leaving...

I'm about to leave the world of the connected for a few days, but I'll be back soon with fun tales of new years in LA and CES in Vegas! :) Have a wonderful new year everyone and I'll see you all again soon!

oil changes

So I went to get an oil change today at my dealer (they give me free oil changes for life) but they told me they were too busy for oil changes today! Too busy? They said if I really wanted one, it would be a 3 hour wait! So after heading into work for a bit, I went to another dealer in Schaumburg who had me in and out in 15 minutes and gave me a motorola discount. Not free, but totally worth it!

lots of thinking going on about a lot of different things...will write more about all that later!

Phantom (again)

Saw Phantom again today with Lauraf, Kelle, and crew. Fun times :) But as much as I tried, I couldn't side with the Phantom. I mean come on, after he raised his voice and yelled at Christine for taking off his mask, how could you like the guy? And then he goes and kills some people...and lies to her... Not the sort of man she deserves :) Then we ate burritos...mmm :)

Oh, and America The Book is very very hilarious. I can't put it down! Good thing I don't have to work tomorrow! (but I sort of do cause I have stuff to finish...but that can happen later in the day) :)

Merry Christmas!!

Merry Christmas everyone!!! Today was a fun Christmas with the family up in Wheeling! I'll just offer a few random comments...

1) Having my dad take my side in political discussions is bizarre, but awesome...especially when he quotes something he heard on BBC news!!!!! It's like I'm living in some parallel universe :)
2) I now have America The Book, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, and a cool book on Wrigley to read thanks to awesome friends and family!!
3) My dad loved his iPod!!! :)
4) My mom got me a Noam Chomsky DVD!!!! Yay!

OK...it's been a long day, I'm off to bed!

old days....

I totally love my friends from high school! Elizabeth had a Christmas party tonight and it was just so awesome to see everyone again and see what everyone is doing...from working in NYC, to going to law school, or med school, or phd's in archeology, my high school friends are doing some pretty amazing things. And they're all awesome to hang out with! I wish I could see them all more often! Who says wheeling people aren't awesome? :)

OK...off to bed for me! I hope everyone has a very wonderful Christmas!!! :)

Phantom Fun!

Tonight was a fun night!!! Hung out with Stacie, Alison, and Stacie's brother and went to go see Phantom on the South Side. Yes, I could have driven to Madison in the time it took me to get to Palos in rush hour, but it's all good cause they all rock and the movie was incredible!!!!!!!! Incredible!!!!!! If you loved the musical, you'll love the movie....except for the random words they changed here or there which are just bizarre :) But yes, highly recommended! It was awesome!

The MIT Christmas party last night was really fun too...except for their heat going on when it was like 10 degrees outside!! But we warmed up in at Rock Bottom afterwards, so all was good :)

I'm off to work again tomorrow, so I should be getting to bed! Have a great Christmas everyone!!! :)

wtf?

Time Names Bush Person of the Year ?????????? again, wtf????? But at least he signs his own letters

fun!

Had fun at my friend Stacie's Christmas party last night! And she even bought Silk Nog and made vegan chocolate cake! :) You rock Stacie!!! And let's continue on the Frank's small world stories...so it turns out that a really good friend of Stacie's from work not only went to college with Deborah, one of my really good friends from high school, but sang with her in a school group and went to church together! So so so random.

done shopping!

Went shopping today after work! Yay! And I'm done!! Yay! One hour of shopping took care of all my non-china shopping. I spent a lot...but certain people like my dad are going to really be happy :)

new O'Reilly books...

Geeky debate of the day. Who is hotter? Design Pattern girl or Servlets and JSP girl

oceans 12

Went to see oceans 12 with stacie and lauraf last night! Yay! Best part of the movie...let's just say it involves a Red Sox hat and a Yankees hat. :)

1:16am

still at work :-D

working lots!!

Got home at 1:30 this morning....from work! Crazy! We still have a ton to do as well, so it'll be an intersting night tonight! But then hopefully I can relax a little bit. :)

fun job

Just wanted to thank everyone who I've been talking to about my job lately. For helping me realize that it's awesome and in the words of susan "insane" (in a good way of course) :) It really is a lot of fun, and you can't beat the opportunities to do fun things like work in Mountain View for a month, travel to Beijing, put on a demo at the Consumer Electonics Show in Vegas, and get ideas into real products you can buy at the store. And that has just been the last 12 months. Sometimes I wish it was in another city, but then again, I ride the el past wrigley or go see the windows at Fields or the lights on Michigan Ave or the beach and lakefront in the summertime and I realize that I really do love Chicago. So yay for fun jobs, good friends, and an awesome city! And to those of you not in chicago, visit often!! :-D

windows and west wing!

Field's windows are great again this year! It's Snow White! But they don't call them dwarfs...they call them little people. Is there something politically uncorrect about a dwarf? And why isn't the plural of dwarf, dwarves?

Just got done watching the last five weeks worth of West Wing!!! So good!! And times flies when you're watching with fun friends :-D

silk nog!

They now sell silk nog at D&D (the little laverde-sized grocery store behind my apartment building by the el tracks)!! Yay! For those who haven't tried it, it's GOOD stuff!! :-D

b-day card

I just got the best birthday card ever :) You know....Niagara Falls is about half way, and they must have bowling alleys there ;) OK...so only one person is going to understand this...but that's ok. :)

why am I so interested...

