Week 161: E2E Testing
- elenalilamartin
- Feb 7
- 3 min read
Week 161: February 1st-7th, 2026
This week, I spent my time in Los Angeles at the ICANN office to participate in some end-to-end (E2E) testing of a system we've been tirelessly working on. It is part of the New gTLD Program: 2026 Round and we are set to launch at the end of April.
While I can't give many details about the testing itself or what we did specifically, I am happy to report the work my team and I have been doing is paying off. I am excited for program launch and while there are still some things to iron out, we have a pretty good foundation set up.
Whenever I'm required to stay in LA and report to the office for a full work week, ICANN pays for our hotel stays and expenses while we travel. I stayed at the Hilton Los Angeles Culver City again and enjoyed my morning commute of a five minute walk down the road. Apparently the Los Angeles Clippers training facility is part of this five minute walk, and this time I noticed the usual "honey" branding on the side of the building had been removed. I wonder if they no longer sponsor the Clippers after all the controversy over fraud and paying Kawhi Leonard.
Anyway, being in the office meant good food. All of my meals were paid for, and each day we had lunch catered at the office. For breakfast, I just got a bunch of yogurt and protein bars from the grocery store and kept them in the hotel room. Some more notable meals I had at the hotel via delivery were from Phorage and Mendocino Farms. Most notably, actually, was not the food from Phorage (though that was quite good), but the abomination of a CARDBOARD SPOON I had to suffer through using. It was truly an awful sensory experience and truly appalled me as a spoon enthusiast. I am all for compostable materials but CARDBOARD? Disgusting. Horrible mouth feel. Poor stain management. Next. While my lemongrass pho from Phorage was good, I truly cannot think of anything worse than using a cardboard spoon like that again.
The utensil material in all of my other meals was acceptable and not traumatizing, thankfully. I got to see my friend Bella for dinner one night and we went to Little Sister at The Point.
I braved the Los Angeles traffic and headed past LAX to meet Bella for dinner in El Segundo. Little Sister was thankfully one of the options we found with relatively easy parking and reservations. It was a cute, well decorated space and I loved catching up with my friend over dinner.
We had some really good dumplings, broken rice, and shaky beef. I had a "Glamonade" which supposedly was made with mint and fresh lemonade... but tasted eerily like a Simply brand lemonade...
The main outing we had planned was at Lucky Strike bowling alley. I almost didn't go because it had already been a long day and I was hitting the mid-week wall of Wednesday... but I figured it would be good to show face and enjoy some food. I didn't bowl because I can't put my fingers in bowling ball holes for fear of breaking my nails and because the thought of wearing shoes that many other people have worn is actually a nightmare.
After a full week of testing, after-work activities like bowling, and long days of taking meetings both in the office and from my hotel room, I was happy to get back to San Diego on Friday evening. My brain feels fried, not just from the traffic and the long days, but from the socializing with coworkers and being "on," even off work in the hotel lobby. I learned my lesson from last time where I greeted a colleague while I was in sweats filling up my water bottle by the hotel gym.
BONUS: I had to book it back before traffic got really bad so I could make it to my friend Amanda's birthday party. It was a simple girls' night where we each brought a wine pairing. I got a gewurztraminer and Unexpected Cheddar from Trader Joe's after a panicked Google search in the Trader Joe's parking lot. Thankfully it worked out and people liked it. I felt like a star gift-giver as well, because I gathered the troops and we all combined forces to get Amanda a Switch 2 for her birthday. Slowly and surely, I am turning my friends into gamers. I will be victorious.
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