favorite "YouTube Comedian" Todd Sanders took the time to send me a birthday cake... or two. Yes Todd I just called you a YouTube Comedian... that's the perfect word to describe what you do.

Everyone THANK YOU! I'm so blessed to have a wonderful network of friends! Watch out now because we all have Birthday's and yours will come up sooner or later.  ;)

Wow what a wild last week at HubSpot. Long work days into the night, but that's more of the norm now than the exception. I'm not complaining, "it simply is what it is". Between these two events on Thursday and Friday it became obvious a blog post was in order.

HubSpot 1K Customer Party

That's right HubSpot crossed the 1,000 customer plateau and that meant time to have a celebration with the customer base. I'm really not sure of the exact turnout but I was on Photographer duty and brought Rock Band for some good time at work including this "EPIC" performance by Ben Smith.

Enjoy these photos from the event.

MC Hammer makes an appearance on HubSpot TV

So some of the guys got on Twitter and asked @MCHammer to stop by the studio and make an appearance and what about him actually doing it! I spent most of the event attempting to answer support calls over the massive cheering and but did hear this quote with everyone else:

"forget the numbers, just be interesting." -MC Hammer

So cool! I snapped a few pictures of the event, but this has to be the gem.

For more information about either of these events be sure to checkout HubSpot's Company Blog.

• Good Times For All at HubSpot 1K Customer Party
• MC Hammer Drops by for Camera Time on HubSpot.TV