Working in this space brings me to a lot of cool events. I was lucky that someone invited me to a workshop where Uri Levine, the cofounder of Waze was speaking.

University parking bites no matter what campus. I’ve never been to a campus and said “Oh how awesome, an appropriate number of parking spots so that people aren’t freaking out over the fact that we are already late and I still have to pay for parking” hypothetically of course.

Naturally when we got there parking was full AF. Other drivers were circling around like vultures. There was an overflow lot so after one merry-go-round of no parking we pulled out the map and looked for overflow. Right across the street, perfect!

There were signs everywhere saying you needed either a permit or to pay for parking. That’s cool. So after we parked I went to the machine. Broken, of course. There was a sign with a QR code for their fancy pants app. The 1.2 stars was not very reassuring. Luckily when I opened it I still had to make a profile on this clunky app. I am sure the security of this is top notch but I’m in a hurry. Sometimes I wish I didn’t know so much about cybersecurity but immediately dismiss that thought because that’s crazy.

Time pressure pushes me to do this and I’m anxious about it but whatever. Breach fatigue hits me too but this time I won’t have any excuse if things go wrong because I know better. Trying to figure out this app is like trying to swim in mud but I manage to input this car with my email and all that fun stuff. I can’t find a way to pay for like three minutes which is two and a half minutes too long for this shit.

I’m a genius so my genius idea is to go across the street and use the machine there and then run the receipt back to throw on the dash. We go across the street to find another broken machine which honestly, feels so fitting. Luckily there was another sandwich board with a QR code to that fabulous app.

Well shit.

I remember that there was something about parking in the email. I open and instead of the app there’s a link to a website related to the app.

My friend is trying to do this too.

Now we’re racing each other to figure this out when she says “It’s $6.” TF I’m still trying to figure out how to find out how to pay.

Natalie: 1
Rhea Lynn: 0

My favorite part of any keynote is the Q&A. Someone said in entrepreneurship the point is to make as much money as possible and Uri said that money was a byproduct of bringing value. I thought that was so cool. I’m a mission aligned founder and that is my favorite kind of founder [heart] my people!

Two other fun mini stories from today:

1. I ran into a VC I knew at the event and he said he was just about to contact me because he wanted my opinion on something. Hmmm… that VC yesterday, and now this? There was a VC last year that was giving me a bunch of ideas too. Could this be the start of my term sheet lottery ticket? LOL jk, I’m bootstrapping. Anyway, of course I said yes, and told him what I needed and what I’d give him.

2. I completely forgot that today I was supposed to meet someone just to catch up. AH, lol, I’m lowkey bummed bc I was actually really excited, and she messaged me to ask if we were still meeting up. YO, honestly I didn’t even remember what day it was and haven’t for a long time. I think that’s what happens when you work every day, all the days turn into Monday. I asked if we could reschedule in April because of this conference and she said “Show that conference that you kick ass!” LOL mamitas, I’m just on an expo pass and if you know me at all, even just through this blog then you will know how I feel about going to anything. I’m sure there are 10k trains of low grade anxiety running through me about that but I didn’t want to stop and look for it in case I might find it. But she was so enthusiastic about it, and I wasn’t expecting it, it shook me out of whatever work thing I was thinking about, and I was like oh LOL, aw yay thanks.

Hmm that last one was longer than I was expecting, but anyway, the point is, TELL YOUR FRIENDS SOME CUTE ENCOURAGING SHIT! IT WILL SHAKE THEM INTO FUN! DO IT!

Broken parking payment machines encountered: 2
Random snacks eaten from the student store because I didn’t realize that this was day one of the workshop and I didn’t eat lunch and this gets out at 7 lolol: 2
Books signed: 1
Times I got lucky today alone: Too many to count