A comment in my blog led me to laurap's blog. I don't know how I feel about that. I mean as much as people tell me not to care, I do, and I found myself really interested in what she was up to. And as far as I'm concerned, that's all cool. As all of you know, I'm so over any romantic feelings I once had, so I think it's cool to read about what she's doing now. Eight months ago, maybe finding this link would have been a bad thing. And you all know how I hate to lose touch with people, so it was cool to hear from her. Anyway, Laurap, I wish you the best!

Not much new around here. Working a bunch of long hours to get ready for our CES demo and looking forward to seeing Field's windows and dinner at PF Changs with my friend Stacie this weekend!! :)

nomahhhhhhhhhhhhh!

Nomar got arbitration!!! Yay!!!! :) :) But no more Alouuuuuuuuuu :( Clement is in as well! More here

cell phone cases that turn into flowers!

How cool is this?? And it's sponsored by Moto! Yay!

priorities

what's the real cost of war. Super interesting...

i love the simpsons!

Simpsons tonight...a big fox news trailer pulls up in front of this reporter with "We are the Champions" playing and a gigantic "Bush/Cheney 2004" logo on the side of it bigger than the "Fox news" logo :)

no google for me

For those who hadn't heard...

Hi Frank,

We would like to thank you for your interest in Google and for taking the time to interview.  After carefully reviewing your experience and qualifications, we have determined that we do not have a position available which is a strong match at this time.

Thanks again for considering Google.  We wish you well in your endeavors
and hope you might consider us again in the future.

Sincerely,
....
Google Staffing

b-day!

Thanks to those who came out for b-day fun tonight! I had a great time and it's always good to catch up and talk for a while! And you can't beat Chicago Diner for veggie food!! :)

Question of the day: Why can I never like anyone in my own timezone? I guess a bigger question is if it's just people in chicago that I'm not attracted to, or the fact that they're not in chicago that attracts me to them. I think it's just more the traditiaonal chicago person that I'm not attracted to...either type...the "I want to stay at home and have kids and not do anything with my life" kind as well as the "I'm going to dress up all fancy and pretend I'm someone I'm not" kind. I guess there are just very few people in this world that I've ever been really attracted to. And the attitude of those people just always tends to fit so much better with the coasts...way more laid back, focused on doing something with their lives outside of their family, and willing to do crazy things like fly around the world and then go out to dinner or drive six hours to go see a robotics competition after flying back from half way around the country. The last person I went on a date with thought that the whole flying from CA and driving to Detriot and back thing was insane...and not like, that's insane, I'd love to do something like that, but the like, that's insane and I could never imagine staying up for more than 20 hours. Ugh. Anyway, some of you know what I'm talking about, others have no clue, but that's ok :)

38 hours of b-day fun :)

Hi everyone!! So I'm back in Chicago after a super-long day of birthday traveling. It was fun!! And I got to have a b-day dinner with my parents and everything. Thanks to everyone who called to wish me a happy birthday! You guys rock! :) Tonight is more b-day fun! If any of you are in Chicago and somehow miseed my evite, we're having dinner at Chicago Diner around 7 and then heading over to Johhny O'Hagans around 8:30 or 9. Give me a call if you want to meet up with us!!

It looks like there might be a bunch more traveling in my future! We'll see how things go!

Random comments on China trip:

1) Being able to buy SIM cards for $12 is awesome. I wish you could do that here! The little SIM card guy is funny too
2) Chinese acrobats are in-humanly flexible
3) Tokyo is expensive! $7 for a bowl of ramen noodles!
4) Boo to starbucks in china for not having soy milk or bagles!
5) There are almost 100 KFC's in Beijing - as if I needed to be reminded of Kentucky anymore
6) It's crazy how most things in Beijing are in English...like subway stop announcments and receipts from taxis
7) Way too many moto people fly through tokyo - the american airlines lounge might as well have been the MOTOlounge
8) Vegan food in business class is amazing!
9) Crossing the street is really hard! You have to watch out for crazy drivers that think that if they honk their horn it means "now I can do whatever the hell I want to" and crazy bikes everywhere that take up a lane + of traffic and busses that apparently don't obey the stoplights!
10) The japanese are obsessed with pouring a perfect beer....I'm gonna try to find a place to post a movie of their automated beer pouring machine, that ensures the proper 3/4" of head

tokyo!

back in tokyo! #2 stop of birthday fun around the world :) I even got to see Mt Fuji from the plane! Pics coming soon!

Off to Chicago in a few hours! It'll be fun to see some of you tomorrow (sat) night!!

end of beijing trip

So the beijing trip is coming to a close. It was a ton of fun and a totally great experience. After work today (which was kick-ass!) we went to see chinese acrobats perform at a local theater. It was great!! (Pics posted to yahoo site) It's just totally amazing how flexible and strong they are and some of the things that they can do. Maybe I should start doing yoga ;)

All went well with the business part of the trip...after a lot of long interesting meetings where it was very hard to communicate. Vivek or I would say something and then they'd all go off talking in Chinese while we just sat there. But it all worked out in the end and they saw the value in our stuff, and truly want to use it! So that makes me happy :-D

We've got a long plane ride ahead of us in the morning, and it's almost time to spend my birthday in three different countries! I'm excited!!

OK...off to bed for me! Have a great Friday everyone! And I'll see some of you Saturday night for belated b-day fun! :-D